Choose As a Free Man

Most People Are Not Truly Making Choices

Most people are not truly making choices. It is because most people, being social animals, often are not really thinking, or at least are not thinking independently. Moreover, most people believe that they are constrained by “external circumstances” in making their choices. As a result, those in power control most people. Only independent thinkers with strong will could achieve what they really desire and thus are truly free.

Group Consciousness Influences People

Most people, though thinking they are making choices, are actually to a certain extent influenced by group consciousness. We choose what to wear based on fashion; we choose which school to go based on rankings; and we choose our careers based on what people generally think promising. Sometimes when we make choices, certain options, although we are well aware of their existence or even think those options meaningful, never come into our minds because we rule them out based on what people generally believe. For example, an outstanding medical student may only consider becoming a professor and attending physician at top academic medical centers. She might let go her original ideal of serving patients in remote areas because this is not what most medical students regarded as a “prestigious” or “profitable” career which they believe an outstanding medical student deserve. At this point, what she really desires is superseded by what people would generally want. Because she is not thinking independently, she loses her freedom.

People Feel Constrained by External Circumstances

Most people feel compelled to be constrained by “external circumstances.” People with adverse external circumstances such as low socioeconomic status or family dysfunction seem to believe or to be believed that they are somehow deprived of the chances to be truly free, that is, to be able to pursue what they really want. For instance, people would generally believe that one in an extremely poor family might be seriously limited in pursuing what she really desires for her life. Interestingly, some people with advantageous external circumstances may also be hampered in their pursuit of freedom. For example, one who in a family with high socioeconomic status may be expected by people like her parents, to achieve a career generally believed to be respected. Under both circumstances, people lost their freedom, which may result from the fact that most people do not have the strong will and courage to strive for their own dreams.

People Tend to Lose Freedom of Choice Because They Are Social Animals

The fact that most people tend to be constrained by group consciousness and external circumstances is related, substantially, to the fact that humans are social animals. To maximize the chance of survival, humans gather and collaborate and thus are biologically social. In order to satisfy their spiritual needs, people provide each other with mental supports and therefore are psychologically social. Moreover, most people prefer others similar to themselves. Therefore, most people, as social animals, tend to adopt what is generally believed by the majority of people in order to be accepted by others. This fact created, on a social level, group consciousness. Although a great deal of diversity does exist within group consciousness, “main stream” values also exist and to a certain extent affect the thinking process and decision making of people. The smaller the group, the lesser the diversity and the more influential group consciousness would be. For instance, it is certainly true that, on the level of the society as a whole, people vary widely in their personal views on a certain profession, and these differences are certainly respected. However, if a person within that profession challenges the “mainstream” creed of it, he would likely be less acceptable to the majority in that profession. Unfortunately, the smaller the group the more it is related to individuals, and most people are afraid of being less accepted in that kind of closely related group. Therefore, most people lost the most freedom in territories that is most related to them and subject themselves to the group consciousness.

Being Social Animals Makes People Susceptible to Control

Mainstream values and external circumstances are easily created and manipulated by the powerful and wealthy, especially in modern society where massive transmission of information is common and most things are working under systems. Keeping people lead their lives under those values and systems without thinking independently and challenging existing systems serves the benefit of those already in power. Therefore, most people are actually deprived of their freedom to pursue what are truly meaningful to them and thus are controlled by mainstream values and external circumstances that may be artificial products of the “directors” of the society.

People with Independent Thinking and Strong Will Are Not Controlled

Granted, mainstream values are influential and external circumstances pose daunting obstacles to overcome, there is no denying that some people, though truly rare, can simply break through these limitations. Independent thinking and strong will are the keys. Stories of great thinkers leading the evolution of human civilization are too numerous to enumerate; great entrepreneurs are also solid proofs that the strong are not constraint by adverse circumstances. To mention merely one living evidence—Stan Shi—the founder of Acer, the fourth largest computer manufacturer worldwide. His father died before he was born. His mother is illiterate, and he had to struggle to earn a living when he was five by vending fruits with his mother at countryside temples. However, he made it to one of the best universities in Taiwan and has accomplished what few men can achieve.

