Chapter 1: Freedom

Answer. Through the chapter, the author explores the concept of freedom. G.B. Shaw highlights the fact that no person can ever be free throughout life. The first type of slavery of man to Nature is essential in every human being. Man’s slavery to Nature is always joyous. A person feels happy in fulfilling his natural needs. However, we end up becoming slaves to our instincts of cleanliness, sleep, hunger, dressing up, etc. all these natural duties are a part of every individual’s daily life. However, the second type of slavery is man to man, which is unnatural. It becomes worse both physically and spiritually. It is the type of slavery where the upper hand gets favourable results, whereas hard labour yields nothing. The standard of a person is distinguished among humans. Hence, the slavery of a man to Nature gives us comfort and joy and slavery of a man to man is hatred. It creates class wars between the poor and the rich, workers and businesspeople. Ultimately, there can be no peace as long as this type of slavery exists.

Answer. Nature always has some amount of control over every living being. Being part of Nature itself, human beings cannot escape from the responsibilities Nature bestows on us. In the first type of slavery, the essential habits of every human, like eating, drinking, sleeping etc., are all a part of Nature’s control over us. It is physically impossible to escape these duties as we are all slaves to Nature.

However, in the second type of slavery, man-to-man slavery, the work pressure is given from person to person or any external force. It’s our call whether to continue or to avoid that person’s instructions. Hence, we can choose whether to follow a leader or not based on our circumstances in the broader political sphere. However, in the personal sphere, we are all slaves to Nature and cannot choose when complying with its orders. Hence, people are subjected to greater control in their personal sphere than in the wider political sphere.

Answer. The author has brought to light a few major misconceptions about freedom in this chapter. Firstly, the author puts out a general question, “What is a perfectly free person?”. According to him, no person is free throughout their life. They are either controlled by Nature or by another man. Thus, the author here debunks the first misconception that an individual can be completely free. Secondly, the author talks about democracy and the freedom it holds. Although freedom is an essential aspect of democracy, leaders tend to change the rules according to their needs. For example, the freedom to select between candidates is not a choice because whoever is already chosen would be from a powerful position controlled by the rich, who would work according to the wishes of the ruling class. Therefore, it would not benefit ordinary people in any way. Thus, the author debunked the concept of freedom in democracy as fake.

Answer. J. Krishnamurti believed that discipline and freedom are contradictory to one another. Disciplines are a set of rules to be followed with certain morals. When bound by such laws and regulations, people cannot achieve their required freedom. No individual can question the rules; hence there cannot be any intellectual development or free-thinking, and thus, one can never achieve true freedom. We become self-controlled and cannot be in a stage to help other struggling individuals. Ordinary people do not have any right to question or follow the traditional rules blindly, and there would not be any developmental growth, resulting in a loss of freedom. Thus, the concepts of freedom and discipline contradict each other.

Answer. Questioning or inquiring about the current set of laws and regulations imposed upon us will help develop other aspects and lead to the development of our intellectual society. The process of inquiry leads to absolute freedom, which makes us think deeply and discover what is true and false. Hence, we would grow stronger mentally and gain more knowledge than we could have received when rules bind us. So, the author tries to tell us that instead of blindly following the rules, we must inquire about the traditional significance to have a more comprehensive understanding of their importance. Thus, we can secure several perspectives and develop our minds, leading us to true freedom.