Changing Free Will from a Harmful Illusion to a Life-Affirming Fact

Underlying many of the social systems and moral perspectives that govern our society is the concept of free will.  Whether stated as the ability to know right from wrong or whether it’s the belief that anyone can pick themselves up by their bootstraps, our system of laws, both criminal and civil, and government’s approach to helping those in need is founded on the concept of free will.

But do we really have free will?  Does each person really have this broad range of options from which he or she can choose?

The answer, in short, is “no.”  We are, each of us, a product of our upbringing, in all its many aspects ... from our experience in the womb, to the nurturing we receive in our early formative years, to everything we experience and learn at the hands of our family, peers, and the larger culture.  How all those different factors impact each person results in the multifaceted nature of humanity ... literally, no two people are the same, not even twins, and certainly not siblings.

While this statement should not be controversial, the further implications of it will likely be viewed as highly so.  The environment of our upbringing programs us (our minds are like extremely complex computers) to act the way we act. This is not to say that we are like robots.  Because we have minds and the ability to think, each of us has a range of actions that we can take.  But it is a much smaller range than assumed by the concept of free will.

Whether someone has ambition or has none, becomes a criminal or not, is kind or ruthless, and the list could go on and on ... regarding almost every area of human activity, most of the “decisions” we make are not really decisions, because decision implies a real choice.  Instead, these “decisions” have been made for us by the way we have been programmed by the environment of our upbringing.

Let’s take the example of two individuals growing up poor in the ghetto in similar circumstances and with a similar lack of educational achievement.  One takes the path of crime to provide money for the basics of life; the other rejects that route and takes a low-paying job.  The conventional view would be that the first individual makes a conscious decision to do what he knows to be wrong, while the second one makes a choice not to do what he knows to be wrong.  

But that is false.  The first individual, by virtue of his upbringing, does not think crime is wrong; he knows it’s illegal, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong as far as he is concerned.  The environment of his upbringing programmed him to disregard the larger society’s morality and to believe he had no other options for making it.  The second individual, on the other hand, had something in his upbringing ... possibly a parent or church ... that taught him that crime is wrong.  He could no sooner do that than chop off his hand.

Then there is the well known example of the child or wife abuser.  As research has clearly shown, these individuals do not choose to abuse their children or their wives.  They themselves were typically abused as children and their minds equate abuse with love because as children that’s how they coped with being abused by a parent.  And so, they are programmed by their past to abuse their loved ones.  They have no choice, absent intervention and therapy.

It is the mind’s programming that causes those who are abused to become abusers themselves.  As hard as it is for us to understand and accept that fact, as incomprehensible as it may seem, it is nevertheless a fact.

The implications of this analysis is significant.  There is no such thing as a bad person; that is to say, no one comes out of the womb a bad person, no one is an inherently bad person.  But people do come to do bad things because of what they’ve been taught by the environment of their upbringing.  

While that should and can have no impact on the laws of what is socially allowable behavior.  And those who violate those laws must take responsibility for their behavior, even if they in reality had little or no choice ... that is necessary for the stability of society ... how we treat such individuals is another matter.

Based on this analysis, how we deal with those who violate the law needs to change drastically from current and past practices.  For example, the goal of the criminal justice system is to increase public safety.  We know all too well from experience though that fear of incarceration or even death does not act as a deterrent and change people’s behavior.  Such is the power of their programmed minds.

Thus, while the criminal justice system would still determine guilt or innocence, the driving goal of the sentencing process would be rehabilitation not punishment.  Not just sentencing, but the whole prison culture would be totally transformed because in order to rehabilitate, a person’s thought process must be reprogrammed.  This is a complex process, but first and foremost it involves building someone’s feeling of self-worth and his sense of oneness, his interconnectedness with all people.  Only then will a person stop treating others badly, whether family, peers, or strangers.  (See my post, “Prisons as Monastery not Dungeon,” 11/20/14.)

The latter lesson will be very controversial for most readers because our whole system of social interaction, from the micro to the group to the nation is based on an us v them analysis, which in turn is based on our insecurity.  Virtually every conflict that man has been involved in has been a result of this insecurity and his us v them perspective.  Even the three great western religions have an us v them perspective at their core.  But this human weakness must be eradicated wherever it appears if we are ever to achieve peace at any level.

This analysis of the programming that robs us of free will also should impact the function of our public schools.  It is not enough to teach people job-related skills (yes, I know that many schools do a poor job of even that).  Schools must teach people what they are all too often not taught at home or by the media ... to be ethical human beings, regardless of the circumstance.  (See my post, “Schools as Educators of Citizens,” 3/10/14,)  Only then will children see beyond the immediacy of their environment and have a real chance to exercise free will

The goal of these changes I’m suggesting is to provide a real opportunity for people to exercise free will, to free themselves from the straight-jacket of their mind’s programming.