Think and Strive, and We Shall Be Free

It might be true, for most people, that group consciousness and external circumstances pose stringent restrictions on the choices we could make. Therefore, most people might not be truly free because they are not pursuing what is truly meaningful to them. However, let us not forget, by thinking independently and strive with courage, everyone may be one of the few who are truly free.

• Why only within those boundaries? People certainly believe they can choose to act immorally or to violate the law, whether it concerns crossing the street against the light, driving faster than the speed limit, having sex outside marital relationships, or stealing, to take a few obvious examples.

For instance, we believe, generally, that it is we who choose which college to attend, which courses to take, what should be our major, whom we marry, and what career we are dedicate to through our lifetime. However, it is common that when we are making all these choices, some options or possibilities, although we are well aware of their existence, never come into our mind.

• Just don't happen to occur to us? Aren't people effectively prohibited by class status, familial dysfunction, early life deprivation and hundreds of other causes from ever having a meaningful way to pursue options that are utterly visible and completely obvious?

People tends to be confined by social creed or roles assigned to them

• Two linguistic errors here should be differentiated. The first, in which the subject does not agree in number with the verb, is identified by the native speaker as wrong, and there will be an immediate unconscious tendency to think you are less intelligent than you are because you wrote illiterately. The second error, the omission of "the" before "social creed" would be identified by a native speaker as "foreign." The use of the definite and indefinite articles "a" and "the" in English is entirely idiomatic, and has no immediate cognate in any languages except those nearest to English in the Teutonic family, like Dutch or the Scandinavians. So native English speakers find that almost anyone who isn't a native speaker of English or a near neighboring language doesn't use the articles "right," and this is thought of unconsciously as "foreign" rather than "wrong." So although the two mistakes are both slight and the first one is only one letter long, the consequences are quite different. Although your English is in general excellent, you should still ask a native speaker to read your writing and go through it with you as often as possible.

Are those options or possibilities not one of our choices? Or is it because our minds are limited by some invisible boundaries that we feel urged to ignore those possibilities? Maybe just like T. Arnold said in The Folklore of Capitalism, that “[b]ecause words and ceremonies are our only methods of communication, everywhere we find that the creed is regarded as the cornerstone of social institutions.”

• It is not clear to me what the quotation has to do with the preceding sentence.

Since people are social animals, we need to be in communication with other people and thus are “forced,” though we might not be aware of it, to become one of the believers of the creed, and limit ourselves within the creed.

• Are you sure? This society in which we are presently both living operates somewhat differently than that, as many do. Only some societies are even marginally effective at achieving anything like that degree of regimentation of experience. To say that this follows naturally from biological sociality seems almost certainly wrong. Human sociality clearly antedates articulate speech, to mention merely one objection

In the choices we have made, from what to have for lunch to what career goals should be our life-long pursuit, common considerations such as values, resources, and expectations are what is really controlling.

• That list seems too heterogeneous to make sense to me. In the choices we make, it seems to say, something influences our choices.

Moreover, since we need to be one of “us” rather than being one of “them,” we somehow never challenge those boundaries or even try to figure out the nature and purpose of those boundaries.

• Are you sure? It seems to me there are few such boundaries that people don't challenge both intellectually, by thinking around, and directly, by marrying or copulating across.

It is because, just like what Arnold said, “when someone attempts to describe how such an institution works, he is called a “realist” or a “cynic “because he makes believers uncomfortable. Thus to describe how the law . . . actually works is to appear attack these symbols.” We simply do not want to be a member of the “heresy” so we confine ourselves in the creed of social institutions when making choices.

• Sure. And it happens all the time. Because the culture, like most cultures, doesn't actually exclude the formation or practice of heresy. This one is freer than most about institutionalizing rather than marginalizing heresy, so our experience here constantly provides plentiful examples of both, but the same is true pretty much everywhere else in the family of man, with some admittedly accessible and fascinating exceptions.

