The Complexities of Freedom
Decatur Metro | August 31, 2010 | 11:56 amJonathan Franzen’s “Freedom” finally goes on sale today.
And if you had any personal hopes of finishing it before hearing him speak this coming Friday night at the Decatur Book Festival, you’d better get to a local bookstore today and then take the rest of the week off to read it, because like The Corrections, this is some pretty heady stuff.
How heady? I’m so glad I asked.
How about tackling “the twinning” of the American concepts of “freedom” and the “secularization of power”? From the New York Times’ book review…
That twinning is where the trouble begins. As each of us seeks to assert his “personal liberties” — a phrase Franzen uses with full command of its ideological implications — we helplessly collide with others in equal pursuit of their sacred freedoms, which, more often than not, seem to threaten our own. It is no surprise, then, that “the personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage,” as Franzen remarks. And the dream will always sour; for it is seldom enough simply to follow one’s creed; others must embrace it too. They alone can validate it.
Or liberal guilt…
[The Burglunds] are “the super-guilty sort of liberals who needed to forgive everybody so their own good fortune could be forgiven; who lacked the courage of their privilege.”
Or the “liberal paradox”…
…Liberals, no less than conservatives — and for that matter revolutionaries and reactionaries; in other words, all of us — believe some modes of existence are superior to others. But only the liberal, committed to a vision of harmonious communal pluralism, is unsettled by this truth.
Or sex…
Sex is the most insistent of the “personal liberties,” and for Franzen the most equalizing. One is at a loss to think of another male American writer so at ease with — that is, so genuinely curious about — the economy of female desire: the pull and tug of attraction and revulsion, the self-canceling wants.
Or environmentalism…
Walter, “greener than Greenpeace,” strangely colludes with a superrich Texan to despoil a West Virginia mountaintop, though it means uprooting 200 local families, “most of them very poor” — all to create a sanctuary for a species of warbler not even on the federal endangered list. The scenes set in West Virginia, and Walter’s clashes with hard-edged locals, the proud, embittered descendants of “Jefferson’s yeoman farmers,” clinging tenaciously to their wasteland — “the scabby rock-littered pastures, the spindly canopies of young second growth, the gouged hillsides and mining-damaged streams, the spavined barns and paintless houses, the trailer homes hip-deep in plastic and metallic trash, the torn-up dirt tracks leading nowhere” — bristle with conviction.
Whooo Doggy, this will be an interesting keynote!
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“the personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage” — really? Where’s the proof of this? Studies? Surveys? Scholarly papers? Or is this just Franzen projecting his particular personality issues on the rest of us?
Personally speaking, I believe any assertion about the personalities or motivations of other human beings not backed up with data is simply hogwash.
These people “susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom” sound like strawmen. Limitless freedom is not exactly a mainstream belief or “dream.” Quite the opposite. Moreover, to the extent anyone does have that “dream,” it soured at birth. None of us has ever had limitless freedom. Does Franzen presume to tell us about the prclivities of people who would seem not to exist?
Well then where did the overly simplistic phrase “It’s a free country.” come from?
When you hear that you take it to mean the speaker advocates limitless freedom?
When I hear that phrase, I generally suspect that the person has a pretty lazy concept of “freedom”, which could be described as “limitless”, since it includes NO qualifier.
Also, it doesn’t have to be mainstream to be a character or a book’s motivation.
In some cases you may be right about that, but I think in most cases, you are not right. Limitless freedom = anarchy. Very few people seriously advocate that.
I personally use the “free country” phrase a lot, and it’s meant to convey a presumption in favor of personal freedom: both personal and economic. A presumption doesn’t preclude the idea of limits, of course. We’re not completely free and never will be. The disputes are about where to draw the lines, not about whether the lines should be drawn at all.
Why is “free country” not be taken literally, but “limitless freedom” is?
To provide a bit more context, here’s part of the preceding sentence from the phrase we’re discussing…
“The American experiment of self-government (was) an experiment statistically skewed because it wasn’t the people with sociable genes who fled the crowded Old World for the new continent; it was the people who didn’t get along well with others. … The personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage.”
Truth be told, I don’t even know if this is Franzen talking out right, or through a character. That makes a big difference, as the art is in the phrasing of the argument, not the ultimate validity of the argument.
Point taken. Perhaps neither should be taken literally. Franzen’s phrase just seemed more specific, and so I interpreted it literally.
Well, it’s fiction. So as long as it resonates with enough people and is artfully portrayed in text, it doesn’t really require data.
“it doesn’t really require data.”
I wouldn’t qualify it at all, DM. It flatly does not require data; it’s a work of fiction. Agree or disagree with it, but it’s under no obligation to prove a case. Only texts that people seek to use as instruments of authority (like the Bible, Koran, etc,) should be required to offer proof.
