Philosophers, especially the existentialist kind, come up with some really crazy notions, don’t they?  Being and thinking . . . being and believing . . . being and non-being . . . skepticism and faith . . . freedom and lack of freedom . . . . the meaning of existence paired with philosophical “-isms” of every shade and hue . . . where will it ever end?

SELF:

When I was younger and first met philosophers who suggested that a person could be trapped inside a mental cage of his own making, it struck me as more humorous than profound.  “Psychological twaddle!” I scoffed.  But, with the passing of the years, a new and different kind of reflective perspective has slowly emerged . . .

ESSAY:

“He has been given more potential, but he has not been given more opportunity.  He has been given an awareness of the world that is out there, but he has not been given the means to reach it.”  (Trevor Noah, Born A Crime)

It seems to me that many of us may be living in cages, though often unaware of same.  No, I do not necessarily mean the cages of iron and steel—the jail cell. It would be unfair to imprisoned humanity (whether guilty, innocent, or political prisoner) to compare the lot of free humans with theirs.

So long as a person can get up in the morning and choose where to go, in any direction and for any distance, we must recognize that at least this one basic element of “freedom” is always ours.

Nevertheless, even regular law-abiding persons have sometimes seen themselves as lacking true freedom.  Why?  It is primarily due to their lives being circumscribed by circumstance and custom, by economic necessity and social rigidity.  These social forces place limits on their freedom.

They may feel trapped by cultural tradition and happenstance of birth, by duty and narrowness of choice.  The “freedom to do anything” means little if one’s life is perpetually defined by rules and requirements not of one’s own making.

THE PLIGHT OF WOMEN

Take the lives of American women prior to 1850 and the birth of their struggle for equality with men.  Before their eventual victories, women lacked the right to vote and the right to own property.  Even the institutions of higher education would not open their doors to them since their “feminine nature” was seen as unfit for the rigors of such “higher” academic challenges.  Were they free?

Their opportunities to work outside of the home were severely limited, particularly in areas that called for a college education or special skills: careers such as teacher, nurse, doctor, lawyer, engineer, and scientist.  A few began the long and lonely effort to climb over the barriers into each of these professions, but widespread opportunities for women as a class remained far in the future.

Physical labor was another matter.  Women already had proven themselves capable of both strength and stamina while doing domestic chores (running a household).  In addition, they had performed well the various forms of hard labor found on farms and ranches, but usually in their capacity as housewife farm-wife, and they were not paid as a man would be paid who worked for his hire.  Working class women—such as the Lowell textile mill girls—rapidly appeared with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, of course, but they too had considerable limitations placed upon them, both legal and cultural.

The mill girls were working, yes, but they still faced the double burden of class exploitation and gender discrimination.  The lives of many working-class women were closer to the second class status of “colored minorities” than it was to the power and privilege of most white males.  The details of their personal situations varied widely, of course, but suffice it to say most women in the mid-1800’s did not yet enjoy full legal and social equality with men.

Even women born in the United States seemed to lack the full rights and protections of American citizenship offered men.  In short, women still faced legal and social discrimination.  The first term—legal—refers to what the law would allow or not allow; women could not vote, women could not own property, women could not hold office, and so forth: the list is a long one.  The second term—social—refers to “customs” that often curtailed a woman’s freedom of choice as effectively as though they were carved in stone, even when no actual legal proscription existed.

For example, while this may seem quite mild, even trivial by today’s standards, it was once commonly understood that women should not speak in public before a mixed audience.  This involved an “understanding” that was sustained by social custom more so than by any law, yet it had sufficient strength to rise to the level of a “taboo”!

That first generation of brave women who spoke out against slavery and in favor of equal rights for women had to overcome this odd “cultural norm” with courage and persistence, since they “shouldn’t” be speaking at all to an audience of both men and women!

That might seem ridiculous to us today but it certainly was no laughing matter back then—as witnessed by the prolonged effort it took to batter down this relatively petty yet entrenched social custom.  For women who finally did enter the work-force, they typically were paid far less than men.

Moreover, their salaries in many instances were paid directly to the husband and not to them: they, the very wage-earners who had earned the salary!  All these laws and cultural customs favored men to a marked degree and constantly reinforced chauvinistic notions of male supremacy.

Nor should we overlook the considerable amount of emotional, psychological, and physical abuse women suffered at the hands of brutish men, when they had little recourse to any legal means by which to stop or punish such abuse.

The list can be extended but inasmuch as this essay is not about women’s rights but about “freedom”, it is necessary for the author to return to his main theme–albeit with one or two final thoughts regarding marriage: did this mean that couples in the nineteenth century never married for love, that happy marriages were impossible?

