By Uncle Sam
I will start by advising anyone who wants to make a living from any kind of writing to read and internalize J.B. Bury’s seminal work titled A History of the Freedom of Thought. Thinking is the most endangered activity of mankind; yet many lay heavy premium on the freedom and power of thoughts, maintaining that the world is dependent on thinking. They consider thinking to be the parent of inventions, of creativity and civilization. In the field of law, some jurists canvass the proposition that freedom of thought is the cornerstone of all the other freedoms.
I worry about these thoughts on thinking. What is a thought if not realized in an expressed belief? In other words, no matter the amount of thoughts you have, they are worthless until they are coalesced into an articulated belief – or beliefs. A belief in this sense denotes that thought that you believe in and want others to believe too.
Can a man ever be free to think as he wishes or as he is capable of thinking? In other words, is man’s freedom of thought not as dependent on his environment and society as all his other freedoms? Are societies, religions, customs and traditions, families, governments and all institutions and authorities of that ilk not capable of gagging the freedom of thought of the individual? Can a child born into a highly religious family safely tinker with the idea of questioning the relevance of religion in man’s relationship with his creator? If the individual is truly free to think as he wishes, why do certain types of religion dominate certain geographical areas? If freedom of thought is that free, why do states protect it through such instruments as constitutions?
Yes, one can think what one may; but as long as his or her thoughts are not expressed or communicated, the thoughts are unbounded and at large. But what is thought if it cannot be safely communicated or expressed in a manner that can conflict with the law or question family and/or societal values and beliefs? Why is the individual such a servant of customs and cultural prejudices, or why is it that difficult for the individual to create his or her own god or worship in his or her own way? Why must the freedom of thought be dependent on the freedoms of speech and expression for its value and relevance? Why should the individual be concerned about others in his communication of his or her thoughts if thoughts are free? Why is the history of the world principally about state carnage against the thoughts of individuals that betray the rejection of authority or generally held beliefs? Why were people like Jesus Christ, Galileo Galilei and Socrates executed?
Why do groups, societies and governments prefer – or feel safe – with the individual’s silence or concealment of his or her thoughts than they do with the expression of his or her adverse thoughts?
These questions and many more bring me to the question of what constitutes the mind of the individual – the brainbox of man’s thoughts? Unlike the question of what is on a man’s mind – which highlights Sigmund Freud’s theory that the greatest motivator in human beings – is not power, nor primary needs (food, etc.) but sex – this question seeks to know what the mind of the human being is made of and the origin of those constituents. For the origins, some psychologists have been tempted to conclude that the mind is born blank – like some clean slate or tabula rasa, according to Locke’s philosophy – and subsequently composed or constituted by experience or perception. This school of thought blames the failings of man mostly on his environment. Others insist that the mind comes with much organization prior to experience. A prominent member of this school is the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Car Jung, who submitted that:
In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.
My understanding of Jung’s thesis is that there is a segment of the mind that is not shaped by personal experience. That is, there is an inherited unconscious mind that is common to all human beings. Man does not, therefore, live by his personal individual consciousness alone. Along with his personal individual consciousness, the universal and impersonal collective unconscious in his psyche helps shape his conduct, manners, taboos, traditions, his value system, his sense of judgment and perception of what is right and wrong. In other words, every human being is born with some moral or judgmental residues. It is these ingrained moral residues, which have been transmitted from generations to generations that develop into customs and traditions.
Like any other one, Jung’s thesis is not without faults. For instance, there is no clear indication as to what extent the individual is trapped by the collective unconscious. Is the individual consciousness inseparably conjoined with the collective unconscious? If the collective unconscious has as much a hold on the individual as the personal conscious, then customs and traditions must have a permanent hold on the individual. But the reality is not the case. Customs and traditions are fast losing their grip on the individual. In fact, Western nations are promoting the individualization process of their citizens and nationals to a point of elevating individual choices and decisions over and above the collective interest. Some hitherto condemnable life patterns, behaviours and conducts are today protected and promoted under the umbrella of the duty of the state to protect the individual’s choices and ways of life. There is even the proposition that Western societies do not have cultures.
There is also the question of responsibility. Why should the individual bear the responsibility and consequences of his or her actions alone, if those actions are influenced by the collective unconscious? If the individual is a product of the society, then the society must be vicariously liable for the transgressions of the individual. There is also the question of whether or not a society can be immoral. Can we say that haters, tribalists, racists, bigots, nepotists, and people of their kind get their protection and are egged on by the collective unconscious or members of the societies with whom they share the same values? Are societal problematic phenomena, such as corruption and prostitution, pervasive and entrenched because they are not adjudged evil and destructive by the collective unconscious?
The snags in Jung’s theory may seem unending, but his proposition is not entirely worthless. Why, for instance, is Sierra Leone so rigidly divided along tribal and regional lines? Why are Sierra Leoneans sacrificing the positives and benefits of collectivity for tribal and regional rivalries? Why is the country finding it difficult to break the enslaving shackles of political recrimination? Is there something in the DNAs of Sierra Leoneans that denies them the ability to realise that until there is conscious leadership effort and political will to build a nation state out of this small and tersely populated country, Sierra Leone will never develop, and the people will forever remain in the dungeons of poverty? Why are Sierra Leoneans more loyal to their ethnic nationalities than they are to Sierra Leone? Is it that the individuals are incapable of freeing themselves from the tyranny of their respective collective unconscious minds?
We shall continue with this theme in our next outing with the National Question.
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