The bondage of freedom

I have spent most of the summer wading through Fyodor Dostoevsky's masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov.  I have discovered that Russian novels - or at least the ones I've read - require a huge amount of patience.  Invariably, the plot is fairly simple, but the numerous diversions, minor characters with confusing names, and the long monologues overflowing with angst that feels slightly hyperbolic make these books the kind of books one feels one ought to read rather than ones one wants to read.  Amid all the social commentary and repressed emotions, however, there are glorious, soaring passages that contain profound truths and keen insight on both God and human nature.   The Brothers Karamazov is no exception, and several passages within have been on my mind recently.  Here's one:

For everyone strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but...instead of self-realisation he ends by arriving at complete solitude.  All mankind in our ages have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has from the rest, and he ends up being repelled by others and repelling them...For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges he has won for himself.  Everywhere in these days men have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort.  But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another.

Here is where I think America, and to an extent, the modern Western world, has a real problem.  Noble ideas, such as freedom and privacy, are enshrined in our constitutions.  We are taught to cherish the fundamental rights of the individual.  The accumulation of wealth is what defines success.  We tell our children, "You can be whatever you want to be."  We surround our houses with higher walls and more elaborate security systems to protect our hard-earned slice of the American Dream, as if we want to yell simultaneously, "Look at me!" and "Keep out!"

Most significantly, and without wanting to sound like a raging socialist (Note to my English friends: that's a dirty word here in the US.  "Socialist", not "raging".  Raging is entirely acceptable.), capitalism, a system that insists that competition is crucial, has pervaded every aspect of our lives, not merely our economy.  Everyone is a competitor.  Competitiveness is a highly valued trait, so much so that it is instilled in our children at a very young age.  From little league (learning to win) to high school (our obsession with grades), our youngsters are brainwashed in this regard.  We compete with our neighbors, with our siblings, with our co-workers.  We compete passive-aggressively on social media.  We even talk about needing competition between schools - that somehow, establishing new schools in a community will somehow make the failing ones get better (as if they are choosing to fail). 

But a society that emphasizes competition automatically makes half of its participants losers.

That would be fine if we actually took care of those people who lose in the process, but we don't.  They are discarded, apparently lacking that entrepreneurial spirit, unable to work hard enough.  Despite all the noted benefits of failure, it is regarded as something to be ashamed of.  And in a nation where pride is on muscular display in so many places, there is no place for its antithesis, for the freedom to choose our own path and pursue it, even at the expense of others, is our right.  However, according to Dostoevsky, it comes with consequences:

The world says, "You have desires, and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most rich and powerful.  Don't be afraid of satisfying them and even multiply your desires."  And it's no wonder that instead of gaining freedom, they have sunk into slavery, and instead of serving the cause of brotherly love and the union of humanity have fallen, on the contrary, into dissension and isolation....And therefore the the idea of the service of humanity, of brotherly love and the solidarity of mankind, is...treated with derision.  For what can become of [man] if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself?  He is isolated, and what concern has he with the rest of humanity?

Is this what the Founding Fathers had in mind?  Is this what renowned capitalist Adam Smith envisioned?  It is a staggering thought, and it is one that has me stuck.  As Americans, we want privacy and freedom, and to consider the negative consequences of these ideals seems profoundly un-American.  But I have been thinking about this a lot recently, so here we go:

Competition breeds isolation.  And isolation diminishes intimacy.  In the process of living out the very things that we value most, we lose our humanity.  Without having a host of statistics at my fingertips, let me give you a snapshot of my daily life and how isolation features prominently in it, for I suspect my experiences mirror many others'.

I teach almost two hundred students, many of whom shun personal, face-to-face interaction for the comfort of a smartphone screen.  Isolation.

I have students who, frantic with anxiety and fearful of their parents' response, cannot confide in anyone about mental health or identity issues.  Isolation.

I know of at least three students in the recent past who were deemed a danger to themselves and placed in secure facilities.  One took his own life.  Isolation.

Every day, I drive past two senior assisted living homes, which are emblematic of our society's tendency to abandon the elderly and thus abrogate one of the most solemn obligations we have.   Isolation.

I arrive home, waving politely to my neighbors, before disappearing into my house.  Any knock at the door or appearance of someone unfamiliar on my doorstep is immediately viewed with suspicion.  Any future interaction with friends is booked and placed on the calendar weeks in advance.  Isolation.

I discuss with my wife the recent story of a young Canadian Muslim convert who left his home to join ISIS.  How did he get radicalized?  Isolation.

We have not just individuals, but entire communities of African-Americans and Muslims who feel isolated from the country they live in and for whom the narrative of the American dream rings hollow.  This is especially tragic, for this is an isolation that they feel is forced upon them.  There are prisoners who have spent up to 28 years - 28! - in solitary confinement.  Imagine what that kind of isolation can do to one's mind.  Some California prisoners have argued - successfully - that it violates the Eighth Amendment, and prisons are starting to rethink this policy.

The opposite of isolation is intimacy.  And nowhere do these two concepts collide more than in the phenomenon that is social media.  David Brooks, in a remarkable piece in The New York Times, talks about the "illusion of intimacy" that is engendered by social media.  As humans, we long for and, I would argue, are fundamentally designed for intimacy, but we also want freedom.  These two things are essentially mutually exclusive, or at least they are in the way we perceive them.  True intimacy requires us to meet people in the middle, and involves, according to Brooks, "progressive self-disclosure, vulnerability, emotional risk and spontaneous and unpredictable face-to-face conversations."  I think most of us would actually prefer isolation.

Confession: I have often used my natural introversion - the need to be on my own in order to recharge - as an excuse for isolation.  Being used to spending long periods of time on my own - boarding school, travel, battling depression - has inured me to being increasingly private, reserved, and, thus, less than genuine with others.  I have experienced the enslavement caused by isolation, and I fight it every single day with varying amounts of success.

Intimacy also enslaves us, but in the best possible way, for we are no longer free to be selfish and to retreat into our private world, where the things we want no-one to shine a light on are hidden in the darkest recesses of our hearts.  Even times of temporary isolation, for Christians, are done to achieve a greater intimacy with God.  The command for us, when we pray, to "go into [our] room and shut the door" is so that we don't project a public, false intimacy with God before others.

The freedom to do whatever we want is, paradoxically, nothing less than bondage and a rejection of our innate human identity, an identity that can only be fulfilled in pursuing intimacy and embracing it as it ties us closer to our fellow men and women.