Authentic Freedom

A human being is free to do as what they please! That’s just an interpretation of authentic freedom. All too often humans think of freedom as a free for all. Authentic freedom is does not mean doing what one wants when one wants to whom one wants, but rather it means, understanding who one is , that a human being is not alone and here to contribute to society. Authentic freedom is a paradox, one that will make you think, but not a contradiction.

The more freedom a human being has, the more one is called to respond. “Freedom is exercised in relationships between human beings.

Every human person, created in the image of God, has the natural right to be recognized as a free and responsible being. All owe to each other this duty of respect. The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in moral and religious matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of the human person.

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This right must be recognized and protected by civil authority within the limits of the common good and public order (Catechism, 1732). A human being gains freedom, by exercising freewill in a positive and productive way. People make choices in daily life, choices that affect the ability to live a free life.

When one chooses to go counter to the common good, a human being chooses slavery, slavery to the consequences of one’s choice. ”The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just.

The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to "the slavery of sin” (Catechism, 1733). When a human chooses not to listen to their conscience one chooses to listen to the voice of evil, when that happens, a human being has just entered in to a slave/master relationship.

With them being the slave. Freedom allows one to make choices that benefit themselves and more importantly the world around them. Freedom demands of one, or rather obligates one to concern ourselves with the affairs of the world around us. If you look at the world around a human being, countries where freedom is lacking, the overall population is less concerned with their fellow man, then in a freer society. The same can be said of individuals, the more freedom a human being has, and the more responsible one acts to other, on the whole.

True Freedom

Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre shared more than a similarity in their conceptualization of the absurdities in this life. These two great writers offered much in terms of their review of each other’s works with a passion that was uncommon. They also both enjoyed similar passions in life that ranged from writing, reading and the theatre. They have uniquely and aptly tackled the issue of freedom and how it is elusive in a world full of absurdities. To them, true freedom lies within the ability of man to make individual choices with little regard to the societal expectations, also most importantly, according to Sartre, taking responsibility for such choices.

            The key focus to this paper would be the views of freedom in the eyes of two important writers; Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Special focus will be given to their two greatest works Absurdity and Suicide and Being and Nothing.

            Camus and Sartre are both faithful adherents of existentialism. Existentialism is simply a school of thought in philosophy that posits that human beings should search for their own meanings in life and pursue them instead of following the rules as laid down by a supreme being. It is in line with these thoughts that they both coin their idea of freedom.

In his work, Camus understands the elusive nature of freedom. It is inconceivable, individual in nature and cannot be generalized; “I can experience only my own freedom” (pg 4 81)

            To explain the entanglements that man finds himself in to, he brings the dominant idea in his works; absurdity. Human life is absurd. Mankind has for long been trying to understand the nature of the world.  Humanity is still trying to decipher the various aspects of the world. In his work, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus says that the helplessness that man finds himself in the world evokes a feeling of absurdity, as the world seems quite irrational.

This absurdness and the inability of men to understand the ways of the world leaves people with three choices only. He says that “a world that can be explained even with reasons is a familiar world. But on the other hand, in universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien stranger.” (pg 443)

            To Camus, suicide is one of the solutions to the absurdities in this life. When one kills himself, it is a form of confession that life has just become intolerable. Through suicide, a person admits categorically that there is a glaring lack of any reason to live. Through suicide, man is accepting the absurdities in life and his inability to comprehend, this is seen where he says that “suicide, like the leap, is acceptance at its extreme, everything is over” (p 443).

            It is these thoughts that later leads to his conceptualization of what freedom to him is. His views of true freedom are unconventional. It is not in line with the thoughts of the orthodox perspective. It is not line with the thoughts of the orthodox religions that posit that following God’s rules is the ultimate sense of freedom. To Camus, the exact opposite is true.

            As stated before, existentialists are divorced from the dominant thought of the centrality of God in influencing personal choices. Camus says that freedom as people see it does not make sense. Once the idea of a supreme being comes in to play, the idea of freedom is diminished. Camus does not perceive the co-existence of the two saying that it is “either we re not free and God the all powerful is responsible for evil or we are free and responsible and God is not all powerful”. (p 481)

            To Camus, a part of achieving and experiencing the true freedom is to delink the idea of deity from our lives.

            A man also has the option of accepting the absurdities. This to Camus is the source of true freedom, accepting that life is absurd. Freedom comes to men once they acknowledge and fully appreciate the absurdities in this world.

            This is where the idea of an absurd man creeps in. An absurd man according to Camus is a man who defines his own path, a man who is not a conformist and does not agree with the dictates of the society. He has no ethics or morals as conventionally held. He seeks to achieve freedom by living according to his will and disregarding all calls for morality and other universal truths. This is the true freedom and is the opposite of what “mystics” believe in. He says that “mystics find freedom in giving themselves, by losing themselves in their god, by accepting his rules, they become secretly free” (p 483).

The absurd man’s freedom is the true freedom. He has liberated himself from the conventional rules. Suicide is not an option to Camus. In regard to suicide, it should be noted that Camus may not mean the physical suicide and death. It may also mean the complete rejection of the existence of a supreme being. The inquisitive nature of man is unable to find answers in the irrational world and hence the absurdity comes in. It is the inability to understand the world that leads to man severing connections with it through suicide. This however is not a viable option to Camus. (Camus, Albert, 64)

            Jean-Paul Sartre work Being and Nothingness remains one of his greatest achievements, his work like that of Camus is against idealism, as seen in the introduction where he begins with the criticism of Emanuel Kant’s views.

