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136, choice is an illusion. In reality, our lives are controlled by the society in which we live.
Whether the choice and individual responsibility are merely illusions or meaningful to people’s life lies as a controversy among the issues of modernity. It is true that in many cases one’s life is determined by other forces from the circumstances than individuality, yet, by self-consciousness and subjectivity and other human abilities, individuals can be independent to some degree from the society and other outside forces, and correspondingly control their life by making their own choice and be responsible for their actions.
Admittedly, individual life is considered to be controlled by social forces especially in modern times, though in modernity the individuality is a dominant concept. The conditions “we are thrown into”, as Heidegger infers, have been established long before we become aware of them, and in many situations, it is difficult to be aware of the fact that the social circumstances place huge impact on us and even to change the circumstances. A person grows up, goes to university, and begins professional life, seemingly due to the choices she makes by her own. But this is a fiction. She grows up under the influences from her family, community and nationality, and the decisions of choosing colleges and jobs are largely limited in the scale of her social class, backgrounds and identities. Hence, the modern society that stresses the freedom and responsibility of individuals is actually controlled the life of people while providing them the illusion of choice.
Moreover, the tendency of “the fear of freedom”, discovered by psychologist Fromm, is also widespread in modern life. Many people, though claiming that they are self-reliable, try subconsciously to escape from the freedom of choice and responsibility. Unwilling to take responsibility, they believe that the outside world is much powerful, the future is unknowable, as a result of the changeful overwhelming modern complexity, and resort to the social forces to control their life and accept the arrangement of “fate” and “destiny”. The examples of this kind of people are everywhere in reality. They prefer absence of choice, and, as a movie says, they “choose the life of no choice”. Accordingly, the society in which people live acts a more significant role to govern and dominate their life.
However, the life determined by social forces, as Plato indicates, is the life of “a blind one living in cave”, which is common yet not desirable. Numerous thinkers of Western culture tradition hold the faith that the individual, by reaching self-consciousness, can be the true owner of her life. Self-consciousness distinguishes humans from animals controlled by outside drives. With it, human individuals become able to choose, to change, to make things different, and this ability, as a meaningful force of humanity, should not be under-evaluated. Almost all the progresses of humans are attributable to this ability, and the individual accomplishments large due to it. For example, Socrates made decision not to escape from the unfair death sentence placed on him in order to shoulder the responsibility as a citizen and to fulfill his ideas, in which hardly can it be concluded that taking responsibility for one’s 0wn life is illusory, and, this choice have showed the truly profound value of individual independence and responsibility.
Further, to search, know and understand the inside “ego” and outside reality is the excluded ability and right of humans, in which lies the self-affirmation. Though it is difficult to live this way, it is favorable at least spiritually. Similarly, though the conditions individuals live in are preexistent, individuals can try to be aware of them thereby arriving at the independence of choice to some extent. Even when in the circumstances you can not change, your choice can be meaningful. Many Jew intellectuals put into prison by Nazi wrote down the words saying that in prison you can also choose to live seriously and positively, you can also live responsible life with human faith, because the self-consciousness is the path to self-affirmation, in which the personal responsibility become possible.
Finally, this self-affirmation, if achieved through self-consciousness, can not only put individual responsibility and the true freedom to live into reality, but urge the individual to make their decisions according to the circumstances, and make efforts to turn these circumstances into better ones as well. Many illuminating examples have illustrated that one can change her fate and exceed the limitation and arrangement made by the society she lives in. Numerous African American strike for human rights and make efforts for individual success, and it is proved that they change their conditions and even history. Human individuals, thus, are creators of history in many situations, not only the slaves of the reality.
To summarize, there exists two categories of individual tendencies: the individuals of subjectivity and the individuals of passivity. The latter tendency indicates the truth that individuals are large limited and dominated by other forces than themselves, yet the former tendency reinforce the human dignity and prove that choice is not necessarily a illusion and the individual responsibility can be reached and act as a major force of both humanity and individual life. |
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