2. Definitions of freedom.
Today's culture wars partially stem from the different definitions of freedom. There are seemingly four most common definitions of freedom. My commentary on this will be based on The Academic Agent's Why Rousseau is the Problem [to Sargon of Akkad].
Definition 1. Self-actualization. This is the Ancient, Aristocratic, and often right-wing/social conservative definition of freedom. You are freest when you are "your best self". For example, "if you studied hard, worked out at the gym, watched your diet, cultivated good and virtuous habits. This is you achieving self-actualization." This definition of freedom can be traced back to Aristotle and Fredrich Nietzsche. Many social conservatives argue that vices, such as pornography, prostitution, gambling, and drugs, prevent self-actualization.
Definition 2. Freedom from coercion. This is the classical liberal definition of freedom. You are free to walk down the street, but not to make anyone else carry you down the street. Your freedom to throw punches ends where someone else's face begins. This definition of freedom can be traced back to John Locke, Herbert Spencer, and F.A. Hayek. This definition seems to be more popular among parts of the United States of America and maybe even the Czech Republic and Estonia.
Definition 3. Convenience, lack of personal responsibility, and/or lack of boundaries. I am free to do whatever I want without boundaries. I am free to make you carry me down the street. In the words of YouTube user MAD Robot, "freedom is being unconstrained by responsibility... not having to worry about food, housing, education, transportation, healthcare, etc. not having to suffer the consequences of their own actions, playing the victim and blaming society or others for their own inadequacies." This definition of freedom is promoted by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, and Jaques Derrida. This is the leftist definition of freedom.
Definition 4. Group self-determination. My tribe or my nation is free to govern itself. This is probably the definition of freedom outside the western world, though is a definition of freedom in the west.
I do support localism, local autonomy, self-governance and decentralized government, but only if the rights of the individual are respected. For example, should a group of people be free to beat their children for no reason at all or for minor offenses, or even worse, perform animal and human sacrifices? For a less family-friendly example, should people be allowed to commit marital rape, mutilate the genitals of their tribe's members for being members of the tribe, or torture animals, or kill endangered or threatened animals when doing so is not absolutely necessary just because it's part of their culture? Real examples of this would be the Plymouth Colony, which was a totalitarian theocracy, and even better examples would be Afghanistan, North Pakistan, rural Yemen, and parts of Northeast Africa, with totalitarian fundamentalism, genital mutilation, and honor killings.
Here is an excerpt from the Thomas Sowell book The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy;
Thomas Sowell - Human Livestock
"Overcoming adversity is one of our great desires and one of our great sources of pride. But it is something that our anointed deep thinkers strive to eliminate from our lives, through everything from grade inflation to the welfare state.
The anointed want to eliminate stress, challenge, striving, and competition. They want the necessities of life to be supplied as "rights" -- which is to say, at the taxpayers expense, without anyone's being forced to work for those necessities, except of course the taxpayers.
Nothing is to be earned. "Self-esteem" is to be dispensed to the children as largess from the teacher. Adults are to have their medical care and other necessities dispensed as largess from the government. People are to be mixed and matched by race and sex and whatever else the anointed want to take into account, in order to present whatever kind of picture the anointed think should be presented.
This is a vision of human beings as livestock to be fed by the government and herded and tended by the anointed. All the things that make us human beings are to be removed from our lives and we are to live as denatured creatures controlled and directed by our betters.
Those things that help human beings be independent and self-reliant -- whether automobiles, guns, the free market, or vouchers -- provoke instant hostility from the anointed.
Automobiles enable you to come and go as you wish, without so much as a "by your leave" to your betters. The very idea that other people will go where they want, live where they want, how they want, and send their children to whatever schools they choose, is galling to the anointed, for it denies the very specialness that is at the heart of their picture of themselves.
Guns are completely inappropriate for the kind of sheep-like people the anointed envision or the orderly, prepackaged world in which they are to live. When you are in mortal danger, you are supposed to dial 911, so that the police can arrive on the scene some time later, identify your body, and file reports in triplicate.
The free market is a daily assault on the vision of the anointed. Just think of all those millions of people out there buying whatever they want, whenever they want, whether or not the anointed think it is good for them.
Think of those people earning whatever incomes they happen to get from producing goods or services for other people, at prices resulting from supply and demand, with the anointed cut out of the loop entirely and standing on the sidelines in helpless rage, unable to impose their particular vision of "social justice."
The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.
One of the most dangerous things about the welfare state is that it breaks the connection between what people have produced and what they consume, at least in many people's minds. For the society as a whole, that connection remains as fixed as ever, but the welfare state makes it possible for individuals to think of money or goods as just arbitrary dispensations.
Thus those who have less can feel a grievance against "society" and are less inhibited about stealing or vandalizing. And the very concept of gratitude or obligation disappears -- even the obligation of common decency out of respect for other people."
Thomas Sowell has a theory, in which there are two main visions of human nature and possibilities in our world. In the Unconstrained vision, human nature and the world are perfectible. In the Constrained vision, human nature is limited, selfish, and unable to change, and the world will always have problems.
The first 2 definitions of freedom are highly correlated with subscribing to the Constrained vision, and the 3rd definition of freedom, Rousseau's definition, is highly correlated with subscribing to the Unconstrained vision.
Ep. 1823 Our Irreconcilable Division, and What Should Happen Next
To end this part about John Locke's Negative Rights definition of freedom versus the welfare state Positive Rights definition of freedom, I have what I call The Prisoner and The Bird Analogy. Most people don't think that The Prisoner is free because he is given a bed, toilet, food, water, and shelter. Most people don't think that the Bird is unfree because the bird needs to build his or her own nest and find his or her own mate, food and water. But if we purely use the Positive Rights definition of freedom, The Prisoner is freer than The Bird, and if we purely use the Negative Rights definition of freedom, The Bird is freer than The Prisoner.
Also according to the positive rights definition of freedom, in its pure form, a prisoner in solitary confinement has more freedom than his hunter-gatherer ancestors or primitive people like the Trobriand Islanders, as that the prisoner does not need to work to have a roof over his head and water and food on his table unlike his hunter-gatherer ancestors or primitive peoples.
Freedom vs. Force – The Individual and the State
Collectivism and Individualism
How the “Greater Good” is Used as a Tool of Social Control