• Both of these references seem to me confusing rather than clarifying. Each seems to be making claims concerning the meaning of others' writing that I don't entirely recognize, and I find myself distracted from what your argument ought to be about. I think you would be better off without the references, making clear what your idea really is for yourself. Conformism is real, and the pressure of surrounding influence. Granted. And the question arises, so are there such things as choices? Of course there are such things as choices. The issue isn't whether there is choice, it's whether that choice somehow "means" autonomy and liberty. You choose meaninglessly in consumer capitalism among identical soap under twenty different brands. Meaningful choices that would be more transformative of society are ruthlessly foreclosed. Is there choice? Of course. Is it free choice? That depends on what free means, and you're not telling us.

• *Is this actually a question? Might people not, in your personal judgment, be "able" to decide for themselves?

• Are you sure? Might it be that people are so beaten down by the struggle to earn a living that they behave as you describe, sometimes? Do you think if you were able to listen to the inner voices of those people, you wouldn't find that they too understand what it would mean to be enabled to bring about a meaningful life for oneself by being prepared, supported, and assisted as we were?

For these people, having someone set up a stage for them and give them a role to play might actually be helping them and benefitting social stability. Some other people, although do not have specific goals in mind either, are willing to make the most of themselves. They get into a profession, though somehow by accident, learn as much as they can, and finally become outstanding professionals. For this type of people, giving them the script to play is helping them maximize their ability and succeed in the profession that best suits them.

• Why are you so sure that we are divided this way into the alphas, betas and gammas? Human equality is a contingent fact, but it is a fact. So is the radical inequality of human circumstances. In order to counter the apparent probability that it is the nature of people's social circumstances rather than their "kind" that tends overwhelmingly to determine their level of intellectual development and social achievement, shouldn't you have something more than mere assertion to offer?

• Let us not forget something that we haven't been given any reason for concluding? It may be true that X, but let us never forget that if we think hard enough it will become true that not X? Fighting can make us free? These do not seem like promising propositions. How does this represent the conclusion of the preceding argument? What is the thesis of the paper on which we are concluding, and if we put it in the introduction would the essay make any sense?

• Last time, I said:
  • I don't think the way to edit this piece is to remove some words. I think it would be more useful to return to an early step, where you consider what it means for human beings to be social animals. Are our choices affected only to the extent that many options are silently excluded? Isn't it more that our options are in fact rather stringently limited?

• I still think this suggestion is worthy of your consideration. I have tried to make clearer what I meant by increasing engagement with your shortened text. But the point I was making before still seems to me the most important one.

People are not truly making decisions

People tends to be confined by social creed or roles assigned to them

People are controlled because of their weakness

Controlling benefits two kinds of people

• This essay is longer than 1,000 words. Until it is under 1,000 words it is not ready to be reviewed.

• I don't think the way to edit this piece is to remove some words. I think it would be more useful to return to an early step, where you consider what it means for human beings to be social animals. Are our choices affected only to the extent that many options are silently excluded? Isn't it more that our options are in fact rather stringently limited?

Institutional Creed, Con, and Making Choices for Life

Most people are not truly free in making decisions

Most people tends to be confined by social creed or roles assigned to them

Then the question arises: Are we really making choices as free men? Arnold would say that people follow the institutional habits that every member in the social institutional should learn and abide by except the American Businessman. If we believe in Leff’s theories of cons, we might also think that people are just carefully playing their roles in the script of a gigantic con with the conmen being those with knowledge, wealth, and the power that comes with them. In the former theory, we are controlled by our human nature—the need to be recognized by and connected to other people. In the latter theory, we are manipulated collectively to satisfy the greed and needs of conmen who are the real writer as well as the directors of the script. In either way, we are made to feel like we are making choices and given the sense of participation so that the real players, or the conmen, could calm us and make us serve for them.

Most people are controlled because of their own weakness

Two types of people that need to be controlled

One type of people that is truly free

Think and fight, and we shall be free

Subsection A

Subsection B

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