Can we have freedom to make any choice we wish?
Alexander Poli
An experiment was once performed involving fleas and a jar. The fleas were placed in a jar for a period of three days, and once the lid of the jar was removed they were observed to be incapable of jumping above the perimeter of the jar. Despite their ability to jump to over a hundred times their height, the fleas would never jump higher than the parameters set for them by the jar again. In this essay, I will explore how, owing to humanity’s social nature, the individual is subjected to conditions similar to this experiment from the moment of birth. Furthermore, I will explain why true existential freedom is not an inherently human trait, and how, despite this, individuals can induce the psychological condition necessary to obtain it. Fleas are not social animals. Despite occurring in large groups, as parasites fleas do not have social hierarchy and operate under one directive: to sustain themselves. This is as opposed to, for example, ants or bees who operate entirely for the good of the whole. Between the machine-like workings of ant nests or beehives, where individual invertebrates are like parts of a circuit and have no instinct but to carry out their predetermined task whether that be cutting leaves or laying eggs – even seeing their own lives as resources to be used if necessary by the collective – and the single-minded individualism of the flea is the human race. Humans are naturally social animals, though due to our intelligence not to the ‘hive - mind’ extreme of creatures like ants or siphonophores. This means that the conce pt of true freedom – the freedom to make any choice we wish – does not come naturally to us. John Locke, in his argument for liberalism, argued that before governments existed there was a pure ‘state of nature’ where individuals were free to do as they please, and that therefore governments must give us as many freedoms as possible to match this ‘state of nature’. John Locke is wrong. From our observation of our common ancestors such as chimpanzees, as well as uncontacted, self-isolated tribes, and study of prehistory, it is safe to say that our ancestors who preceded the first civilization, Ur, would have lived in hierarchical groups with clear leaders. Chimpanzees and other great apes frequently live in packs with clear leaders, and while apes do not have the mental capacity to create legal constitutions, specific rules have been noted in chimpanzee society – for example, the leader and those higher up in the ‘pecking order’ having first access to food and mates. If this rule, or ‘law’ , is broken, the offending chimp will be punished with violence. Furthermore, in tribes – uncontacted or contacted – who arguably live closer to Locke’s ‘state of nature’, there are hierarchies of power. Without these hierarchies, there would not be a society at all – humans are social because we have evolved to be intelligent and persistent. We were originally persistence hunters – a group of early Homo Sapiens , Homo Erectus or Homo Habilis would be able to use their intelligence to create tools and their endurance to tire large prey out, therefore compensating for their weak constitution. Therefore, the natural state is not, as Locke claims, one which is entirely free but rather one where a fairly strict society was necessary for survival. We can, therefore, conclude that the concept of complete freedom is not something which is natural for humanity – to exist within a society which, to some extent, holds control over individual liberty is Man’s default state.
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