As for limitless freedom, I can imagine someone trying to live of completely off the grid, and coming up against the impossibility of it, becoming a misanthrope.
This a fairly silly example and probably not at all the type of thing Franzen is talking about, but I’ve known people who have intentionally violated homeowner covenants because they didn’t like them and I’ve known one person who did everything possible to piss of his neighbors because he was blocked from doing something with his property that was against the HOA rules.
In my observation, these people certainly seemed to fit the description of a misanthrope, though fortunately I never got close enough to determine whether they were full of rage. Of course, I can’t quantify anything about their motives, but so what?
“Limitless” freedom seems a poor choice of words; perhaps “freedom disconnected from reality” would have been better.
A novelist’s mission is not the same as a psychological researcher’s. Franzen’s assertions may or may not have a basis in modern psychology. He isn’t submitting Freedom as a thesis, or his opinion as that of a psychiatrist.
A fictional character can tap into the zeitgeist by speaking to a mindset of a segment of the population, or even an imagined idea of that population. I think it’s fair to say the Franzen has done so.
You might feel the same about Dominique Francon.
And further more… “And the dream will always sour; for it is seldom enough simply to follow one’s creed; others must embrace it too. They alone can validate it.” Huh? Not with this particular Libertarian — I would LOVE simply to follow my creed of individual liberty and freedom, even if my neighbor wants to express her freedom differently or throw it away and subjugate herself to a benevolent dictator. Again, Franzen’s generalizations about persons who seek to live a free life reflect mostly the content of Franzen’s own character and have little or nothing to do with the motivations of the people he chooses to stereotype.
I am guessing that you have not read this book, so you should probably stop yelling about it.
And, yes, there are lots of people who use the word “freedom” or “liberty” in ways that restrict other people’s freedoms. Who do you think is fighting gay marriage? Extremely popular and influential conservatives like Mark Levin write books called “Liberty and Tyranny” – and guess which side of the equation gay marriage ends up on?
Same old story — the left purports to stand up for personal freedoms (gay marriage is one) but could care less about economic freedom. They’ll let two guys marry, but are happy to tax them into oblivion if they dare to earn a comfortable living. The right is perfectly willing to regulate marriage, sexual conduct, etc., but then they purport to advocate for freedom when it comes to issues like taxes.
The point being, most of the right and left is morally bankrupt and inconsistent when it comes to freedom. Each side is more than willing to trample on the bill of rights. The only difference is that each side wants to wish away a different set of amendments.
Are they morally corrupt and trampling the Bill of Rights or do they just have different ideas of where the “freedom” line should be drawn?
I generally consider myself a liberal, but I do have sympathy for the libertarian side. I have to say, though, I’d damn sure rather have the government in my wallet than in my bedroom.
Whoa, DEM, you think the left doesn’t care about economic freedom?
Which side fought for unions, a 40-hour work week, occupational safety laws, minimum wage, unemployment? I would argue all of those things provide working people with economic freedom.
Taxes are the price we pay for a society that provides military, police protection, etc.
As a liberal, I’m NOT in favor of limitless spending. I think the federal government has gotten too big, for instance. But I also believe cutting taxes is a form of spending, after all. I don’t think the rich suffer that much when they pay taxes.
I also don’t entirely buy the argument that lowering taxes stimulates the economy. Want to stimulate the economy. Take a chunk of money from the richest 1 percent of this nation and give it to poorest 50 percent. Watch consumer goods take off!!!!
Back when Neil Boortz could at least half-way pass as libertarian, he once said that the personal freedoms liberals supported, i.e. abortion, gay marriage, and freedom from people trying to impose their religious values, didn’t have any effect on his own life so he wasn’t worried about the right being taken over by the religious element. I think a lot of libertarians share that view.
I like this view very much, but I feel like Ghandi did about Christians: “I like your libertarianism, but I do not like your libertarians. Your libertarians are so unlike your libertarianism.” There are plenty of “libertarians” out there that seem to find lots of reasons to keep a surveillance state, for one. Try this insanely popular “libertarian” (Glenn Reynolds) on for size:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/04/trying-to-keep-the-customers-satisfied.html
Liberal self-loathing is the making the best-seller lists?
I couldn’t be happier
Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten on the outside of a martini, but this is the most entertaining thread we’ve had for a while!
There is a certain other thread, forget which one, that a limits to freedom debate might apply.
Forget “limitless” freedom. How about a simple freedom like building a deck on your own property in Decatur – trying to realize that yearnig can easily lead to rage in this town. Oh crap, my “Pay-as-you-throw ” bag ripped again.
You think you have problems now, try selling some discount goods from your property.:)
I prefer the fuzzy edge of freedom myself. It allows me to take more liberties.