PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT The Freedom Trap


This article is based on Craig’s book, The Freedom Trap, which is an exploration of what freedom means politically, psychologically, legally, ethically and philosophically. The book asks questions that encourage us to think again and more deeply about what it means to be free and the implications for a happy, cohesive and just society.


by Craig Hassed


A


strange paradox confronting those of us who live in most of the world's affluent


democracies is that, on the one hand, we have more wealth, comfort, sophisticated healthcare, domestic security, and freedom of choice than at any time in our history, but, at the same time, we are experiencing escalating levels of mental health problems, chronic lifestyle-related illnesses, multiple addictions, broken families, social isolation, cyber-crime, economic injustice and inequality in the


52 JULY | AUGUST 2017


distribution of wealth. These are surely not the signs of an increasingly free, just, cohesive and happy society. Although these are complex problems, are there any insights we can gain as to what might be behind them so as to be less encumbered by them?


CAN WE BE WRONG ABOUT WHAT FREEDOM IS? Freedom is taken by most people to be universally good, as are other things like happiness, wisdom, love and justice. Some would say, as Plato did


millennia ago, that the secondary or worldly goods like health and wealth are dependent on the universal goods. We all want these universal goods and assume that we know what they are. But just as we have widely divergent ideas about what constitutes happiness and where it comes from – such as happiness as pleasure, a drug-induced high, close relationships, inner peace, fulfilment in work, a meaningful life or happiness as a spiritual state – so too do we have widely divergent ideas about what constitutes freedom. Can


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