I stated in the beginning that for the most part, our systems are based on the invalid assumption that we have free will.  But in one critical arena, the injustice suffered by many results from the opposite assumption ... that they have no free will.  Schools, especially inner-city schools, mostly accept as given that children from bad backgrounds are hopeless, s lost cause, and nothing but trouble.  And that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy,

Let’s take two people of equal talent and intelligence,  One is born in an upper middle-class family with all the attendant privileges and supportive parents. One is born into a drug-addicted family living in poverty on the fringes of society.  There is no difference in the two children regarding their genetic-based talents and intelligence.  

In the one case the talents and intelligence are recognized and nurtured, sometimes obsessively, the talent and intelligence blossoms and the person goes on to become a productive person.  But in the other case, the talents and intelligence are neither recognized nor nurtured ... the seeds that are within are not watered ... and so that talent and intelligence atrophies and the person goes on to the life that is more or less typical for people raised in those surroundings.  Free will was not a factor in either case.

This is a huge waste of human potential and a crime against humanity.  Children indeed do not have free will, but they are young and their minds are malleable enough that they can more easily be taught to feel self-worth than adults.  Thus, all schools must instead function with the goal of making the most of each child’s potential and from the perspective that a child’s background and SES group does not predetermine that potential.  Just as our criminal justice system ideally follows the maxim “innocent until proven guilty,” our schools should follow the maxim, “talented and intelligent until proven otherwise.”

Our system of justice and social engineering based on the assumption of free will, or in the case of many inner-city schools, the lack of free will, has done an injustice to untold millions of people to the detriment not just of their lives but of the health and stability of our society.  We assume that people have free will when convenient for us, when in fact they do not; but at the same time believe that people have no free will, when that is what’s convenient.

What we must do is reform our systems so that all people develop a sense of self-worth, of opportunity, and thus in fact can exercise free will.  Only with such reforms will we ever see the full implementation of the promise of the Declaration of Independence ... that all men are created equal, have an unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that governments are instituted to secure these rights.

Modern Man Enslaved

We live in an era of unprecedented freedom ... of speech, of travel, of work, of intellectual and creative endeavor, of where we live, to name just a few.  And we live in a nation that has experienced great upward mobility over the past century.

And yet, whether rich or poor, professional or working class, we are enslaved.  To be more exact, the habit-energies of our minds are enslaved.  We have become little more than programmed unthinking robots that do what our masters ... the lords of capitalism ... want us to do.  And this affects virtually all areas of our lives.  (You may well find this proposition ludicrous, but please read on.)

The lords of capitalism (by this I mean all those who hold the reins of power in our capitalist system) have achieved their desired control over our lives by preying on the weaknesses of man ... on our intense desire or craving to be loved, to be desired, to be admired, to be part of a group.  Now, wanting to be loved or part of a group is not inherently either a weakness or something bad for us.  But because of the insecurity that affects most of us in this culture, those wants have been manipulated by the lords of capitalism into cravings which rule our lives and cause us endless frustration and pain, leading us further from the feelings of peace and happiness that are our birthright.

Let me site this enslavement’s most prevailing form.  In our contemporary culture, status is confirmed almost exclusively by one thing ... money.   Because the more money one has the more, and more expensive, things one can acquire, and ones acquisitions ... what used to be called, derogatorily, conspicuous consumption ... is at the core of one's status.  

Whether rich or poor, what you are able to acquire ... whether it’s fancy Nike sneakers for a ghetto dweller or a 20,000 sq. ft. mansion for the top 1% ... gives you status among your peers.  It’s not talent, brains, or looks ... it’s how you’ve been able to parlay those attributes into money.  And so we find that individuals are making life decisions, to the extent they have  control, based primarily on the prospect of making more money rather than the factors that used to be of equal or greater importance.

The reader might say, “so what’s wrong with that?”  What’s wrong is that it traps one in a cycle of endless frustration, even if one is successful, because one always is left wanting MORE.  What’s wrong is that it distorts decisions that are important for the larger society ... like how many people choose to become teachers, or engineers, or primary care doctors rather than financial industry brokers or high paid medical specialists.  What’s wrong is that ethics and professionalism are routinely sacrificed on the altar of money.  Whether you look at almost any aspect of the recent financial debacle or in general at the actions of industry, including the health care industry, if making more money means disregarding ethics or cutting corners on professionalism the latter concerns are hardly given a second thought.

Mind you, I’m fully aware that the enslavement of man’s habit-energies is not something exclusive to the capitalist system.  In almost any system that has a power hierarchy, those in power will take measures to ensure that the masses do what they want them to do.  The most extreme examples were found in totalitarian societies, like Communist Russia or Nazi Germany.

But while the political propaganda in those cases was far more reprehensible and sinister, there is little practical difference between the marketing that we are subjected to on a constant basis and that political propaganda.  It all falls under the category of the big lie.  And the aim in both is the control of people.

“Oh, come on!” you may say.  But think about it.  The success of our capitalist consumer-based economy depends on making people believe they need something, regardless whether they really do.  The more successful marketing has become, the more addicted people have become to consuming, and the more money has become the essential means to obtain the desired end ... to the point that people will do almost anything to obtain money.  

