THE PARADOX OF FREEDOM

Humans since they acquired a rational thinking, especially during fifth century BC, started thinking about freedom and individual should be granted when a member of a social setup. It was not an eerie problem to solve. Humans at least for 20 thousand years has been under the iron grip of a strong, wile and merciless ruler. Under that setup the concept of freedom remained an undreamed dream. The arch ruler and his cohorts had all the freedom to do whatever they wanted to do,suppress and kill subjects, use them in a arbitrary manner. However in spite of all these kinds of oppression, the human mind, it seems, always thinking about a sense of freedom, a kind of desire to enjoy life in a manner which pleased them. It is not easy to unravel what actually was happening before the concept of freedom started jelling. We know that since at least thirty to forty thousand years before man was involved in constructing a magical world, where perhaps the mind was as free as the waves in a simmering sea. This world we call the mythic or mythological world. Of course this world depicted some aspects of the world in which ancient man lived. Still the characters who resided there were to a large extant free. In this world of course fate played a leading role. However if we look closely the fate at least to some extant followed the wishes of the resident characters.

If we try to fathom the concepts which arose out of the magical mythological world and in a manner superimposed themselves on the thinking of those who were endeavouring to attempt to impose some of the ideas of freedom on the real world of social setup. It was not an easy task; it was really a task full of unprecedented hazards. Religious leaders, thinkers, activists and many others participated in this venture. Simultaneously the ideas of freedom co mingled with the attempts to understand the role played by the the creator o the world and the obligation necessary for humans to bow before this supreme authority. This intermingling has proved both beneficial and harmful or the concepts of freedom to originate, evolve and develop. Semitic religions have been rather strict in imposing restrictions on freedom, which was thought to be a bit wayward.

If we look at these Semitic religions in terms of the evolution of freedom we find that the heavy hand of God often plays a rather restricting influence. It could be seen that what was thought by fifth century Greek philosophers, by Buddha and by Confucius were rather disliked by the proponents of Semitic religions. Islam, for example, gave rather broad field for freedom to play its role, but at the same time it kept the ball inside the area and instituted a number of laws to let not the ball go out o the restricted arena.

In 16th century when in Europe the enlightenment movement came into fore, it tried to restrict the influence of religious values on society we came to look at the world to be divided into religious and secular hemispheres. In the secular world, it was propagated that human freedom should not be restricted by religious canons a society should construct its secular laws for the benefit of the citizens which would allow them to enjoy pleasure, to seek virtue and to acquire knowledge.