Climbing the Hierarchy of Freedom
We each get a chance to break out of the illusion that there are any right answers
This essay follows my last essay about Simone de Beauvoir’s hierarchy of freedom in her book, Ethics of Ambiguity.
A quick recap: Simone explains how some people try to deny their freedom to avoid the responsibility of choosing their destiny. We try to avoid ambiguity and the difficulty of wicked problems. Some people aren’t ready to or can’t face the responsibility of their actions, including the child, sub-man, and serious man.
Now we’re stepping into discovering freedom.
The nihilist
After the serious man is the nihilist. The nihilist correctly assesses that maybe there isn't an absolute meaning or any universal truths and that nothing is valuable for everyone. Still, they are stuck thinking that means nothing matters at all.
They don't see that freedom is an end in and of itself. Nihilism is a risk that anyone faces when they break away from the serious man mode of thinking. When you let go of having a flawed external value system that tells you what to do, it's easy to get lost.
The nihilist thinks if there aren't any clearer answers that maybe there aren't any answers. This is why facing ambiguity is so scary. We have to face uncertainty and our fear of living in a world where nothing is certain. That’s what keeps us clinging on to value systems.
But that's not the only option. Another way of responding when someone realizes that they're free is to actually just take advantage of the situation. This is what Simone de Beauvoir calls the adventurer.
The adventurer
The adventurer uses their freedom to pursue personal pleasure. They create their own values and move through life having as much fun as they want.
You might be wondering why this isn’t at the top of the hierarchy. Well, it’s kinda selfish, isn’t it? The adventurer is right in realizing that they're free, but they're directing it wrongly.
Simone de Beauvoir thinks it’s because they don't understand their interdependence and realize that their freedom is bound up with everyone else's. Focusing on themselves might impact a lot of people, but they aren’t paying attention because they don’t really care.
The next level is almost at the top of the hierarchy. It’s what Simone calls the passionate man.
The passionate man
Now the passionate man is someone who's dedicated to a passion project. They leverage their freedom to accomplish some kind of greatness. They realize the actions in this life are gonna echo out into the future throughout society. Unfortunately, they also are giving up their freedom.
They're dedicating that freedom to a passion project, which is a certain way commendable. However, they're forgetting that ambiguity is a permanent state of affairs. They might not realize it's impossible to ever fulfill their desires, but they're gonna pursue something that's really great. That’s amazing, but they’re still not at the top of the hierarchy.
Genuine freedom
At the top is genuine freedom, which comes from the desire for one's own freedom, but also for the freedom of everyone in this world. They can convert their passion into genuine freedom if they realize their existence is bound up with everyone else's.
They realize that meaning is disclosed through relationships, so they can direct their passion toward the service of the whole. This makes a lot of sense since the whole theme of this series is about complexity, the recognition of relationships, and not just ourselves. It’s such a powerful way to be in the world.
There are a couple of other things that I want to add here. Beyond this hierarchy Simone adds another category:
The tyrant
The tyrant is someone who takes their freedom and tramples on others. They have a quest to fulfill their own desires, and they don’t care about the impact on others.
The tyrant can almost fall into all categories. They might want to stomp on someone else’s passion project or pleasure. Maybe they want to battle the serious man who’s fighting for another cause, but they’re supporting an authoritarian outlook.
If they don't realize they're bound up with others, there's always the risk of using their freedom to oppress others. In this case, their victims are just objects, and the tyrant doesn't recognize that others have their own freedom, desires, and rights.
Parallels
I noticed a parallel to this hierarchy in the United States. At one point, we were a child as colonies of British royalty. Then we reached some self-awareness and became the serious man, which led us to fight for a cause: Liberation. We fought for democracy and rational thinking, and we threw off the monarchy.
This approach was rooted in the values of Christianity, Protestantism, the Enlightenment, and other European values. Those values included colonial thinking that somehow justified the genocide of native Americans and enslavement.
We benefited from having that focus on our project, but it also had huge downsides. As we grew and recognized our freedom, we realized we had to take responsibility for our actions. And this leads us to the moment that we're in.
When we're faced with the ambiguity, complexity, and nuance of the world, we each get a chance to break out of the illusion that there are any right answers to any of the questions or problems we’re facing. That also means we have to realize we're responsible for what we do next.
We could double down on those past values, go back to the serious man thinking. We can collapse into nihilism and pretend that there's no meaning, or we can skip off into the sunset with our newfound freedom and ignore the impacts of our actions on other people. As a country, we could pursue some kind of passionate cause of transformation, or we could engage in tyranny.
We also have the choice to embrace our interdependence. Our freedom is bound up with the freedom of all of humanity, so we can take on the responsibility of building a future that strives for liberty, justice, and freedom for all.
The next essay is about integral theory, spiral dynamics, and developmental politics. Basically, I'm gonna share with you a process for growing as an individual and having an ever greater understanding of our interdependence and how to respond to the reality that we are all bound up with each other in a complex situation.
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Very good,excellently explained,very relative.