Free is the one who has power over his choice. Who is aware of the consequences of choice and, at the same time, the limited ability to foresee and influence events, and therefore is not surprised and does not look for the guilty when something does not go as we would like.
My colleague, the wonderful philosopher Grigory Tulchinsky, recalled how one of his friends emigrated to the USA in the 90s. A few years later he returned to St. Petersburg and settled in the same apartment. A year later, he again gathered overseas. Surprised friends ask: “Why did you come, if now it’s back again?” “I don’t have enough will there,” the traveler explained. “Then why are you leaving now?” “But here I don’t have enough freedom.”
We in Russia are accustomed to confusing will with freedom, although these are completely different things. The great physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov called the «reflex of freedom» the instinctive desire of an animal, limited in movement, to free himself from the fetters and restore the fullness of his motor abilities — it would be more correct to call this a «reflex of the will.» Will is the absence of restrictions, obstacles. Brakes included. And clear direction. Unpredictable is a person who has no long-term strategy and guidelines, ready at any moment to submit to momentary desire. A person with a solid system of values and moral principles, on the contrary, is quite predictable. But uncontrollable. Because free.
Free is the one who has power over his choice. Who is aware of the consequences of choice and, at the same time, the limited ability to foresee and influence events, and therefore is not surprised and does not look for the guilty when something does not go as we would like. A free person is not happier (and not more unhappy) than a non-free person, but his happiness depends much more on himself than on the luck or favor of others.
More than half a century ago, the great psychologist and philosopher of the twentieth century, Erich Fromm, published the book «Escape from Freedom», where he first explained why people’s desire for freedom is greatly exaggerated. Freedom is not given by itself, for free, it is work, burden, work on oneself. That is why people, as a rule, tend to absolutely voluntarily abandon it and freely choose slavery — so as not to sweat, not to fool around, not to make independent decisions, not to take responsibility and not to plunge into difficult thoughts about the consequences of certain events. “In a free society, no one can force a person not to be a slave,” said sculptor Ernst Neizvestny in an interview.
Hence the paradox: in developed industrial societies built on the principle of freedom of decision and individual choice, most people are not eager to decide and choose. What for? Everything is good, everything is there, desires are fulfilled, you can even prolong infantile serenity even until old age, stay in an innocent-childish state of mind. And freedom is an adult state filled with a completely different content. You still have to grow up to it.