Freedom is possible
only if democracy develops into a society in which the individual's growth
and happiness is the aim and purpose of its culture; in which the quality of a person's life is not measured by material gain or by power; in which the individual is
not subordinated to or manipulated by any power outside himself, be it a state or by economic apparatus and finally, a society in which an individual's conscience and ideals
are not the internalization of external demands, but are really her or his own and express the aims that result from the peculiarity of her or his self. *
Human beings represent one of so many different living species inhabiting Earth and if we accept and interpret Darwinian theory as one in which each of the different species living in our world and the universe is involved in a struggle commonly referred to as the survival of the fittest then freedom as Erich Fromm describes it would not only be a forlorn hope but also a foolish one. One accepted 'wisdom' is that human beings with our ability to "reason' and prognosticate are the most intelligent creatures on our planet but this chooses to forget that we are the most destructive of all living species, one that has systematically devised ways of not only killing its own kind, but equally, in its quest to find even more destructive methods of doing this, has found a way of destroying all life on our planet. We are also a species busy purloining, and using up, all the earth's natural life supporting resources.
But all this is to assume that Darwinian theory and what has followed from it effectively banishes altruism. When we desire to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves we show ourselves capable of being a civilised society. Evolutionary theorists still struggle to understand the presence of altruism in many species. Those creatures who herd do so as a way of trying to protect the weakest as well as the strongest.
Human beings no longer seem to do this as often as they once did. The most powerful system in the human social environment is our economic one and it is predominantly based on what is best for its self-preservation rather than what is best for all humankind. Those few who have inordinate power within this system have attempted to persuade us that what is good for the system is also good for all of us. This has been called "the drip down effect." However all the evidence suggests that the relatively small number of rich people continue to get richer while the poor are becoming poorer.
The real trouble is that our economic system only has life breathed into it because it relies upon the exercise of less considerate, less generous human characteristics : self interest and greed. Communities without these qualities are considered to be primitive and under-developed.
In his novel Raised from the Ground which has as its background the gradual change from an agrarian feudalism towards capitalism in Portugal the novelist, Jose Saramago observes
The best machine is always the one most capable of continuous work, properly lubricated so that it doesn't jam up, frugally fed, and if possible, given only as much fuel as mere maintenance requires, and, in case of breakdown or old age, it must, above all, be easily replaceable, that's what all those human scrapyards known as cemeteries are for, or else the machine simply sits, rusting and creaking at its front door, watching nothing at all pass by or else gazing down at its own sad hands, who would have thought that it would come to this. p344
It is a sad reflection on how we live today that we've often heard the beggar asking, "Have you got any spare change please?" How often - though not always - is the predominant spoken or unspoken response, "You'd do a lot better if you got off your backside and tried harder." We forget that the beggar is the ultimate and inevitable bottom of the pile "loser" in a society governed by the selfish competitive financial system that is capitalism, which is solely based on there being far more losers than there are winners. Where can the losers find freedom?
Sometimes, as a means of making ourselves feel righteous, we still try to re-kindle the dying embers of our sympathy for freedom, equality and justice, bemoaning what we see as the excess of wealth in others and yet, on reflection, we can often be surprised to find just how far we are up the on the scale of affluence and how far we have become toadies to the system, acquiescing as we do, while so many are deprived of what we would understand as a decent human life. The danger is that we become persuaded that the material deficit of others is a sign of our righteousness.
*Adapted from The
Fear of Freedom by Erich Fromm published in London by Routledge (1999) p233. First published in 1941.
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| No worries, this is not targeting the wealthy. You can go on making us much as you like |
But all this is to assume that Darwinian theory and what has followed from it effectively banishes altruism. When we desire to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves we show ourselves capable of being a civilised society. Evolutionary theorists still struggle to understand the presence of altruism in many species. Those creatures who herd do so as a way of trying to protect the weakest as well as the strongest.
Human beings no longer seem to do this as often as they once did. The most powerful system in the human social environment is our economic one and it is predominantly based on what is best for its self-preservation rather than what is best for all humankind. Those few who have inordinate power within this system have attempted to persuade us that what is good for the system is also good for all of us. This has been called "the drip down effect." However all the evidence suggests that the relatively small number of rich people continue to get richer while the poor are becoming poorer.
The real trouble is that our economic system only has life breathed into it because it relies upon the exercise of less considerate, less generous human characteristics : self interest and greed. Communities without these qualities are considered to be primitive and under-developed.
In his novel Raised from the Ground which has as its background the gradual change from an agrarian feudalism towards capitalism in Portugal the novelist, Jose Saramago observes
The best machine is always the one most capable of continuous work, properly lubricated so that it doesn't jam up, frugally fed, and if possible, given only as much fuel as mere maintenance requires, and, in case of breakdown or old age, it must, above all, be easily replaceable, that's what all those human scrapyards known as cemeteries are for, or else the machine simply sits, rusting and creaking at its front door, watching nothing at all pass by or else gazing down at its own sad hands, who would have thought that it would come to this. p344
It is a sad reflection on how we live today that we've often heard the beggar asking, "Have you got any spare change please?" How often - though not always - is the predominant spoken or unspoken response, "You'd do a lot better if you got off your backside and tried harder." We forget that the beggar is the ultimate and inevitable bottom of the pile "loser" in a society governed by the selfish competitive financial system that is capitalism, which is solely based on there being far more losers than there are winners. Where can the losers find freedom?
Sometimes, as a means of making ourselves feel righteous, we still try to re-kindle the dying embers of our sympathy for freedom, equality and justice, bemoaning what we see as the excess of wealth in others and yet, on reflection, we can often be surprised to find just how far we are up the on the scale of affluence and how far we have become toadies to the system, acquiescing as we do, while so many are deprived of what we would understand as a decent human life. The danger is that we become persuaded that the material deficit of others is a sign of our righteousness.
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