Damned freedom
Freedom is more than a philosophical notion, it is our reality. We can change jobs, wardrobe, significant other, or whatever else we might like to change. Does this make us happy, then? No, according to a philosopher and a sociologist, who point out that freedom does not happy make. Actually freedom often leads to a new and just as depressing repression.
By Claus Holm (clho@dpu.dk)
'I realise, therefore I am'. This might well be the credo of contemporary Europeans, Americans and anybody else, who live in affluent free-market democracies. We are free to choose, and if that doesn't make us happy, don't we have the freedom to choose differently? Not so, according to two researchers who have researched intensely into the contemporary ideology of self-realisation.
"The bluff of the decade is the denial of structural determinism. Instead of acknowledging this, we impose the notion on individuals that they are or should be responsible for their own self-realisation. It is a solid sociological rule of thumb that three quarters of our behaviour is structurally determined. Therefore it is an illusion when we claim that you are free to do whatever you like. And by saying that, we transfer responsibility from public institutions to the individual, who may or may not be able to shoulder society's burdens," says assistant professor and sociologist, Rasmus Willig, PhD from the Department of Social Sciences at Roskilde University.
Next to him is philosopher, associate professor and PhD Lars Geer Hammershøj. He is not prepared to call the freedom to self-realisation an outright illusion, but he agrees with Rasmus Willig that it is experienced as a somewhat brutal social condition:
"The notion of freedom used to be a philosophical ideal. Today, it is a social condition. The task for the individual is no longer to become free. The task is to realise yourself as a free person. The problem is that freedom to self-realisation does not one happy make. Youths often believe they can become anything they want, but it is a harsh fact of life that most of them can't. There are even those who find it intolerable that they should be able to do whatever they want, because they are required to constantly reflect on how best to realise themselves. So I agree that freedom to self-realisation is a constraint that denies the determinant nature of structures, and that this has sad consequences for a lot of people."
Don't say no
The American heavy metal-band Metallica harbour no illusions about this: In their 'Eye of the beholder', you find the disconcerting line "Freedom no longer frees you!" Freedom may be something we take for granted now, but the bad news is that this freedom is no longer a guarantee for us to experience a state of happiness, quite the contrary. Granted, there may be a tiny group of people who are unconditionally pleased with being successful knowledge workers who realise themselves. And modern man does have a wide range of options that were not available to our predecessors.
And yet Rasmus Willig points out two problems in particular: One is that the opportunities can all be characterised as being normative and the actual opportunity for self-realisation is rather limited for the vast majority, the other is that the neo-liberal norm about taking responsibility for your own life is so dominant that to turn down this responsibility is no longer an option.
"There's no saying 'No, I don't want this responsibility. I don't want to be flexible, and I certainly do not want to be mobile'. When you can't say 'No' to these things, freedom for self-realisation has become a totalitarian ideology. My way of demonstrating the ill effects of the self-realisation ideology is to point to the negative social phenomena that arise as a direct consequence of this ideology. When I am interested in the flip side of self-realisation, which is to say in the people who are unable to realise themselves, it stems from a deep-felt interest in actual expressions of genuine and positive freedom. This of course means I won't jump on the neo-liberal wave of enthusiasm, an enthusiasm that all too often is based on anything but sound reflection. Reflection leads to critique, and this shields you from becoming opportunistic," Rasmus Willig says.
Broken minds
Lars Geer Hammershøj and Rasmus Willig both point to the social pathologies that arise as a direct consequence of the self-realisation ideology. Specifically, they point to a large increase in the number of people suffering from depression: In 1999, a total of 238.150 people were treated for depression in Denmark, a number that grew to 336.315 in 2003. In 2005, the EU Commission estimated that in a given 12-month period of time, some 6.1% of the EU's citizens suffered from a 'major depression'. Every year, some 58.000 EU citizens commit suicide, making suicide a more common cause of death than traffic-related accidents.