There is no shortage of examples of this among rich or poor.  It is this craving that resulted in affluent people in the financial industry not caring what the impact of their reckless actions were on others in the recent mortgage securities debacle.  It is this craving that results in many of the poor turning to the world of crime (10% of black males in their 30s are in prison or jail on any given day.  According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one third of all black men can expect to be in prison at some point during their lifetime) or people with meager means agreeing to the removal of mountaintops for coal mining and hydro-fracking if they see money in it for themselves, regardless if the risk is high or virtually assured that it will ultimately despoil the environment and contaminate their very drinking water, the source of life.

“Ah,” you may say, “but people here have free will.  It’s their choice whether to buy something or not.  Whether to work in one industry or not.  Whether to be ethical or not.”  

But that’s just the point.  People don’t really have free will.  They have been programmed by our culture and its pervasive marketing and consumerist values to crave the acquisition of things and to acquire the money needed to satisfy that craving.   And when one craves something, when one becomes addicted to something, one has no free will.  That is how we have become enslaved.  And this includes those at the top who are exploiting the rest of us.  One has no real choice not to do what your addiction tells you to do ... barring of course becoming aware that one is an addict and going through a 12-step program to recover your peace and contentment.

A big lie central to the success of this marketing is the concept of progress.  Certainly since the industrial revolution, and perhaps before, progress has been touted as being the end all and be all for civilization.  And so we have come to accept and to crave everything that bespeaks of progress.  Acquiring such items, such as the iPhone, becomes the latest and most ephemeral of status symbols.

Should progress, however, be so uncritically regarded?  Without question, when it comes to material matters, we have progressed to an amazing degree, and the speed of that progress just increases with the advancement of technology.  

But has that progress brought us increased happiness or security?  No.  Has it brought us the increased leisure time that was much touted at the dawn of the technology age?  Hardly!  People are working longer hours and are more stressed, often being on the job almost 24/7 because of smart phones and the computer.  Has it brought us improved health?  No.   We live longer because of advances in medicine and improved hygiene, but we are not healthier.  In fact we are less healthy.  We are living longer despite our physical condition, not because of it.  Has it made our homes and schools and the world at large less violent?  No

Clearly there are many things that are better now then they were 50 or 100 years ago, but that is due primarily to a change in laws and attitudes.  Such things ... the status of women, people of color, and gays and lesbians, for example ... are social matters.  The things that are marketed as progress and which we purchase have not changed our interior, our spiritual, lives for the better.  Yes, women as well as men toil less arduously than they used to, but are their lives better now?  No.

The importance of marketing to make people want and purchase things they don’t really need extends from the highest luxury items down to the most plebian.  Let me give you several examples of the latter.  

Many years ago, because I was living someplace with no hot water, I started shaving using regular bar soap and cold water.  To my surprise, I discovered that I got a wonderful shave, even though I have a rough beard and shaving had always been difficult for me.  Some time later I happened to meet a dermatologist and told her about my experience, to which she replied that that made perfect sense as the cold water closes your skin pores, resulting in an easier shave.  I have not used shaving cream or hot water in more than 40 years!

More recently, we discovered a far less expensive form of clothes washing detergent than purchasing the commercial brands.  Just combine baking soda wash powder and borax powder with water and you have a very effective, inexpensive detergent that does just as good a job on washables (I can’t speak to delicate washables as I have none) as any commercial detergent.

These are but two small examples.  But if everyone followed my example, the manufacturers of these products would be out of business.  And this list could be expanded to much that we purchase.  Most of it just isn’t “necessary.”

The last example is not small.  We have a recognized and bemoaned epidemic of obesity in our nation, especially among our children and younger adults.  Why?  Because their diet habits have changed and their exercise habits have changed.  And why is that?  Because they have succumbed to the marketing wiles of McDonalds and makers of soft drinks and all the other unhealthy, fattening junk food that they eat.  They could easily have a healthier diet (note I didn’t say “healthy”) like kids used to.  And because their days are now spent in front of a variety of electronic gadgets ... TV, video games, and computers ... which they have been sold as being “cool.”  The exercise that children used to get outdoors is mostly a thing of the past.

The reader will in all likelihood now understandably say that what I’m advocating would cause the downfall of our economy and bring about much human misery.  Ah, but not if we turn from a consumer-driven economy to an infrastructure-driven economy as I suggested in an earlier post (“Strengthening America by Changing from a Consumer Economy to a Nation-Building Economy,” November 4, 2011).  In such an economy there would be ample work but money would be redirected and spent not on unnecessary fluff but on things that were critical to the ongoing health and strength of our country and indirectly our standard of living.

If we want to be truly free to do what is best for us ... not for corporate America, if we want to be strong and healthy, we must first recognize that we have become enslaved to the powers of corporate America and we must then demand a change in the status quo.  Just as Gandhi led the people of India to not cooperate with their British overlords, just as Martin Luther King led African-Americans to not cooperate in their own oppression by white America, so too Americans of all walks of life must gather and protest against the oppressive power that corporations have gained over all aspects of American life, including politics.

The future is ours to determine ... this is a democracy ... but only if we take our rights and our role seriously and demand change.