            He refers to his work as An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. Kant had alluded that our perception of the world is greatly influenced by how we perceive the world rather than how it is. Kant talks of noumena, a part that is hidden from us. Sartre on the other hand disapproves this idea saying that noumena is non-existent. The world is absolute and does not allude to idealism, our perception is shaped by what we see and this is what is there.

This is the main thinking of Sartre and is a view that is key to understanding his opinion of many subjects core to them being freedom. It is through the concept of freedom that Sartre chooses to present his understanding of man. His idealization of freedom however is quite paradoxical; it is freedom that is filled with constraints. He gives an analogy of the grocer in his essay of “Being and Nothingness: Bad Faith”. The grocer is constrained to the ways of the grocer not that he she does not want to behave in another way “etiquette requires that he limit himself to his function as a grocer” (p 386)

            The freedom that man has to be tied to a number of conditions; people have to be fully responsible for what they do, freedom is not there for the sake of it, it comes together with responsibilities that comes with the choices made. Man is in anguish over the burden of responsibilities plaguing him down.

            Freedom according to Sartre is constrained by facticity. Facticity means the backdrop against which freedom exists to an individual. It is the factors that constraints the achievement of true freedom. These may range from culture and language amongst others. These social and physical impediments get on the way of the individual to achieve true freedom.

            This is what is mainly seen as a contradiction to many. How can Sartre claim there is freedom where as man is all around faced by odds and constraints. However Sartre clarifying by noting that freedom is not explained along the lines of ability but rather it is a feeling that emerges spontaneously. Freedom to Sartre comes when a man makes choices and does not evade making them. As understood, these choices are not static, they are choices that come and change from time to time.

                        Sartre alludes to the fact that there are two states that determine who man is , states that are not tangible and can either be importance or not. There is the future which man can either decide to change or not and the past which is a product of man’s actions. Man has the freedom to control his actions and decisions so that they may shape the future and the past. This is despite the fact that man at the moment has no control of these two. The past has passed and the future is yet to come.

A superficial look at this may indicate a contradiction but a closer look at it reveals more. Our past deeds and circumstances constitute our decisions while our future is to be made by our present course of action. Sartre perception of freedom posits that it lies within our actions and taking responsibility for such actions. We have the freedom to shape the future through our choice of actions. The intense anguish that he talks of emanates from the responsibilities we take as a result of the choices we have made (Joseph Catalano, 39).

            The only constraints to our freedom are facticity which when put into this context refers to the circumstances that we have no control of like age or physical disabilities. Sartre also talks of bad faith, “we say indifferently of a person that he is guilty of bad faith or that he lies to himself” With this he is referring to the people that escape making their own decisions and carrying them out (p 370).

            Sartre’s concept of true freedom is that human beings must make an importance choice on how they expect to live and such an existence is to be. People should view each chance in life as an opportunity to choose the right course of action. This concept further posits that we are free as far as making our choices is concerned; anguish however comes in as a result of the choices we make. We are free to make choices but we cannot escape the responsibilities tied to those choices.

            Camus, Absurd Man and Jean Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness are two masterpieces taking a unique view of freedom, a perspective unequalled by any other. Though both lean towards existentialism, their views seem to diverge a little on the issue of how to achieve that freedom. To Camus, freedom is achieved by severing the connection that one has with the society and the idea of a super being, by acknowledging the absurdities in life and by failing to conform to the convention rules. Where as religion fanatics perceive religion as a way of giving themselves up to a higher being, Camus sees it as delinking one self from external influences and societal expectations (Ronald Aronson, 16).

            Freedom to Sartre is in making our own choices, shaping our own course of action and then taking full responsibility of it.

                        In conclusion, Camus and Sartre have dealt at length with the absurd nature of this world especially in failing to provide answers to man’s inquisitiveness. Sartre, despite his pessimistic view of freedom is right to note that freedom comes with a responsibility. He emphasizes that man is all round free as he can make his own choices regarding his life, there is a catch though to this freedom; responsibility. People must bear the cost of the choices they make in life.

Their view of the absurd freedom has some elements of truth especially in today’s world. People claim they are free yet they are surrounded by all manner of societal obligations and rules. People are being bogged down by religion and yet they claim they are free. Freedom cannot be achieved without the complete disregard and disentanglement from all those rules that bind men.

These two scholars have brought a very interesting perspective of what freedom is. It has become obvious that conceptualization of freedom is bound to differ with time and space. Freedom is different from one individual to the other and from one scholar. Interesting though is how these scholars perspective differ from the modern day’s perception of freedom which tends to be interpreted along political lines. To most Americans today, true freedom is all about being able to do what one wants to do with little interference from the government. Others would rank freedom of expression and worship high in their perspective of what freedom is.

Ideally, many in the progressive societies would consider themselves free and have a pessimistic look at those living under despotic regimes. To be able to live how one wants, dress in the way one sees best and talk with whoever interests us may seem like actualization of freedom to many, but not to Camus and Sartre. To them, the very same societal fabric that binds us together with a moral code is the real impediment to our freedom and unless we are able to overcome these societal expectations and entanglements, we are not really free.

Works Cited

Albert Camus. The Plague. Translated by Stuart Gilbert. Vintage

Books, 1991; 434-486

Jean-Paul Sartre. Being and Nothingness. Trans. H. Barnes. Routledge: London, 1995; 340-380.

Joseph Catalano. A Commentary on Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. Chicago:

Chicago University Press, 1980, 34-47.

Ronald Aronson. Camus and Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel that Ended It. University of Chicago Press, 2004; 9-17