The Concept of Freedom

The Concept of Freedom: Sartre, Plato, and Huxley's Brave New World.


“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” -Jean-Paul Sartre

The texts of Sartre, Plato, and Huxley all address what is undoubtedly the most desired element of all of human existence: freedom. Conveniently, all three texts have presented the notion of freedom in a very different light. Sartre, a prominent advocate of the Existentialist doctrine, references freedom in relation to subjectivity and inter-subjectivity, stressing not only the freedom of the individual but the freedom of all of man. On the other end of the spectrum is the work of Huxley, a humanist writer, who in Brave New World creates a hypothetical and futuristic dystopian society in lieu of freedom, which eliminates the importance of the individual through manipulation and conditioning. Plato depicts freedom metaphorically in the Allegory of the Cave as a process of awakening, of enlightenment, and of becoming. To me, these three representations of freedom depict the philosophical struggle between Nihilism and Existentialism. And not only do these correlating texts depict the struggle between the two doctrines, but they also delineate the common misrepresentation of Existentialism and its easy descent into Nihilism. I find this relevant as the primary objective of Existentialism is to apply meaning to life: utilizing ones freedom- whereas Nihilism is the state of nothingness, the annihilation of the spirit, and therefore the denying of ones freedom.

In Huxley's Brave New World the societal goal is a universal happiness. This universal happiness is attained through the abolition of family, natural birth, negative emotions, discomfort, individuality, and even love. Ironically, in this attempt at a trans human society, the very essence of humanity itself has been completely eliminated in order to create a more 'humane' civilization. Perhaps the biggest problem of this dystopian society is the wide spread and encouraged use of the drug soma. Of course the people do not see soma as a problem; on the contrary, they see it as the solution to their problems. People use soma on a regular basis to monitor their state of being and maintain a state of stasis. Soma is not like some other drugs, it does not enhance ones senses, nor does it induce a heightened state of creativity or intellect. Soma is no less than any other opiate, somewhat relative to heroin which causes people to be merely content with their emptiness rather than to fill it. The use of soma results in a numbing of the mind, body, and spirit- essentially forcing people into a zombie like state. The citizens, through conditioning and the use of soma, have eluded feelings of depression, discontent, and anxiety: evoking a more comfortable and apathetic state of indifference. Furthermore, the citizens also fail to engage in the other extremity of emotion, the highest of which in our case is love. It may seem easy to rid ourselves of emotions such as hate, or unhappiness, but on the other hand, when we rid ourselves of these emotions that we deem negative, unpleasant- we also rid ourselves of their positive counterparts. Without hate or unhappiness, what good are love and joy?
Human emotion should not be regarded as a system of opposites, as they cannot exist independently of each other, but rather are co-dependent. You cannot place them side by side and say, "This one is good, and this one is bad." As far as I am concerned the two emotions are intertwined, and the only emotion that lies in the negative energy spectrum is indifference, the lack of emotion.We love because we fear meaninglessness. In love, we find validation- validation of meaning, validation of life, validation of the existence of ourselves and others as well as importance it that existence. And so without the acceptance of love, and the acceptance of its counterpart, all of human emotion ceases to exist.
The citizens of Brave New World are conditioned, manipulated, and brainwashed in a way that will allow them to more effectively serve and contribute to the general happiness of the community as a whole. They are stripped of their individuality; they are only part of the whole and nothing more. The citizens are born into a pre-determined caste system, which they can never escape. This natural born oppression however induces little feelings of unrest or discontent, as even the lowest classes of society are encouraged to use soma. The soma provides them with an inauthentic happiness, which in turn evades any desire for revolt or change, making them not so much unaware, as comfortable with their lack of freedom.
In Brave New World history is non existent, there is no past to learn from. It makes sense, as what use could 'Utopian's' possibly have for history? If the acme of human civilization has all ready been acquired, than history is irrelevant. The problem here is that there is no longer a need for progression. Salvation has all ready occurred, and there may be no past to learn from, but there is also now nothing to look forward to. The future is predetermined and there is no need for creation. The citizens of Brave New World remain in a state of unknowing despair, in a state of hopelessness where there is no room for growth. They have misinterpreted the goal of human existence, placing the lot of their values into the idea of happiness. However, there is more value in freedom than in happiness. In fact, it could be inferred that freedom is not only the highest of human values, but the only essential human value. With freedom we have the freedom to be either happy or sad, to love or to hate, both of which vindicates the other. Freedom means freedom of choice, and I believe that oftentimes the word freedom is misappropriated. It seems that commonly people believe that the key to freedom is to be free from responsibility. However, this is untrue. In fact, there is a profound responsibility that lies within freedom, and it is this responsibility which makes it so difficult for so may to embrace. The people responsible for the disingenuous state of being in Brave New World, though they may have meant to free humanity, have actually acted in bad faith, and have thus killed it.
Even the controller (Mustapha Mond) recognizes the futility of the dystopian society, which is made apparent in his comments on Bernard's plea not to be exiled to Iceland. "One would think he was going to have his throat cut. Whereas, if he had the smallest sense, he'd understand that his punishment is really a reward. He's being sent to an island. That's to say, he's being sent to a place where he'll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community life. All the people who aren't satisfied with orthodoxy, who've got independent ideas of their own. Everyone, in a word, who's anyone..."
The citizens of Brave New World have eliminated meaning from their lives. They live Nihilistically, and have chosen to deny their freedom, sacrificing it instead for an inauthentic state of happiness. Such a dystopian society as that depicted in Brave New World would deeply discontent the likes of Sartre and the other Existentialists. I believe that he also would find this illusion of happiness as presented in Brave New World to be completely nonsensical. As I said before, about freedom being not only the highest of human values, but the only essential human value, Sartre affirms this in the following passage: “When I declare that freedom in every concrete circumstance can have no other aim than to want itself, if man has once become aware that in his forlornness he imposes values, he can no longer want but one thing, and that is freedom, as the basis of all values.” Even in the citizens illusive happiness; that forlornness, despair, and hopelessness has not been eliminated, it is only being avoided. They have chosen not to embrace their existence, and to sacrifice their freedom to a higher power (society in this case) so they do not have to undertake any sort of responsibility. With this sacrifice they have also lost the ability to be human, to feel, to create, and to choose. Simone de Beauvoir, a colleague and close friend of Sartre, once said that, “Freedom requires moral courage.” With that said, from an Existentialist point of view the citizens of Brave New World in fact created quite the opposite, they use illusions and methods of escapism to live authentically, and there is nothing courageous about their world.

