First of all, no matter what I may say I hold first and foremost that freedom is innately indefinable.

Also, I believe there is no such thing as anything - no absolutes. Still.... It's not like we have to fight for freedom. We ARE freedom. And what convinces us otherwise? People around us spending so much energy to reinforce the idea of control and lack of freedom? That would say it all really; that it's not, precisely, that they want us to be enslaved out there in the world,not completely that, although obviously yes that is a part of it and imo more a symptom than anything else - "Stay off the grass!" writ large upon everything. But no,I don't believe it's entirely that. Those are symptoms. Where they want the enslavement is in the heart/mind/spirit - inside. Chain a person up in the head and it's job done. And all the "fighting for freedom" people will do will be petty and ultimately useless, because they'll get their 'freedom' (maybe) and then just enslave themselves again. Because the root is inside.

So,coming from the concept of there being no anything... that doesn't mean we have to go around being arseholes to each other because it doesn't matter if nothing exists in absolute. That would simply be another symptom of the internal enslavement. If you're free why would you want to be an arsehole to someone? There'd be no point. Arseholiness is just about the desire for control again. Somehow people got power and control intrinsically linked and mixed up and corrupted what power really is. Power = dominance is simply because our lives here are so brief, so they think that to wield control over someone is power when it's not.

Well anyway,what is freedom, really? And can we ever know? Is it merely a second-hand motif intended to give hope? Maybe the very idea of it is subtle manipulation? Maybe freedom can never be understood by beings on a finite scale? On any community level, is perfect freedom actually achievable? What would be your personal idea of absolute freedom? No matter what it is,on some level,to someone else, it is going to come into conflict and infringe upon anothers' "absolute freedom".

Of course it will always run the risk of sliding into the territory of "happy in chains" vs. "misery in freedom". Which leads to the question: If there IS misery,is it REALLY freedom? And,further than that,would it even matter? Maybe the state of happiness/contentment is freedom regardless.

Why do humans willingly and recurrently enslave themselves???

I think there are 2 possible interpretations of what is freedom. Individual freedom and collective freedom. Now, individual freedom in it's absolute form compromises collective freedom, not everyone wants to be teabagged by bats but bats may want to teabag everyone. If we can strive to achieve collective freedom we will go some way to improving individual freedom.

I think the fundamental basis of your theory is incorrect.
There are some absolutes, you will die for instance, you can never be free from that.
It would be freedom from scarcity, which is in a sense freedom from natural constraints, which is perfectly achievable on a global scale now I would say, basic requirements made freely available.

oioioi wrote:
Interesting Hypothetically,if you had the power: How would you go about steering the world towards collective freedom?
Guevarista wrote:

I’m more of a practicalist and as such to me, terms as ‘freedom’ tend to sound vague and ambiguous, like happiness.
In a world where you are trapped by your physicality and its basic needs that'll always be there, it’s hard to see how true freedom can be ever achieved. I rather think in terms of quality of life. Improvements on this area facilitates the attainment of some forms of ‘freedom’.

Reading about something completely unrelated to the subject here I came by; Maslow's hierarchy of Human needs.
I’ll try to simplify as much as I can; humans have a hierarchy of needs, it goes from basic: food, water, shelter (etc) and it moves up to the highest level of Self-Actualization: creativity, morality, lack of prejudice (etc) and beyond that; Self-transcendence. Maslow proposed that those needs are to be met one level at the time for the person to move up to the next stage of psychological development.

Even though his hierarchy might no apply to every single human the same (there are always exceptions) it does work rather well for the majority, which brings me back to my initial point: quality of life, which in turn in my opinion must include things like; self-improvement and higher education. The more self-accomplished an individual is the more likely s/he is to understand concepts such as; sympathy, empathy, ethics (etc). All of those are vital when we’re talking about things like: freedom, the [positive] Golden Rule applies.

Just because we are trapped with the way things are now, it doesn't mean it will always be that way.
Perhaps our children or their children will eventually figure it all out.