And yet one may doubt the validity of the two researchers' analysis. Why, for instance, do they not mention Prozac and its derivatives as a recent milestone in ridding society of mental suffering? What is their argument for depression suddenly being an effect of the freedom we all thought was a hard-won privilege?
Lars Geer Hammershøj explains: "Depression is a social pathology rooted in the very notion of freedom for self-realisation. The increasing individualisation would indicate that even more people ought to feel depressed, because of the increased mental pressure on the individual in everyday life. In the course of the 1970s and 1980s, depression as a diagnosis changed. From being characterised by moodiness and sadness, we now characterise it as a mental exhaustion that drains our strength to act. For most people, stress at work is the normal state of affairs, something we all have to deal with all the time – and something we need help with. But the thing that separates interesting work from stressful work is very hard to define, and the line is sometimes crossed in a matter of seconds. I know it from my own work. I take on a number of tasks, more than I can realistically handle. Even though I know this, it doesn't stop me from having this ideal for myself and for what I should be able to deal with. And at the same time we feel this critical gaze that keeps track of all the things we fail to do. In my view, we have a situation where people are forced to be ambitious and to negotiate an unhappy marriage between ideals and reality."
"Anti-depressants deal with the symptoms, and fail to cure the cause," Rasmus Willig asserts. Fully aware that convincing everybody that mental well-being depends on structural issues is going to be very difficult, he still believes that it is absolutely necessary, because the alternative explanations of depression are both too narrow and too individual.
"It's not possible to scan the brain for comprehensive causes of depression. The real cause is a change in the way we have structured our society: In the Industrial age, we saw plenty of broken bodies that needed mending, and so society needed a lot of physiotherapists. Today, the knowledge society we live in leads to broken minds, rather than broken bodies, and so we need a lot of psychiatrists. The fundamental order of production has changed, and the body has become less relevant in terms of production, but if you are obese, people think that you are probably also mentally lazy. The criteria for success in terms of self-realisation are now in your mind, because it's in your head we find the value added of our times. Not in bulking muscles," says Rasmus Willig.
The condition of being human
"We ought to ask ourselves if freedom to self-realisation concurs with the fact that self-realisation is impossible to do in isolation?" Rasmus Willig suggests, and goes on to answer himself: "We can't perform self-realisation on our own. Any person will have to take part in a sort of 'we-realisation' with others, in order to experience who that person really is. In order to find confirmation or disproof of what is right and wrong, what is good or bad.
It is an interesting and dangerous fact that we seem to have this notion now that the individual must realise itself without others interfering. But when the individual is responsible for his or her own mental and material economy, it is easy to go mentally bankrupt. Too much emphasis on the responsibility of the individual means you lose touch with what is right and what is wrong. The individual is in no position to determine that on its own. We all have to determine through our relation to other people."
Lars Geer Hammershøj nods his approval and says: "Philosophers have by and large agreed that you can't realise yourself on your own. It just can't be done. What I'm saying is that instead of having self-realisation take place on society's conditions, self-realisation takes place on the individual's conditions. The individual can decide how to 'self-socialise', and that is what has changed recently. The social pathologies that follow from this reform of the socialisation process therefore do not have to do with whether or not you are forced to be part of a community or forcefully kept out. The pathologies are rather the result of an individual who for one reason or another is unable to form him- or herself through social bonds."
About Lars Geer Hammershøj
Assistant professor at the Department of Educational Philosophy at the DPU. He holds an MA in the History of Science, and a Ph.D. in Sociology. Conducts research into the interplay between self-formation and sociality.
Visit his personal homepage.
About Rasmus Willig
Assistant professor at the Department for Social Science at Roskilde University. Chairman of the Danish Organisation of Sociologists.
Visit his Danish homepage.
Lars Geer Hammershøj
Read more about Lars Geer Hammershøj
Rasmus Willig
Punchline
"The notion of freedom used to be a philosophical ideal. Today, it is a social condition."
-Lars Geers Hammershøj