Are the protests in Montreal and Alberta about freedom? Come on – Toronto Star

Im perplexed by protests like those in Montreal that shut down a vaccine clinic in the name of freedom and liberty, or the Alberta rodeo that defied health rules because, someone said, Its better to die on your feet than live on your knees. I dont really get how wearing a mask is living on your knees, but I know many mean it sincerely. Humans are meaning-seeking missiles often willing to risk much or all for the sake of some highly symbolic issue.

Its freedom as their focus thats especially perplexing; its so amorphous.

Theres a homey adage that says your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. Fair enough. More pompous renditions distinguish negative and positive freedoms, then try to maximize each individuals freedoms while preventing the state or someone from spiriting them away.

But what I find irritating about these approaches is they start from some pristine individual state where youve received your freedoms from the get-go and try to hang onto or expand them, while others try to strip them away. Its always about freedom, revolving around noble, self-serving heroic individuals.

I just dont think that kind of personalized, self-centred starting line is what most people experience. I think there are better frameworks for figuring out what your life challenges look like and how to meet them. One would be the German philosopher Heideggers notion of Geworfenheit (say the w as a v).

True, Heidegger was a despicable Nazi with other problematic traits. But he had some decent ideas. Geworfenheit means thrownness and refers to how none of us chose to be who or where we are. We arrive in the world, right from the start, as if we were tossed into a situation we never chose and then must figure out how to deal with it. Then that keeps reoccurring; were always already situated. Marx made that point when he said humans make their own history, but never in circumstances of their own choosing.

So instead of always starting at some pure point where Im at the centre along with my precious freedoms that Im trying to protect were often tossed into a situation, like a pandemic, that doesnt really fit the freedoms model. You can try responding in terms of your insatiable appetite for freedom, but that might be a stretch. Freedom might not be totally irrelevant then, but it mightnt be very relevant either, as you search for a way to handle the new situation.

Take Nomadland, which got this years Oscar for best picture. The book its based on was about Americans shortly after the 2008 financial crash, who lived in their vans or pickups because they were houseless and made the best of it. They helped each other and embodied the classic American move of lighting out for the territories, which evokes an archetypal U.S. sense of freedom. (Except for the main character in the movie, Fern, who had a personal safety net.)

By the time the movie was made, though, as reviewer Jack Hamilton noted, it was Trump time there, and things had shifted. The same people whod admirably asserted their personal freedom were now expected to chant build that wall and lock her up. The issue wasnt mainly their personal freedom any more it had swung to matters like racism, exclusion, democracy. Theyd been geworfed to another situation in which freedom as a focus wasnt as pertinent.

Freedom is just too fluid to be your political or ethical Swiss Army knife.

Long ago, in another era when freedom was a watchword, I worked at a summer camp and decided to introduce the concept of freedom from a famous British free school, Summerhill. The kids wouldnt even have to make their beds.

One evening I returned from a day off. Campers ran up saying, Hey Rick, did you hear about the new freedom- unlimited tuck! Theyd voted in my absence that anyone could spend their full summer allowance for candy at the tuck shop in one go. I guess they felt that having freedom handed them was less satisfying than seizing it. So there you have it, with apologies to Kris Kristofferson: freedoms just another word for unlimited tuck. Sometimes, anyway.

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Are the protests in Montreal and Alberta about freedom? Come on - Toronto Star