Freedom is the ultimate goal of the human soul— to break the bonds that bind us and reach our truest potential. Freedom stands in proud resolution against tyranny and “evil” and is idealized, especially in American society. But this directly conflicts with a biological fact: humans are pack animals that evolved to build communities for greater survival. How can individuals truly be free while the competing interests of others, and the community at large, are intersecting them at every turn?
In the rugged individualism of the American mythos, “freedom” is the highest virtue, with its proponents often pushing forward concepts like “meritocracy” and “the American dream.” If you work hard enough, they say, you can change your circumstances. In this conceptualization, everything exists on an even plane, with everyone having access to the means and resources necessary to succeed. While the dismissal of this fantasy is an important discussion to have, today we are examining one specific subset of this concept: “I’m free to my opinion.”
Community functions through its roles. Think of a bee hive, where each worker bee buzzes around pollenating flowers, making honey, and serving their queen. While they are the backbone of the hive, the queen has her role as well: supporting the healthy production of the hive. Human society is not so different. Some work in offices, some take care of our health some create art. All, theoretically, to the improvement of the species and of society as a whole.
This role-based society, then, gives rise to necessary stratification. Not in material goods, basic needs and class (that stratification is unnecessary), but in knowledge. There are so many types of knowledge that it is not possible for one person to be the All-Expert; think of plumbers and electricians, lawyers, doctors, teachers, academics in all fields, or military generals and athletes. Each of these roles requires a specialized field of knowledge. Society demands these roles be filled, and filled they are, in many cases by people who have such distilled expertise that it’s hard to comprehend for a layperson.
In an idealized world, this is not only necessary but good; it’s a demonstration of freedom. We self-determine the roles for which we are best suited and which we would most enjoy filling. From there, we study and learn and practice until we become a trusted expert, going into the world and doing that for which we trained.
In the real world, though, here is where the conflict arises: trust of experts holds society together, from farmers and mechanics to lawyers and doctors. The very nature of this stratification, though, challenges the imagined even plane of individualism. To defend the dogged attachment to “freedom,” then, we retreat and hide behind the phrase “I’m entitled to my opinion.” We do this even in the face of trained experts, whose knowledge we likely will never be able to understand.
Does this mean to mindlessly accept everything a so-called expert claims? No. But someone who studied virology for 10 years at a university level likely knows more about vaccination than you and me. A frame-shift must occur where we acknowledge both things: on one side, societal function as a result of specialization stratification, and on the other, the freedom to question with boldness. Otherwise, we are retreating to a place where ignorance is given equal credence to knowledge, harming ourselves and our community. As Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations: “if it is bad for the hive, it is bad for the bee.”
Edited by Jeremy Harr and Abigail McKay Cherry