The Psychology of Freedom - Societal Abdication
How can such a simple abdication of responsibility, as discussed in the last post, impact us at a societal and governmental level? What if many people acted in “bad faith”?
Let’s start with another simple example. Adults are responsible for the food they put into their mouths. We are also responsible for having a small amount of knowledge about food so we know how to eat well for our body and how not to eat in a way that will damage our body. If we become unwell as a result of our bad food choices over a long period of time, that is our responsibility. In other words, we are to blame for our food choices. It may not be our fault that we have a certain relationship with food (the way we were raised having a large impact on this), but this doesn’t mean it isn’t our responsibility to look after ourselves. Sartre would argue that because we have the freedom to eat whatever we want, and therefore we are responsible for our own food-related health, food choices will inevitably cause anxiety. Here, there are two options; firstly, to accept our responsibility and take care over our food choices, or secondly, to deny our freedom, eat unhealthily and pass the responsibility onto another.
What are one’s options for abdicating responsibility for their food choices? They could certainly blame their parents for the way they eat – whether they modelled a bad relationship with food or they parented in such a way that led their child to gain comfort through food. However, this is a conflation of fault with responsibility. As long as personal responsibility is denied, one’s own freedom is denied, and no change can happen. In this case the eating habits stay the same.
However, another choice is to blame food companies or government. To blame government for allowing unhealthy food or drinks with too much sugar etc. can be a way of abdicating responsibility for one’s own personal choices (although I am not denying that there is a role for government to play in public health). The attractiveness of such a position is obvious, it makes one feel a victim of a system, rather than a victim of bad personal choices. Due to such an attraction, it is common for many people to take up such a philosophy and pass blame to government. The government, not wanting to lose voters, will inevitably vow to legislate to prevent unhealthful choices. This seems like a positive thing on the surface, but it is important to remember than increased legislation means increased bureaucracy/staff of the government and, therefore, an ever-increasing need for government finances – either pulled from other services or from increased taxation. It’s a double loss, the individual’s desire for a lack of responsibility is appeased by the government and the government has now taken on the responsibility itself.
This is just one example, but if you can imagine this attractive philosophy allowing people to abdicate responsibility constantly, it results in an ever-growing government and, therefore, an ever-decreasing amount of personal freedom. It applies to health, education, economics, environment, energy etc. Government certainly has a role and responsibility in all areas, but so too do individuals. If individual freedom and responsibility is denied, then no change, no matter how much government input there is, will ever occur.
We’ve seen why people deny their freedom and, also, how this impacts societies. But how does the denial of individual freedom impact the individual themselves? We’ll look into this in the following post.