Going analog

This isn't going to be the first time in my life that I decide to buck a popular trend, but I want to say something about the analog part of our lives. The focus of the last couple of posts has been "equality" and in the last one I specifically maintained that it is, in fact, a digital notion: equal is equal, or weren't not talking equal; it is or it isn't. I can't emphasize enough how important this notion is, nor can I stress how important it is that every single one of us come to terms with what we think about the concept and how we are going to deal with it. It's essential, if not existential.

Like all good concepts, however, it is, and should be, often paired with another idea, for one because they are in a sense interdependent, but they are to a large extent co-dependent as well. And if usually the case when we get to such fundamental notions, one of them is digital (equality), but the other is analog (freedom). I know, I know, I can hear you all grumbling already, but suspend your disbelief for just a minute and think about this:

Complete and utter freedom is an illusion. We can't (and shouldn't) just do anything we please whenever we want: yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater, taking your neighbors new car for a joy ride, walking into any given woods and just cutting down your next Christmas tree, just to name a few (granted, innocuous) examples.

On the other hand, our thoughts are often free, or as free as we would like them to be. We can imagine just about whatever we want to whenever we want to (though I'd appreciate it greatly if you wouldn't do so while driving). In other words, we exist somewhere between complete and limited freedom, and it is therefore not unreasonable to conceive "freedom" as a continuum, one that crosses mere physical boundaries but which extends from absolutely none to an idealized, unbounded limitlessness. This is what makes "freedom" analog.

It is for this reason that I believe it is a bit more difficult to really grasp the notion. What is "freedom"? What does it mean "to be free"? Yes, what?

Leaving digital mode

It will have occurred, even to the casual observer, that, besides trying to keep things closer to home, our generally accepted ideas of "equality" are ultimately intertwined with other notions, like "responsibility", which, truth be told, are not always applied in a consistent way. This isn't without it problems, for it does create – within us, and around us – an air of uncertainty and confusion that most of us, quite honestly, would much rather not have to deal with. The problem is, we can try to ignore it, but it won't go away.

What I like about the notion of "equality" the most is that it is, to phrase it in modern terms, a digital concept. In the sense that we've been using it here, in particular, either the other person is your equal or not. This, of course, has nothing to with whether s/he is smarter than you or whether you can run faster or whether s/he has been successful with her latest diet and you haven't. That's not what I'm talking about at all. It is – or at least should be – clear to everyone that everyone is in some way unique, that is, different from everybody else. Even identical twins are not 100% identical. What we need to keep in mind is that being different has nothing to do with being better or worse (which is how we tend to frame "equality". What is different is, well, just different, no more, no less.

If you have to (or if you feel the need to) qualify the term in any way, then we're not talking about the same thing. To me, for example, I take (almost all of) Mr. Jefferson's words literally, and as I believe deep in his heart he intended, that all [human beings ... not just literally "men"] are created equal. Granted, it took lots of folks well over a hundred years to "get it", and some haven't got it yet, and while that may be reason to give up hope, I'm not quite that far yet, but that's another story.

It's just one of those things: it is, or it isn't; we are, or we aren't. If we aren't, of course, everything I've been saying up until now is pretty much out the window. There are some ideas we just need to take seriously, whether we like it or not.