The more one might read, the more one might realise that we are not free. Books like Fahrenheit 451 are the scarily similar to the current reality. Just yesterday I was walking through a city and developed a thought. The thought was:
“Look around. Is anything about this natural?”
The answer is no. Humans are not made for this environment. As primitive beings, we are inherently entwined with nature, yet we construct barriers that separate us from it – suburbs, cities, modern schooling systems, and standard employment are but few examples of this that most people will be subjected to unwillingly. Each of these elements cages individuals further into an industrial society until the individual becomes so entangled that they forget what it means to be ‘human.’
Think of the world as a vast library, but when you are born, you are given only three books and told you have free choice because you can choose any of them. You may think, like many do, that if you weren’t free, you would be forced into one specific book. However, you are actually trapped because you are unaware that there are options beyond those three books.
This is the illusion of choice. This is an analogy for the current industrial society.
Consider the common life: someone is born, placed into a school system, and eventually must secure a job to pay for food and survive. In the industrial society, without employment, survival becomes impossible. If someone manages to survive without a job, it is often because another person is working on their behalf. There are taxes to pay, and laws to abide by, all established long before that persons birth, and with no acknowledgement to the fact that the person may not agree with the laws. Refusing to comply to these laws result in losing one’s rights. This is modern day “freedom”.
Possibly the worst part of all, is that speaking out against this reality risks being labelled as a lunatic or a conspiracy theorist. You are socially isolated due to this. Even those who seem happy within the system can recognize this shocking truth; they simply rationalize it rather than confront the reality that this industrial society is far from natural. Far from what humans are meant for.
The illusion of freedom may be one of the greatest deceptions of our time, as individuals navigate lives that increasingly distance them from their natural selves. In a world that appears to offer many choices, the question arises:
“Are people truly free, or have they simply accepted their constraints?”
