Freedom: Beyond Slavery and Bondage

Are humans free? The question has been debated for decades. What does it mean, "Are humans free?" To answer the question, the question first has to be understood. Many people interpret it differently, and that is okay, it is interpreted differently by different people.

There are certainly different levels of freedom. There are some levels of the freedom scale for which humans will always be bound. We are not free in that we cannot escape certain laws of the world, such as gravity. Sure, we can fly, but only with the assistance of tools (machines included). Humans are slaves to tools, we would not be the species we are today without tools. We need them, and we will never be free of them. It is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something we have become dependent on. Of course, we are slaves to our bodies. We have limitations, we cannot withstand extreme heat or cold, or extreme conditions (although we can with the use of tools).

Then there are the lower levels of freedom to, the ones more familiar. We have to follow the laws of society, and if we don't, what freedom we do have is removed, by being incarcerated. However, laws need to be in place, and some of our freedom taken away, in order for society to exist.

Humans are not simply free or not free. Obviously, someone who is rich and living in the United States is more free then a slave. But even the most free of people are not free. Everyone is a slave to something, money, love, those kinds of things. No human can be purely free, or else they would not be human. Still, by human standards, just not being in jail or in slavery is purely free. Because every "free" person has the same limitations, we consider that completely free, so anything lower then that is therefore less than free.

Even the slaves have some form of freedom. The freedom to think, and other things of that nature, cannot be taken away. However, just being able to think isn't everybody's vision of freedom, and it's not freedom. Humans need to move of their own accord, do what they want (to a certain extent). It's hard to satisfy one's needs by visualizing them, it's necessary to do them. And that's what human freedom is; being able to do something, not think it.

In conclusion, after constructing this article, it is my opinion that the easier we can achieve a goal we have set in our mind, whether it is going to the bathroom or running across the United States, the more free we are. So, a slave might think about wanting to eat at a certain time but can't, while a "free" person thinks about eating, and does it, therefore making that person freer than the slave.