Nothing of the kind!  Naturally occurring romance has always been with us; loving men and women have a magnetic way of finding one another no matter how high the mountain of obstacles placed in their way.  We do not wish to emphasize gender discrimination to such an extent as to negate women’s own sense of personal integrity and independence of character.  There still existed some fair measure of freedom of choice even when discussing a historical time period when so many basic rights were not yet “born”, let alone fully recognized.

We do not wish to be accused of underestimating the freedom, independence, character, and achievements of so many countless thousands of women who managed to create remarkable lives for themselves and their families, despite being born in an era when their opportunities for full expression of their personality and talent were greatly curtailed.  Love and intimacy have a way of “breaking out” and finding effective forms of expression even during the least auspicious of times.

We dishonor women who were once forced to endure second-class citizenship if we suggest that none of them ever found ways to overcome social barriers or paths to personal happiness.  Brave women began exploring new ways to challenge their legal constraints while shaping the struggle for change: Susan B. Anthony did vote in 1872, after all! (She was convicted of voting “without a legal right to vote” and fined $100–but she resolved never to pay a penny of the fine and she never did!)

Just as there were black people who were actively anti-slavery while slavery yet existed, so too were there women who were actively seeking equality with men, even while mind-numbing inequalities pervaded the society into which they were born.  We’ve all heard the chauvinistic platitudes born of ignorance and bias: “A woman’s place is in the home”, “don’t worry your pretty little head about the details”, “women should not get mixed up in business or politics”, and other misogynistic idiocies of that ilk.

More crudely still, some men have said such things as a woman should be kept “barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen”—there are other sayings of like nature and a few even more vulgar; the general tenor of such remarks is too crude to need extensive cataloging in this essay.

WHAT IS A PRISON?

These issues may seem to have little in common with abstract notions of freedom and mental prisons of our own making.  Why choose the women’s movement for equal rights when discussing the philosopher’s notion of personal freedom and self-imposed cages for mind and spirit?

It resonates within us whenever we hear a speaker describing women as living in a kind of cage–the very house itself holding them in captivity.  They must endure endless domestic drudgery, amounting to domestic servitude, all the while lacking the basic freedoms they deserve as human beings and American citizens.

Work without pay, a life they cannot easily change or escape, opportunities for creative self-realization denied them: is that not a kind of prison?  Similar language can still be heard describing contemporary women, though most of the critique is associated with past inequalities.

The struggle for full social equality is never ever over, to be sure!  I use this example, therefore, to suggest a precedent for the idea that people can be “free” and yet “not free”.  They can exist in cages made of rules, taboos, and traditions–as women in the 19th century were imprisoned, once we examine the extent to which their freedom was restricted by law and custom.

Individuals today can be born into a world whereby “social custom” acts as the jailer in much the same way as legal restrictions once created a prison of barriers for women.  Peer pressure, the pressure to conform, and “group think” are all bars of that invisible prison.

The combination of legal barriers and discriminatory cultural norms can truly create a prison for minds and hearts.  Not all prisons are made of steel bars to keep physically incarcerated law-breaking prisoners (whether deservedly or mistakenly so imprisoned, we shall leave for wiser heads to decide).

The great pressure of social conformity among young people is a powerful force not to be underestimated.  I have in mind primarily children and teenagers but such pressure continues to exert a strong controlling influence on persons of any age, including adults.

Peer pressure, the pressure to conform, may not seem like a powerful controlling influence but too many tragic stories exist to prove its power–in many instances it can be as powerful as any regulation or overt form of legal control.

Certainly, this precept is not new.  To some persons it may appear a bit too “abstract”, an unnecessary metaphysical indulgence—in part perhaps because their way of thinking tends to be “black and white”: a person is either free or he isn’t and that’s all that matters insofar as any discussion of “cage” or “prison” need go.

Yet for others, the notion of individuals being ostensibly free, but still not able to enjoy a full and robust freedom, continues to intrigue and mystify us.  If we have neither the time nor opportunity to develop our talents to the fullest, how much is such a lifestyle unfettered?

How is it that “free human beings” can be considered less than “truly free”?  It can be found as a topic within religious and philosophical discourses as well as history, sociology, and psychology.  Can “bars” exist that are invisible and yet whose existence and influence are quite real, notwithstanding that “invisibility”?

I contend here merely that the answer is a resounding and unqualified “Yes!”  When Ralph Ellison wrote through the eyes of his protagonist, a black man, that “I am invisible” he knew whereof he spoke.

Such prisons do exist! And–for all we know–we ourselves may be among the most likely denizens to be found within them.  Are we free? Or are we prisoners living within invisible walls of our own making?  Who is to say?