What is Freedom, Really?
Freedom has been defined in almost infinite ways. Which of them best help us understand human behavior, motivation, and wellbeing?
I recently read Sebastian Junger’s latest book, Freedom, which is about…freedom. In it, Junger documents a journey following train tracks along the East Coast with his friends, avoiding as many people as they could along the way. Throughout, Junger explores the tension between two fundamental human needs—in his words, “freedom” and “community”—and how these needs are often in conflict with one another. In order to be part of a community, one generally gives up some freedom. For example, in Junger’s traveling group of friends, each person had certain responsibilities, such as cooking or washing dishes. These things had to get done. Anyone who refused to accept and execute their responsibilities threatened the health and safety of the group and would be expelled. And this arrangement is a microcosm of humanity.
Humans are social creatures whose ability to survive depends on their ability to work in coordinated groups. As individuals, we are poorly adapted to survive in nature. We cannot go at it alone, so we give up some of our freedom or liberty to contribute to a group. Our long distant ancestors would contribute to their tribes or clans in various ways. We pay taxes and abide by laws. But there’s a tension between how much freedom we give up and who gets to determine how much freedom we give up.
An even more fundamental question is: What IS freedom? Throughout the book, Junger provides examples of many examples of what freedom is and isn’t. For example, he says, “If subsistence-level survival were the standard for absolute freedom, the word would mean nothing because virtually no one could pass that test.” Elsewhere, he talks about the American frontier—an almost mythical symbol of freedom—writing, “Freedom on the frontier was a kind of mirage, though: the closer you got, the more danger you were in and the more you needed your neighbors or survival, which just meant obeying their rules rather the government’s. Freedom and safety seemed to exist on a continuum where the more you had of one, the less had you had of the other.”
Freedom and community are so intertwined that the words themselves are linguistically related. As Junger explains, “The word ‘Freedom’ comes from the word vridom, which means ‘beloved’ in medieval German, and is thought to reflect the idea that only people in one’s immediate group were considered worthy of having rights or protections. Outsiders1, on the other hand, could be tortured, enslaved, or killed at will. This was true throughout the world and for most of human history, and neither law, nor religion nor common decency held otherwise.”
It’s impossible for me to read Junger’s work and not apply this framework to contemporary society. At times, it feels like people want more freedom for “their group” than for others with whom they disagree or find insufficient in some manner. And that thought alone is muddied by the fact that “freedom” is such an amorphous and adaptive term that it can mean almost anything to anyone.
A public health crisis such as what we’ve experienced with the global COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique, if macabre, view into how different people question the relationship between freedom and safety:
What is an acceptable level of government action that is permissible in the name of public safety?
What actions by private entities are acceptable?
Can governments enact vaccine or mask mandates?
Can private businesses force employees back to offices if the employees feel unsafe?
Can private businesses, rather than ban unvaccinated customers, ban vaccinated customers?
A public health crisis puts into practice the tension between freedom and community that Junger writes about in Freedom. If you’re generally in favor of vaccine mandates and mask mandates, you view them as worthwhile encroachments on freedom and your rights. If you are against them, you think of it as government overreach, and maybe you even use words like “tyranny” and “oppression.” (For the sake of this piece, I am setting aside cynical actors who are scaremongering and don’t actually care one way or the other and are just out to score political points. And this group is massive.)
What interests me most is what freedom feels like to different people—how it is experienced at a cognitive level, and how various societal contexts affect individuals’ motivation and ultimately behavior. A naive concept of freedom doesn’t seem to address the questions I raised above, because different people have vastly different responses to the same questions. What is the kind of freedom a society should promote? What some people think is tyranny and oppression, other people view as perfectly acceptable in a free society.
In his 1958 essay Two Concepts of Liberty, British philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote that “almost every moralist in human history has praised freedom2,” but that the term was so malleable it could mean almost whatever anyone wanted it to mean. Historians have written more than 200 interpretations, according to Berlin, but he chose to focus on two of them, which he refers to as positive liberty and negative liberty. (Berlin uses the words “freedom” and “liberty” interchangeably).
Negative liberty is the answer to the question, “What is the area within which the subject—a person or group of persons should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?”
Positive liberty is the answer to the question, “What, or who, is the source of control or interference that can determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that?”
Phrasing it another way, negative liberty is concerned with the absence of restraints placed on individuals. Positive liberty3 is concerned with the ability of individuals to live in accordance with their true nature and to pursue the endeavors they want to pursue.
Again, for the purposes of this essay, I’m interested in how freedom relates to human nature and how societal contexts support or thwart wellness4. The point Berlin makes here is that in the English political tradition, which is the foundation for the United States political tradition, freedom is the lack of interference by another. It’s concerned with removing overt government interference, rather than supporting individuals’ pursuit of self-actualization5.
