Deadly
Freedom: Inventing Hope in Dark Times
By Marcus Bussey
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.
Marcus Bussey is an educator
and futurist. You can read more of his articles at
www.metafuture.org, a website that has online articles,
interviews, essays and reviews written by Australia’s leading
futurists and social scientists.