WORKSHOP ON
FREEDOM IN CULTURES:
EXPLORING SOURCES OF INTIMATE SPACE OF FREEDOM
MARCH, 2011
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
SREE SANKARACHARYA UNIVERSITY OF SANSKRIT
KALADY, KERALA- 683574
Scholars/practitioners are invited to participate in the two-day National level workshop on the above topic. This is being conducted as the sixth in the workshop-series on “Thinking and the People: Creativity of Expression and Communication”, which meant for exploring the question to what extent our intellectual practices are in conversant with life situations of people. Conceiving freedom being one of the major intellectual engagements of people everywhere, it would be appropriate to estimate its creativity in terms of mode of correlation with the collectivity in which one lives. The question of creative articulation of freedom/liberation, thus, seems to be coming around the larger question of specificity of thinking. What can be termed as ‘territoriality of thinking’ could be the theoretical issue that comes along. The present concerns such as ‘freedom in cultures’, and ‘intimate space of freedom’ can be taken as different ways of posing the problem of territoriality of freedom, (‘cultural territoriality’ to be more precise). The issue may be take up for the debate theoretically as well as at the level of history/experience.
We expect a well focused engagement with the issues raised in the theme-note. The interested participants/contributors are requested to send a brief note by way of their take on the topic.
P.K.Sasidharan
Co-ordinator.
Kalady, Email: pksasidharan4@gmail.com
23.02.2011. www.intimatespaceoffreedom.blogspot.com
Ph: 09447262817
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Theme-note for the workshop
FREEDOM IN CULTURES:
EXPLORING SOURCES OF INTIMATE SPACE OF FREEDOM
The ways of conceiving the situation that can be designated by the term ‘freedom’ may find varying from culture to culture. Within a particular culture itself it will be perceived and treated differently in relation to contexts, groups, persons or agents. Despite the claim that the ideology of ‘liberty’ or ‘freedom’ as such is a modern western phenomenon, the human quest for freedom and its articulations are not at all unknown to previous histories and other cultures and civilizations. Theoretical articulations on rational knowledge of truth or ultimate reality that have been made in the eastern and western philosophical traditions can also be seen as implying formulations of freedom in the mode of moral reasoning. Most of the systematic articulations on freedom have been, either directly or implicatively, bent on establishing an equation between knowledge and liberation. The modern ideology of freedom has its ideal slogan ‘liberty, equality, and freedom’. However, there have been many other non-theoretical modes of aspirations and realizations of freedom. The lived modes of freedom may not be having any articulated form of conceptual category, rather than being ex-pressions of life experience. If different socio-cultural ex-pressions are bearing the marks of assertions of living in their respective contexts, they would be implying specific insights of freedom; even though they do not carry any term or idea equivalent to freedom. In order to draw potential notions of freedom from the cultural sources of lived or experienced modes freedom, it requires formulating a different perspective or framework of freedom in contrast to the prevailing libertarian concept.
An examination of the conceptual cognates and derivatives of freedom either from within a specific culture or from across the cultures, would reveal a contrasting picture in which people make sense what is felt to have a value of freedom for them. It seems there has never been an equality or unity of sense in which freedom-value is apprehended or conveyed either in common parlances or through practical deeds. What is conceived as the case of freedom in one culture need not be a case that is on par with the ideal of freedom in another culture. Similarly, the perception on the value of freedom in one context may not be the same for another context. Two quite opposite situations would be treated as having freedom-value by different people. For instance, there might be having some state of affairs (actions and attitudes) that are considered to be irrational and superstitious from the point of modern science, provide liberative values for certain people. Whereas, there would be some others who consider those actions that spring from feelings, apprehensions, impressions, ignorance, etc lead to defilements that hinder the realization of freedom and progress. Similarly, it might happen to be contradictory terms in the case of attitude towards what is perceived to be the situation of bondage and liberation
An idea of conceptual spatiality of freedom seems to be helpful in exploring what constitutes freedom in a specific context of experience modes of freedom. The constitutive spatiality of the situation of freedom has historical and cultural bearings. Spatiality of freedom is also a relative situation in the sense that it can be located in relation to the variable for spatiality of un-freedom. Spatiality of ‘un-freedom’ may also thus become part of the conceptual spatiality of freedom. This is to assert the importance of spatiality of both freedom and un-freedom for the purpose of making any account of them. Spatiality is both constitutive and creative (effective) dimensions of feedom-sistuation. The nature and specificity of freedom are to be examined by considering the space from which the situation springs and the space (terrain) that it creates. The space that a situation brings in has potential or capability of providing the benefits that a freedom-moment is supposed to create becomes the vital question here. A creative space of freedom needs to be free from encroachment to another space of freedom on the basis of very term that a space becomes creative space only when it is free from the encroachment by another space.
