"When the poet stands at nadir the world must indeed be upside-down. If the poet can no longer speak for society, but only for himself, then we are at the last ditch.”— Excerpt from, The Time of the Assassins
By what measurement, in what amount, would we have, what constitutes free will? By what paradigm do our brains occupy, that would be an indication that we have such a thing? Is our free will injured? It would seem to me that free will also falls under the umbrella as free choice as well as free thought.
Lets take a classic example of a duality which interferes which such notions; capitalist vs communist. At their most elemental neither are necessarily evil. Certainly in the practical workings one may be "better" than the other but is it really this way? We can talk about poor leaders and abuses in the system but that is not the core argument I'm trying to make. How much do these systems interfere with our ability to be "free" of coercion is. Coercion defined as the act of compelling by force or authority.
Authority seems to be a central part in an institution or systems ability to function. The more authority over a person or group the more power it possess for its own purpose. Every systems central function would be to hold authority over, in the least a !part! of your mind and the larger the piece the better. "If it were not for Democracy, you would not have freedom and then you'd be a communist." A small example on how insidious and how innocent even, a comment can begin to control your thinking.
How many times in your life have you taken one of your most closely held beliefs and questioned it? Have you ever sought out a person who held an opposing belief? Have you ever questioned American exceptionalism? Maybe you didn't know there was such a thing? Political party, religion, monetary systems, governmental policy ect, have no such thing as an objectively correct basis with which to declare an authority. Take time to ask yourself; The ideals that I hold true, have I actually agreed to them or acquiesced to them? I see that there is a massive and detailed difference between those two states we inhabit.
Another way we can look at how vulnerable we are to various states and level of indoctrination we're under is a game of word association to emotion. What is it you feel emotionally when I say the words Muslim, Christian, Atheist or Democrat, republican, occupy wall street. How guarded do you feel when someone else wants to vote for Obama or Mitt Romney. Politics is easy to counter; we can argue all day who is better or what candidate is repugnant but step outside of the insane hurricane and we can all agree that there is something very, very wrong with the system as a whole.
I guess my point is that "Is this the best we can do, only if it is only for our self?"
We would like to call it objectivity but I do not envision on how we can have such a thing. The world is so insidious in its indoctrination's from birth, not to mention our inadequacy to have all the facts at hand how can we have free thought at all? Being a contrarian may not be so bad after all.
In ending: “In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay.
And unless it wants to break faith with its social function,
art must show the world as changeable.
And help to change it."
~ Ernst Fischer