Being poor and not being able to afford food may not sound like a lack of freedom, because nobody is preventing anyone from buying food. Going to a school with fewer resources because you’re born in an impoverished area with less tax money devoted to education isn’t something everyone would call a lack of “freedom6”—at least under the rubric of negative liberty.
Berlin’s concept of positive liberty is related to the idea of autonomy, and I think therein lies the key to understanding how people experience freedom very differently. Autonomy has many specific definitions and applications in specific contexts, but it generally refers to an individual’s ability to live life according to their own authentic motivations as opposed to operating under coercion. In the examples above, an impoverished child who has access to insufficient food and poor school options isn’t suffering from a lack of negative liberty, but does lack positive liberty. They lack autonomy.
The examples I gave above about food and school are examples of economic freedom or autonomy, but of course there are many examples that have nothing to do with money—mandates pertaining to public health, for example. Decisions made by governmental bodies may force individuals to act in ways they don’t want to act, for a variety of reasons. But this isn’t unique to governments—parents, schools, businesses, and other institutions have this kind of authority, and cognitively, it doesn’t feel much different. The focus specifically on government interference is a cultural artifact. Just as we don’t disagree with everything our parents or bosses tell us to do, we don’t intrinsically disagree with everything the government says to do—unless you reflexively think government is bad a priori.
If you find that a government derives all of its power illegitimately, you might find everything it does to be a “manipulative or distorting external force.” You might think that the government’s existence is legitimate, but that specific rulings or applications are in violation of its power, or you might distrust its motives in specific instances. You might not have an issue with a government action per se but distrust the people in government, which taints the action itself. An example of this might be public attitude toward the vaccine when Trump was president versus the attitude toward the vaccine when Biden became president. Some felt that Trump would rush a vaccine for political points, thereby issuing an unsafe vaccine. Conversely, some feel that the Biden administration is doing more or less the same thing now. There are others who think all vaccinations are simply ploys by global elites, and still others who would get the vaccine regardless of who was in office.
Implicit in the idea of autonomy is the ability to know what you truly want and that when acting, you are acting in accordance with your true self. Cognitively, this means understanding how various beliefs and experiences are integrated into your sense of who you are. Not all forms of coercion are external, and not all external forces are coercive. A classic example of this is being a cigarette smoker. If you want to quit smoking but don’t feel that you can, and continue to smoke, in some sense your actions are not truly authentic and volitional, they are coerced from within. If you identify as queer but were raised in a household or society that does not accept different sexualities or gender identities, you may repress or deny these feelings, acting against your authentic self. These are just two of infinite examples.
The key thing is that the degree to which we perform an action, whether because of internal or external forces, can feel autonomous or controlling depending on how well they harmonize with our sense of self. These are the findings of Self-Determination Theory (SDT)—an empirically based, organismic theory of human behavior and personality development. SDT is concerned primarily with how societal contexts affect human motivation and behavior.
From an SDT perspective, whether or not a vaccine mandate feels oppressive to you derives from a number of factors, including your feelings towards the government, your trust in the science, and how receiving the vaccine might be viewed in your social circle, just to name a few. Again, it comes back to how getting the vaccine or complying with a vaccine mandate fits with your sense of who you are. Freedom defined as “freedom from government interference,” in this case, is an insufficient explanation for your actions. It’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I often hear people exasperated at others who seem to expend more energy circumventing vaccine rules than simply getting vaccinated. But if you think there’s a vast government conspiracy, if you think the vaccine is dangerous, or if you believe the media and pharmaceutical companies are in cahoots, then it makes perfect sense. Similarly, some people can’t believe that their peers are so willing to have a needle stuck in their arm with a substance invented in a lab. But if you believe in the various regulatory agencies and if you believe that widespread immunization will lead to a decrease in serious death or illness, then it makes perfect sense.
If you are generally inclined to think all government mandates are bad and against things like nutritional labels and seat belt laws, you’re probably going to think not getting vaccinated is doing your part to hold the government in check. If you think the government can be a force for broad public good, you will simply abide by the mandate. If you hate the government, generally, but get vaccinated—perhaps because your doctor whom you trust recommends it—that represents a kind of value hierarchy. These are simplistic explanations that remove a lifetimes’ worth of influences, but they serve to illustrate the point.
This, I think, is what people mean by freedom. They mean autonomy, and autonomy—again, according to SDT—is one of humanity’s three basic psychological needs. The more autonomy7 we have, the happier we feel. We can feel autonomous carrying out a government mandate or not, it simply depends on our views of government and any additional factors such as scientific studies used to justify a mandate.
Good salespeople and people with loads of charisma understand these things intuitively. They know that the best way to get someone to buy a product or engage in some action is to make it feel like it was their idea in the first place. Through skilled communication, they actually engender feelings of autonomy in whoever the target audience is. On some level, this is why mandates are a last resort in a crisis, because they are inherently coercive. They are less coercive to people who maybe are agnostic and have no strong opinion one way or the other—to this group they are a minor inconvenience or annoyance. But to intentional holdouts, it feels like an attack on their autonomy.
