A few weeks ago, as I was sitting down with a couple of friends over a meal at Fieldhouse, the topic of anarchy came up. Anarchy is often considered, by its proponents, the truest form of freedom from systemic control. Though it does come pretty close, I suggested that true anarchy could only be achieved for a short amount of time before people eventually start organizing themselves into some sort of system of hierarchy. My friend countered that while that was true, at least people could choose what type of system they wanted. In the end, I do doubt that this would last. Someone would find a way to exploit whatever system was formed. We’d end up with corruption in the end. A utopia where perfect democracy, that directly serves and responds to all people in a society, likely won’t happen on this earth, at least not in this lifetime. It did get me thinking about true freedom, though.
It seems that today’s society is one that vigorously strives towards freedom, and it’s little wonder why: our society is riddled with extreme control; our institutions have become tools of modern day slavery on both a global, and to an extenent, local scale. Slavery is defined as “a person owned by someone” and slavery “is the state of being under the control of someone where a person is forced to work for another.” The form of slavery we’re under in the developed world is not one of physical ownership over our bodies; rather, it’s an ideological and financial slavery. Our debt owns us. The values of our society demand that we have to be producing something to be valuable members. We have to have a job and work for someone else or we cannot survive in our current economic system — even some small business owners who work for themselves are struggling to be financially free. Just look at downtown Abbotsford: how long do small businesses last before they go bankrupt?
We’ve become hostages to an extreme form of capitalism; specifically, one that follows a neoliberal ideology — one that emphasises a completely free-market with no regulation?. It defines people as consumers, insists that competition is inherent to human nature, encourages deregulation of the economy, and the privatization of industry. From a Marxist perspective, a form of exploitation results from the commodification of labour in free-market capitalism. Labour is the most valuable commodity. In Richard Peet and Elaine Hartwick’s book Theories of Development: Contentions, Arguments and Alternatives, they argue that “The apparent individuality, equality, and liberty proclaimed by the Enlightenment theorists disappeared in the production process.” That includes the buying and selling of labour as a commodity. Human beings have become the most essential tools in this form of capitalism.
Despite its name, it is difficult to be free within a society that is completely dominated by a free-market capitalist system. This was bringing me down, but as I was doing some reflecting and reading, it became clear to me that the current economic system thrives off of this feeling, and actually, my personal desire for freedom was mainly a need for mental freedom ?— in other words, I didn’t want to feel burdened by the system anymore. Many of us recognize the daunting and seemingly impossible task it would be to overhaul our economic system into one that works. It’s a lot to handle, understandably, and as a result, many of us are over-indulging in escapist coping mechanisms and cheap, easy gratification.
Desire chasing could be seen as a limitation to mental freedom. We desire feelings of acceptance and admiration from others. (This is especially apparent in society’s addiction to social media.) We desire and envy each other’s belongings and beauty. Our society worships celebrities and social media influencers who fuel the idolization of lavish lifestyles, sex, and money. It could be argued that free-market capitalism fuels, exploits, or even creates these desires and then promises a path to attaining them.
The problem with constantly chasing cheap desires is that they’re addicting; they become ingrained in the pleasure and reward pathways in our brains. For example, we get likes on our Instagram photos and get a rush of good feeling. If we do this over and over, our brains learn that it will bring happiness, but does it really? What do you feel when you’re not getting likes? Through this chase, many of us just end up creating mental prisons for ourselves. I’m reminded of the Buddhist saying: “The root of all suffering is attachment.” Are we too attached to our desires, and does capitalism rely on this? (Surprise — the answer is yes.)
Since we inhabit seemingly inconvenient flesh suits that are ingrained with pleasure/reward systems, we humans become easily addicted to our desires, and therefore tend to fall for capitalism’s addiction schemes. In their 2002 book, The Mind & The Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, Jeffery M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley explore the concept of the mind-brain relationship. Mainly the idea that our minds (or our consciousness, the awareness of self), which are intangible, can physically reshape our tangible brains. Many neuroscientists believe that after a certain age, our brains become permanently stuck in the reward pathways that we develop as we age. This would be why capitalist marketing tactics work so well: they condition us from an early age to believe that buying and indulging in certain things will make us happy. Now, neuroscientists and physicists are realizing that we might actually be able to change our brains at any age, and without anything physical at all, just our consciousness. That’s some pretty divine stuff right there. Indeed, it just might return to us power over our own brains and restore our concept of free will.
The question that remains in the field today is which came first, the chicken or the egg? Does the mind affect the brain or does the brain affect the mind? Can we regain our freedom, at least mentally, by rewiring our brains? Schwartz believes so, coining the term “mental force.” It would be something similar to what the mainstream has been referring to as “mindfulness” (appropriated from Buddist philosophy), or in psychology, cognitive therapy. Schwartz explains mental force as “A way to convey the notion that through intense efforts we can resist our baser appetites.” The author backs his theory by expanding the idea into the realm of quantum physics. Schwartz explains that “Integral to quantum physics is the fundamental role played by the observer in choosing which of a plentitude of possible realities will leave the realm of the possible and become actual.” (This theory is fleshed out in the Schrödinger wave equation, for those interested in reading more.) The field of quantum physics, and in particular, quantum consciousness, is shaking up the field of physics and neuroscience.
