As a student, I have come to understand that freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants or the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. Right to act, speak or to think as one wants is considered freedom, where every individual needs it. Nonetheless I found out the above understanding of my reading rude and incomplete. At the same time after having read Andrew Heywood work I found freedom having its own kind of branches. The most challenging question about freedom from the book is, “Is freedom, for instance, an unconditional good, or does it have costs or drawbacks?” so after reading the book I have tried to create my own reflective answer on that.
Freedom can be kept to certain level by maintaining laws, excessive freedom will lead to chaos which becomes the drawback of it and insufficient freedom will be obstacle to freedom which gives blur image on human rights. I suggest it to be in the medium state which is neither too excessive nor too insufficient thus creating harmony, giving the positive definition on freedom. The other ideas that I got from the reading are my own understanding over the book, however, from the knowledge I acquired from this reading, I will try to push up my reflection on the concept of liberty, positive freedom, and negative freedom.
Let us start with what I found the most eye catching one, Andrew Heywood claims license means the abuse of freedom. It is the point at which freedom becomes ‘excessive’. Whereas liberty is usually thought to be wholesome, desirable and morally enlightening, license is oppressive, objectionable and morally corrupts (Heywood, 2004). Here along with it I also found freedom having similar aspects as Bhutanese laws. All Bhutanese live under liberty and they know excessive freedom will lead to license. In here we have human rights which are liberty; it’s on our hand to choose the right leader. Here let me show you another one, their id deep ideological controversy about the point at which liberty starts to become license. (Heywood 2004).
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This here tells that there is no scale in measuring the exact point where liberty changes to license. Gross national happiness faces a big obstacle with this point of Heywood; it is the type of a drawback to it. As we cannot predict how much liberty/freedom should be provided to the citizens. Achieving Gross national happiness (100% of happiness for the Bhutanese citizens) sounds absurd. Liberal writers use the terms ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ synonymously. (Gauba, 2009). All this provides the idea on freedom and to which extend we can define and understand the word ‘freedom’.
In contrast, here I found out two types of freedom, negative and positive freedom which in I’m of complete agreement with it. Negative freedom is ‘an area within which a man can act unobstructed by others; freedom therefore consists of a realm of unimpeded action (cited by Isaiah Berlin). I agree it is termed as negative freedom as it does not has any obstruction thus concluding that negative freedom is related to license. However I cannot deny that negative freedom have clear moral and ideological implication.
Applying to this if freedom means to have no extended or absence of external constraints than law should be placed to constraint individuals and groups because, through the threat of punishment, it forces them to obey and to conform. When we stretch the extend of freedom we need to remind our self to protect the other person freedom, as freedom in negative terms is the absence of external interference , links freedom very closely to the idea of privacy. Freedom can be negative because it has its own reason for it, like wise negative freedom has its own moral reason behind it. The best example I can provide you for better understanding is writing a book without any obstructions and external interference.
Coming to positive freedom such as freedom from fear and freedom from want, symbolize the positive aspect of liberty. They call for a positive role of the state that is to remove certain impediments in the way of the individual in exercising his freedom. (Gauba, 2009). Such freedom contributes to the positive aspects of the concept of liberty. This type of freedom is must for every nation. Positive freedom talks about realizing our self and changing our self from the realization which is also the inner freedom. Freedom is the sense is positive when it is based upon satisfying our own wants and for the fulfillment of needs. For Berlin positive freedom consists of ‘being one’s own master (Heywood, 2004). This point clearly denotes us that positive freedom is about making a guess about our self and improving the wrong steps we have already taken. However negative freedom and positive freedom does not go part instead they are complementary to each other.
All this above are my own understanding from my readings and I’m very thankful for it. All this sums up to one that how one can define language and interpret it with her readings. The concept of liberty, negative freedom and positive freedom should add one the knowledge on us thus we can understand the term ‘freedom’ from our own lenses. Relating it to our country and trying to find out what actually freedom is. The books with full knowledge helped me getting a clear image on freedom and I feel it is helpful in making better notion on the word freedom.
Freedom must not be neither excessive and nor too insufficient for the good kind of freedom. Increasing it may lead to chaos and insufficiency might lead to revolt. License which has no obstruction and liberty with obstruction provides us with ideas of how freedom can be explored. We may never know at which point liberty changes to license, however by learning through readings of great writers we can at least try to understand it and make better choice in defining freedom. And over all this assignment has been a great for my knowledge as I can now interpret freedom in better ways and I can help those having blur image about freed.
Reference
- Heywood, A. (2004), Political theory (4th ed).
- Gauba, O.P (2009), Political theory: An introduction (5th ed).
