As an example of the growing freedom within society for its individual members, the freedom to pick and choose one’s romantic partners is seen as inalienable in most modern societies. Cultures where this isn’t the case, where arranged marriages or political couplings predominate, are seen as backwards or antiquated. Yet despite this, those with the freedom to choose understand (at least instinctively) that being saddled with the burden of finding and maintaining romantic relationships themselves causes a great deal of stress and anxiety; anxiety which would not exist were responsiblity offloaded to, say, matchmakers or parents.
If we’ve just shown that there is an advantage of security for the individual in the predetermined case, and thus that the comparison of one system of romance to another is not so cut and dry as to proclaim one the better, why do most dismiss arranged marriage offhandedly? There is an implicit assumption that personal freedom in the choice is “better,” but I doubt that those who assume so have taken a considered view of both sides. Simply having been told so throughout their lives and being incognizant of the deeper attributes of the alternative are reasonable enough guesses for why most don’t look more closely at this statement of preference.
But given that this extends to all applications of freedom of choice, and the loss of security and assuredness that inherently goes along with being responsible for one’s own actions, I would like to put a justification for it on more solid grounds.
To be clear, I personally believe that freedom of choice is an inalienable right,1 but I want to know why I believe.
Why give up the safety and comfort of knowing what’s in store for you in exchange for the uncertainty of having to find your own way? Indeed, this very conflict is easily visible within the display of human folly; there is no shortage of people wanting to forge their own path through life and trumpet their self-sufficiency in reaching success, but attempt to blame others whenever something goes wrong. At heart they cling to an unwillingness to take responsibility for the consequences of their own actions; they deny that freedom of choice implies freedom of failure, and want to return to a system where others shoulder their burdens for them. But one cannot take credit for their ups without also owning their downs.
Freedom, in this way, is alienating, isolating; to truly accept freedom means to sever any expectance or hope of help from others. While it is welcomed, it is not guaranteed. And this knowledge, that you are ultimately alone in your journey, is at first unbearable.
So why would anyone choose it?
An intuition in favor of freedom is that, while freedom may have lower lows, it also has higher highs; that the possibility of satisfaction is greater under a system of choice than under a system of submission. But even this is non-obvious to justify.
Freedom of choice implies with it a certain dynamism, an ability to change who you are. If we assume that people prefer happiness and satisfaction, then we can expect, under a system of choice, that people will tend toward their own happiness, rather than, say, away, or to stay the same, since freedom of choice affords the ability to change which a static system of preordained roles in society would not. Choice means not only the positive “freedom to,” in the sense of accepting certain conditions, but also the negative “freedom from,” the ability to reject the unfavorable, the unpleasant, the undesirable. Freedom is freedom to learn and grow.
So for someone who can accept the pain that inevitably comes from the freedom to choose, perhaps a more complete life can be found.
↥1 Up to a point. More on that some other time.
Intentionally Irrational