I’ll bring it back to Earth. As I look around at our society, I can see that the system we’re in is an absolute disaster, and it’s massive and it’s probably not going anywhere anytime soon. It is limiting our freedom, mentally and physically ?— unless we do something. We can see incremental changes, but what we really need is massive ideological change, which is beginning to happen. But in the meantime, we’re being weighed down by the feelings of hopelessness and entrapment from the free-market system. I’m having flashbacks to that scene in The Neverending Story where Artex gets sucked into the sadness of the swamps as Atreyu desperately shouts at him: “Fight against the sadness, Artex!” They too, were fighting against an all-consuming “nothingness.”
By taking back control of our brains, and actively shifting our minds away from obsessing over and indulging in fruitless desires, we might be able to find a way out of this mess we’re in and find healing as a society. In a way, it’s a form of mental minimalism: get rid of the stuff that’s no longer serving you — the stuff that’s cluttering your mind. That way you can focus on what’s truly important.
We need to find things that make us truly happy. Try going out into a forest (a real forest, not some city park) and meditating, clearing your mind and letting yourself go. In a book of essays from the University of British Columbia, titled Aboriginal Peoples and Forest Lands in Canada, a Cheam First Nation participant who was involved in a study on First Nations’ spiritual concepts of forests is quoted:
“Like our elders said a long time ago, if you’re feeling sad and something’s bothering you, just go walk through the forest and let the branches and things brush against you to take away your bad feelings and things like that. And be by yourself so that you are able to meditate, if you want to, and do some praying to the Great Spirit to help you in whatever is bothering you.”
It sounds like hippy nonsense, but I swear it works. According to Schwartz and Begley, quantum physics can back this idea up too, because particles — including the ions responsible for triggering the release of neurotransmitters in your brain — respond to the observer (that’s you). How does the observer impact what result occurs? The questions they ask, and the will they exert on the universe. The key to this is recognizing that there are other options available to your brain; relabel the thoughts you want to change as negative, and refocus your attention on the ones you want to replace them with. One might label this as a placebo, but in fact, by acknowledging your free will, you are actually bringing it into existence. Your intangible consciousness can create new, tangible neural pathways with conscious effort. Following quantum theory, Schwartz argues: “To believe in free will, or to deny it, is to imply a position, too.” In other words, doubt will produce doubt. What questions are you asking, what are you believing? This will affect the quantum workings of the brain. For those who have studied the Buddhist philosophy, this is echoed in the Law of Karma, developed 2,500 years ago.
Find some way to nourish your soul, because relying on the consumption of material items or other people to try and satisfy yourself will never work. Those things come and go, and will let you down. These positive subjective experiences, though, will always be there and readily accessible (I mean, as long as we don’t burn down all our forests), but we’ve got to clear our minds of the fuzz that society fills them with. The more we clear our minds of all the fuzz and desire, the more we can retrain our brains to access true forms of happiness — not the happiness that capitalism tries to sell us.
In the end, I think our society needs to start nourishing our spirit, not our desires. The concept of tapas is found in multiple spiritual philosophies. The term tapas, in Hinduism, represents restraint, inner-cleansing, or self-discipline; in Buddhism, reason-based, moral self-discipline; and in Jainism, observance of austerities. In a Christian sense, freedom is achieved through following the life of Jesus Christ as an example of a perfect being, and freeing yourself from desire.
I was reading Damien Keown’s Buddist Ethics: A Very Short Introduction the other day, and this quote stood out to me: “Early sources emphasize the importance of cultivating correct dispositions and habits so that moral conduct becomes the natural and spontaneous manifestation of internalized and properly integrated beliefs and values, rather than simple conformity to external rules.… Although few have perfected these capacities, in respecting the precepts they habituate themselves to the conduct of one who has, and in doing so come a step closer to enlightenment.”
In each of these spiritual contexts is a self-care path to follow that leads to enlightenment, and what is enlightenment if not mental freedom? Society is just on the cusp of realizing the importance of self-care, but it’s at risk of being (and in some ways already has been) corrupted by capitalism.
It comes down to this: we’re constantly working, we’re always busy and tired, mental illness is affecting almost everyone, and we have to keep working more every year because things keep getting more expensive, which makes us all sicker, which makes us lose time at work, which makes us have to work more, which makes us sicker. It’s a circle of insanity, and it needs to stop. It is the furthest thing from freedom, no matter what it seems like at the surface level. We need to slow down.
The task ahead, then, is two-fold: rewire our brains away from capitalistic pursuits of desire, and heal ourselves spiritually in the process. (Simple, right?) If we can work towards healing ourselves mentally and spiritually, we will be more clear-headed and better equipped to work towards a solution together. Our consciences have been corrupted by the socialization that comes from the free-market capitalist ideology running rampant in our society. I think this is where we should be critically analyzing everything around us, taking a step back and looking at what we’re prioritizing so we can seek out something different.
We don’t have to be perfect, but we can at least try for something better. We need to remove ourselves from what society has brainwashed us into thinking is important or all-consuming, take care of ourselves, reprioritize, and heal in the hope that we can achieve some level of freedom.
Illustration: Renee Campbell
Darien Johnsen is a UFV alumni who obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree with double extended minors in Global Development Studies and Sociology in 2020. She started writing for The Cascade in 2018, taking on the role of features editor shortly after.
She’s passionate about justice, sustainable development, and education.