I was recently in a cab and heard a public service advertisement encouraging Black people to get vaccinated without engaging in the usual condemnation or criticism of those still unvaccinated. I’m going off memory here so I’m paraphrasing, but the message was, “We know that many have questions, fears or hesitations about the vaccine. We encourage you to find out about the vaccine from people you trust. Black people make up a disproportionately large percentage of those affected by COVID, and we want to ensure you get the information you need to make the right decision for yourself, because right now, we’re more affected but less vaccinated.”
When I heard it, I was reminded of the concept of functional significance, which, in SDT literature, means that every action or event carries with it additional context. If your boss tells you to do something, the relationship you have with your boss, the tone of your boss’ voice, the fact they are your boss in the first place—these and many other factors affect the way in which you interpret the message. In a workplace setting, research shows employees are happier, more motivated and more productive when provided with explanations for why they have to do something, how it affects the larger organization, and other contextual factors. This is called an informational communication style and contrasts to a controlling communication style, which is telling someone to do something just because. This provides a greater sense of autonomy and even community to the employee—they feel valued, not just an instrumental tool.
How humans experience “freedom” is a highly contextual mix of intrinsic and extrinsic factors and how those factors are integrated into our sense of self. When talking about freedom, focusing on the narrow application of “freedom from interference” is insufficient in understanding human behavior and human motivation. That is simply one belief system that an individual may have adopted as part of who they are. But belief systems themselves can limit autonomy, as in the case of a gay person raised in a household that views being gay as immoral or somehow wrong. This is cognitively similar to someone being raised to think all government action is good or bad. Stockholm Syndrome is another example. In each instance, the individual may internalize beliefs about the world or themselves that they don’t authentically believe to be true, but because of external forces, persuade themselves are true. We may not think of a slavish, involuntary commitment to a political ideology as a kind of “brainwashing” or an “addiction” but in all instances, it’s an individual acting against their authentic self.
Most definitions of “freedom” are man-made concepts. Our cognitive and biological faculties don’t operate according to man-made laws and concepts, however. We have an innate desire to be autonomous, and that is a far more complicated notion than “freedom from government interference.” It has much more to do with our sense of self and whether we are acting true to that self. I hope this can help as a framework to understand the behaviors of others, to understand yourself, and perhaps to foster more friendly, productive conversations around difficult topics with others.
This notion of “freedom for me but not for thee” should be all too familiar to you, dear reader.
I enjoy this entire paragraph so want to share it here: "To coerce a man is to deprive him of freedom - freedom from what? Almost every moralist in human history has praised freedom. Like happiness and goodness, like nature and reality, it is a term whose meaning is so porous that there is little interpretation that it seems able to resist. I do not propose to discuss either the history of this protean word or the more than two hundred senses of it recorded by historians of ideas. I propose to examine no more than two of these senses—but they are central ones, with a great deal of human history behind them, and, I dare say, still to come.”
In an earlier draft of this essay, I wanted to explore how a society should organize itself to promote positive liberty and autonomy. In that version, it would have been around here that I point out FDR’s “Four Liberties” are an example of positive liberty. (Thanks, John Light)
I use the word “wellness” a lot. It’s unfortunate that there is an entire industry that has co-opted the term such that when many hear it they think of quack remedies and pseudoscience. The reality is, however, it’s the best word to describe wholistic psychological health. So I will continue using. Fuck the hacks and charlatans.
There are constant battles over the role the government should play that date back to the founding of the country and continue today. I am, however, specifically interested in the notion of freedom, and I think it's fair to say that generally speaking, freedom is discussed in relation to government interference.
There is a wonderful book by Elizabeth Anderson titled Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk About It) that discusses how authoritarian workplaces are in the United States, but because those exist in the "private sector" it's in some sense "OK." This is just one example of how discussions of freedom are so frequently framed as an issue that exists only in relation to the government.
Readers may be thinking, "But what if the reasons someone cannot afford food or go to a better school are in fact the result of decisions made by politicians?" That does feel like a kind of interference, doesn't it? Berlin touches on this: “It is argued, very plausibly, that if a man is too poor to afford something on which there is no legal ban—a loaf of bread, a journey round the world, recourse to the law courts—he is as little free to have it as he would be if it were forbidden him by law. If my poverty were a kind of disease which prevented me from buying bread, or paying for the journey round the world or getting my case heard, as lameness prevents me from running, this inability would not naturally be described as a lack of freedom, least of all political freedom. It is only because I believe that my inability to get a given thing is due to the fact that other human beings have made arrangements whereby I am, whereas others are not, prevented from having enough money with which to pay for it, that I think myself a victim of coercion or slavery.”
There's voluminous research on this. Here's a good starting place if you want to dive into specific studies: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-28099-8_1162-1