Given the above framework, an exploration on the sources of what is termed here as ‘intimate space of freedom’ would be amounting to a critique of the libertarian conception of freedom which keeps prevailing in shaping the state of affairs at the individual and societal levels in the present day world. The invoking of a notion of intimate space of freedom stems from the consideration of the freedom-value involved in the cultural modes of living free. Since the experienced modes of freedom is largely a terrain of beliefs and knowledge practices which are expressed through non-conceptual, non-literary, and non-theoretical means, it will be in appropriate to fathom their freedom-value from the conceptual matrix of libertarian freedom. Therefore it calls forth a broadening and contextualizing the conceptual ambience of the idea of freedom by way of acknowledging the spatial dimension as its constitutive structure. The libertarian conception of freedom, as an absolutist formulation, is devoid of any bearing on socio-cultural context in which an agent is having the effects of freedom-value. Instead, its appeal is for liberty or ability to free action in abstraction as opposed to the condition of being in the position of any kind constraints or bondage. It might preclude the possibility of any kind of bondage becomes a variable of freedom in its conceptual ambiance. Whereas, when we consider spatiality, intimacy, etc as variables of freedom, the contradictory or anti-thetical situations like controls, discipline, obedience, provinciality, bondage, and solidarity will have the signature of freedom.
As per the libertarian notion, capability of opting to do what one wants to do is considered as the situation of freedom. Optionality (ability to opt from the alternatives) as a standard of the libertarian conception of freedom refers to those formulations by which we understand freedom as a condition of being free from the situations of ‘bondage’, ‘constraint’, ‘dependency’, etc. Freedom is a capacity to opt from the alternatives. However, what is reconceived to be the experienced mode of freedom cannot be construed in the sense of ability to choose from the alternatives. In the libertarian conceptions, freedom is conceived as an open-ended optionality of alternative actions by agents, which do not make any commitment to the consequent welfare either of the individuals or society. The qualities such as goodness and badness of actions that ensue from the state of freedom of individuals and community are not determined by themselves, but only on the basis of their potentials to realise specific state of being as the state of well being.
Since the libertarian freedom is carrying an idea of being free from the condition of bondage, it might appear to be contradictory if freedom is re-conceived as a condition involving some sort of bondage. However, if we go by the freedom-ethos by people of different cultures and contexts, it seems to be feasible for reformulating the very notion of freedom from the perspective of an intimate dependency (intimate bondage or solidarity). This would enable the broadening of conceptual ambiance to accommodate those, rather antithetical, notions such as dependency, bondage, solidarity, etc. Despite the apparent logical contradiction of this situation, what becomes matter here is to go by the value orientations of the experienced mode of freedom.
There are innumerable practical values of living which would be requiring sustain the creativity of living. They are such as care, support, collectivity, sociality, physical capability, intellectual competency, self-reliance, friendship, fellowship, companionship, belongingness, co-operation, sharing, coexistence, cohabitation. They might form source basis for the well being (welfare) of individual as well as the society. These values rather signify the modes through which freedom is actualized in the everyday life. However, their actualization is not found to be as easy as it seems to be. They become under pressure due to the wielding of various kinds of ideological and power structures in society and their strain lead to estrangement of interpersonal relationship among human beings. Therefore, any act of freedom has to be burdened with their defence at the immediate context of their occurrence. It is in view of the preoccupation with the immediate context of well being that a reorientation in the engagement with the idea of freedom becomes pertinent. So the engagements with of those practical values of life seem to be demarcating the sense in which the notion of intimate freedom is invoked here in terms of its antithetical notions like dependency, or solidarity. Freedom, thus, understood as the category for intimate space of interpersonal relationship has its orientation towards the specific values of well being. And so the consideration of or engagement with the spatiality of freedom and un-freedom seems to determine the priority basis of free actions.
The emphasis upon the intimate space of interpersonal relationship or collective forms of living, and the prevailing idea of freedom as the condition of absence of any sort of constraints might seems to be moving in opposite directs. The consideration of spatial dimension of living becomes relevant in view of the relativity that pervades in the conditions as well as possibilities of the ideal of well being. Therefore the notion of freedom has to be viewed in terms of the immediate conditions of well being of the society and individual. Freedom signified by the interpersonal relationship, thus, has a specific reference to the cultural and community basis that is required for the actualisation and sustenance of the well being. The cultural and community contexts of freedom can better be construed as the immediate or intimate space, which forms the physical or constitutive structure of the situation of freedom.
The condition of freedom, which is understood as the intimate space of interpersonal relationship amounts to become a welfare perspective. What is taken to be the intimate space of solidarity is seen to be as a concern of the well being of the other. It is found to have structured in the many of the welfare practices in different cultures. Consideration for an intimate space of freedom propels from the socio-cultural situation that has been emerged in the exigency of the contemporary world structured by the political process of globalization. As the challenge posed by the ideological and political processes of globalization is so pervasive and subtle, it becomes an imperative to have a counter perspective, which should be comprehensive enough to understand and encounter the disguised structures of control and domination.
The sterility of the formal or abstract structures of solidarity is often found creating conceptual blockades in the direction of creating dynamic and sustainable sources of freedom. The narrow and exclusive frameworks are also found appearing in the liberal or radical guise, and create unbridgeable rupture with the sources of freedom, which are otherwise lying open at the easy access. It leads to a failure in the critical engagement with the structures of power, which are relentless on disturbing the intimate sources of subsistence of people all over the world. The ever-widening threat to the survival of intimate space of freedom at the behest of lofty ideals of globalisation is taken to be the preoccupation of the present exploration. The formalised counter discourse of power in terms of abstract or distant realities and notions has the consequences of the dilution, disintegration, weakening of, and the loss of hope for the resistance of people against all hues of power and control. Therefore, instead of being apologist of power within the block of the struggle for survival, one might be able to pin hopes on little or local level utopias of freedom, if not a global resistance to globalisation. Yet again, there is likely to have lines or threads of affinities, which could link different forms of intimate domains of solidarity and resistance
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