Security or Freedom?

As stated in the 1998 film “The Truman Show,” “We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.” In so doing, however, I believe we take too much for granted and too often fail to address the contradictions and discrepancies society inevitably displays. We tend to unreflectively accept the “conventional wisdom,” the “dominant paradigm,” the underlying “myths” of our birth society – the official gods, the official “history”; the accepted economic, political, and class order.

Of course, no society can sustain itself without some degree of support by its citizens; so, if maintaining the system is the major concern, blind allegiance is very desirable. On the other hand, if “freedom” is a major concern, unreflective acceptance is utterly destructive. Indeed, at the end of “The Truman Show,” the main character must decide between the security of continuing the charade of his “show” and the insecurity of living “freely” in a more real world. He strikes out on his own and, in so doing, destroys the entire “society” in which, until then, he had lived his life. Without his naïve participation, there could be no show. It was over.

This tension between the system and the individual is raging today. Within the so-called “culture wars” there are those who demand “faith” and those demanding “science”; those who look to the gods and those looking to man; those who fear losing the security of “received truth” and those longing for the uncertainty of seeking “the truth.”

History shows that some things are certain. No civilization, culture, or society has ever been very accurate in its particular representation of reality. No one any more, I think, has faith in Athena or Osiris or Thor. Not many consult oracles or believe that cattle die from the machinations of witches. Few believe that the earth is flat and hangs from a chain anchored in heaven. Most people, I hope, no longer believe in “the white man’s burden” or in eugenics or in slavery. The continuation of a social order requires allegiance, but that necessity does not guarantee the validity of that allegiance.

For my part, I put my “faith” in humankind to struggle with the daunting reality of this short existence we, the living, share. I would rather make my own mistakes and, if I live long enough, correct them.

To me that is preferable to clinging blindly to an arbitrary tradition that someday, inevitably, shall be considered as irrelevant as Greek cosmology, as inaccurate as a flat earth, and as self-serving as slavery.

Perhaps I am deluded, and mankind’s only hope is the continuing hallucination that each and every cultural system in which we find ourselves represents the ultimate truth, demanding fealty – if for nothing else - to preserve the “perfect” system into which we have been unwittingly delivered.
Nevertheless, I cannot believe that; and, if I am wrong, it is a mistake I freely make.