Deadly Freedom: Inventing Hope In Dark Times
Totalitarianism has been tried many times and it essentially
fails because human beings will in all ways subvert a singular
narrative that is imposed by force. The fates of the
totalitarian states of the last century illustrate this.
Authority, the power to dominate the minds and bodies of
humanity, has solved this problem by creating and dispersing a
deadly form of freedom.
This deadly freedom, embedded in a mix of popular aspirations
that are inherently conservative and fearful, lead not to the
purported goals of happiness and personal agency and fulfillment
but to an arid apathy anchored to a narrow and crippling
selfishness.
What has this freedom got us? A mortgage? Unfulfilling jobs and
confused relationships? Environmental and social degradation?
High youth suicide rates and equally high levels of substance
abuse? Chronic levels of depression, alienation and a culture
industry that is largely bankrupt, caught in a materialist loop
that offers escape from reality rather than commitment to it?
Yearnings that seem illusive and cannot be framed in current
language because the language for such deep aspirations is
absent from the current personal, social and cultural context?
Hope
Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace prize winner and award winning
author, in a recent interview with Time Magazine stated that the
two most important dangers for humanity at present were hatred
and indifference. The needed antidote to this condition he
claimed was hope. Hope, even in hopeless times, needs to be
invented (like Jacob the Liar) and Wiesel claimed that he
"invented reasons to hope."
Hope, however, is elusive and needs to be nurtured. It does not
spring up sui generis and Wiesel would be the first to admit
that his roots in Jewish mysticism are the source of his
'hopefulness'. This is what he had to say:
"I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be
equipped for it. One doesn't study calculus before studying
arithmetic. In my tradition, one must wait until one has learned
a lot of Bible and Talmud and the Prophets to handle mysticism.
This isn't instant coffee. There is no instant mysticism."
Freedom gets in the way of this rootedness in tradition and this
is why so many non-western societies are either suspicious of
western democracy or out right antagonistic towards it.
Mysticism is grounded in tradition, clothed in the language and
actions of the present, and set ever before us all as we
struggle into the future. It is the perennial source of hope.
Five Points
Traditions are sources of deep transformative power. There are
five things you will find at the heart of all traditions be they
overtly spiritual such as Buddhism, Christianity, Islam,
Hinduism or Indigenous spirituality; or more secular varieties
such as humanism and romanticism.
Firstly, there is love. Wake up each morning and wait for an
explosion of love to course through your veins. "I'll wait a
long time," a cynic might quip. Yet this is the first condition,
and love needs to be waited upon. Yearned for, courted, invited
and fussed over.
Secondly, there is energy. All traditions are sources of energy,
they carry energy from the past, focus it in the present and
project it into the future. We are ancestors of this future and
need to open up to the energy of tradition. It is a New Age
folly to think we can invite energy into our lives without
supplying a context for it. The absence of context is largely
the result of toxic freedom and the isolation of the individual
ego.
Thirdly, there is discipline. Traditions embody discipline; they
enable it and make it OK to be disciplined. They do this because
they create a meaningful and loving context for it. Remember
that the essence of love is discipline. The two are indissolubly
linked.
Fourth, and emerging from the previous condition, there is
purpose. Our lives need a purpose that sits beyond our own
selfish needs. Purpose directs our life, generates energy and
hones discipline. Purpose means that we do not spill our life
energy into the abyss of meaningless habit. Purpose creates the
perfect feedback loop that will not let us down.
Finally, there is passion. When purpose is activated we become
passionate individuals. We exude confidence and charm. We
actually enjoy ourselves immensely as we engage with the
fissures in our lives, our communities and the world at large.
We live for the other, rather than fleeing from it.
Listen to the world; hear it groan, hear it sing. In listening
we become still enough to hear the real song and pick up the
fragments of our lives, see which parts we have got right, heal
the wounded and denied selves that so far have held us back. Be
creative and embrace the gifts that litter our world and see the
deception that lies at the heart of the modern dream of freedom.
The paradox comes here: only when we reject deadly freedom do we
really become free.