There is a Nietzschean quote that I believe ties the representations of Sartre, Plato, and Huxley together, and that is this: “I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength!” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Complete Works Vol. 13. If Brave New World is a representation of a Nihilistic society, and Sartre represents Existentialist ideals, than Plato's Allegory of the Cave represents a persons struggle with enlightenment and the choice between the two- the crisis and self reflection that Nietzsche references.
The line, “To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images,” from The Allegory is relevant, as the shadows are only presumed truths. The citizens of Brave New World find value and meaning only in happiness, but their happiness is only a projected happiness; an illusion, an inauthentic and generic emotion. The quest for freedom is difficult. Though freedom does not need to be found, per se (it is all ready inherent) it is embracing the responsibility within it that people find to be so difficult. I believe that Plato sums up this struggle of embracing freedom in the following lines: "And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, -- will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?” I think that these lines are a perfect metaphor for the awakening of an individual and their decision to embrace both truth and freedom. As the prisoner ascends from the confinement of the cave, and into the light, he finds truth, and in that truth he finds freedom. The prisoners’ quest could be seen as the common quest of the Existentialist. The line, “At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him?” can be related to another quote of a well known Existentialist, Soren Kierkegaard in his saying, “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” And what does this mean? It means that this process of becoming is certainly difficult, and many people would choose to avoid these 'anxieties' that freedom causes by sacrificing it rather than embracing it.
The prisoner has broken free of his restraints, and as his eyes adjust in the light, begins to see clearly. Eventually all of the manipulation, conditioning, and illusions of truth he had once known he now sees as they are- shadows of the images. But still he struggles- the line, “will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?” shows that even after the prisoner has seen reality, he still struggles to disassociate himself with what he has been conditioned to believe. It is easy to give way to conditioning, so that we can then leave the responsibility in the hands of a higher authority. It is much easier to accept the values that one has been handed, rather than to create and validate ones own meaning. Our emotional responses are based on value. When we value nothing, we lose our ability to respond emotionally, and we then lose the very essence of what makes us human.
Both Brave New World and Sartre's Existentialism were written roughly within a close proximity of each other. I consider both texts to be a cry, a noble attempt to make people aware of their error, and of the realm of destruction in which society is bordering. Sartre writes in a matter-of-fact sense, lightly making people aware of their possible philosophical short comings, and offering solutions for them. Huxley uses Brave New World as a borderline scare tactic, by proposing the hypothetical destination of the path we are (or were) on. Brave New World was written close to a century ago, and what worries me most is the similarities between the world presented in the novel, and the world that I currently live in. We have become self proclaimed victims; victims of society, victims of each other, victims of ourselves, victims of chemical imbalance. After all what more is Prozac, Lithium, and a slew of other prescription drugs than a modern day fabrication of Soma? Why do we insist on numbing ourselves? Do we really believe that happiness is as simple as a script and a bottle? Is there really happiness in this? Is there really freedom in this? I don't believe so. I don't believe that there is even freedom in happiness. Happiness comes from oppression, even of the self. When we choose to numb ourselves to the absence of feeling we are oppressing what makes us human. No, there is no freedom in this. The path we are on is dangerously close to that of Brave New Wold. In a land which claims to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, it is time to take initiative to be so. There are no shortcuts on the path to enlightenment, to truth, to freedom. Freedom requires bravery, and this quest is the most epic of human action.