Caitlin Johnstone: The Illusion of Freedom
In one of her latest works, Caitlin Johnstone writes, “in a society that maintains the illusion of freedom in order to prevent outrage and revolution, it does not serve rulers to stifle all dissent. Just the opposite in fact: their interests are served by having a small number of dissidents hanging around the fringes of society creating the illusion of freedom.” Johnstone is one of the most prolific and talented grassroots writers of the past several years, focusing on western imperialism and propaganda. The interesting point from the above statement is the notion of the “the illusion of freedom.” For Johnstone, this is apparently the illusion of western democracies which she separates into two main groups, the unaware and those under psychological manipulation.
The illusion of democracy and freedom can be made evident in the case of Julian Assange. For those who are completely unaware, Assange is a controlling figure who is also a sexist and rapist, the antithesis to democratic values of freedom and equality. Similarly, the psychological manipulation on the projection of Assange makes him out to be a hostile foreign asset, a danger to the stability of western democracies. These notions that Assange is an absolutely corrupt figure is indeed nothing more than an illusion, a demonstration of the perversion of justice.
When one takes a closer look at the historical nature of the Assange case, at each moment of his imprisonment and extradition hearings, what becomes clear is an illustration of the illicit nature of juridical democracy, displayed repeatedly at each step of the process. The proof that shatters the illusion of Assange as the personification of absolute corruption has been made again and again, yet there is never an in-depth discussion on mainstream media of Assange, his work as a journalist and publisher, and the perverse nature of justice in his case for at least more than half a decade.
Perhaps this is what Johnstone means when she says, “the truly lucid see that while psychological abuse is in some ways preferable to physical abuse, all the powerful have really done is move the chain from around our necks to around the thought bubbles above our heads. As far as the powerful care, nothing has changed.” That is and in the case of Assange, what has changed in our juridical democracy since classical times? The imprisonment and psychological and physical torture of Assange is not very different than those that have been used since the classical age to render a guilty verdict and/or a death sentence. (The classical methods of imprisonment and torture prominently used in juridical systems are discussed in detail in Michel Foucault’s work, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison). Furthermore, out-dated and man-made divine laws such as complete isolation and annihilation of madness from normative society have been reused in the case of Assange. For what is the psychological and physical torture, as well as imprisonment of Assange but a reiteration of the present perversion of justice? (Justice against Assange for more than a decade has resulted in one charge, that of his breaking house arrest.)
The notion of freedom, the ability to participate in the public sphere, in politics or otherwise, is the foundation of western democracies that has been discussed from antiquity to contemporary times and the present. As Johnstone had further noted, “freedom is the ability to enact your own will for your own life. If anyone is manipulating you into enacting their will instead of your own authentic will, you are not free. Freedom and manipulation cannot coexist.” Indeed when one reverts to the notion of the “illusion of freedom” as the dominant practice of “manipulation”, psychological or otherwise, then it becomes obvious that free will is but a distant concept, something that one remembers in the back of the mind rather than something that one practices.
The isolation that we all have experienced during the current pandemic ought to be an opportunity for us to practice using our free will, yet the struggles of private life have prevented many from doing so. Personally, I have struggled with actualizing my own free will for the past year and even prior to the pandemic. There are many reasons that make this struggle real, including job loss, economic uncertainty, health, shelter, food, caring for loved ones, children, education, and child care. When one is constantly busy trying to keep one’s private life intact, adequately participating in the public realm can be a privilege. While public knowledge and information are readily available at our finger tips yet there is never enough time in any given day for us to get to them. If we are fortunate enough to work all day during the economic depression caused by the pandemic we often find that there is not even enough time in a day to get errands done let alone actualizing what Johnstone calls our “authentic will”.
The struggle to break down the “illusion of freedom” through the actualization of one’s “authentic will” has only been compunded by the manipulation of the mainstream media. This has been illustrated in the case of Assange if only one has the time to look. The war on Yemen presents a similar case. The mainstream media regurgitates talking points that have been handed to them by public officials, designating this or that group as terrorists, while crimes against basic human rights are perpetuated against Middle Eastern civilians. When we are able to actually participate in the public sphere with our authentic and collective free will will our domestic and foreign policies reflect the atrocities that have been committed in our name?
The manipulation of our free will is constant. China is but another recent example. Mainstream media regurgitates that China is committing genocide in Xinjiang yet it never discusses the geopolitical and economic prominence of that province. When mainstream media presents all the facts then it puts the assertion of genocide into question which, of course, is contrary to the point of perpetual manipulation, all in order to advance the interests of the state rather than that of the people.
Johnstone makes it clear that the interests of the state has always been an imperialist one, one of economic and territorial expansion that requires atrocities against innocent civilians the world over. She also makes it clear that when we can actualize our “authentic [free] will”, manipulation would cease to exist.
Nothwithstanding the pandemic, in our developed societies we stress the importance of maintaining a balanced life. That is, the ability to take care of ourselves, access to adequate healthcare, shelter, and food. We even stress about the importance of exercise but rarely, if ever, do we talk about the importance of genuinely participating in the public sphere. It is only through the consent of citizens that make our policies, domestic and foreign, valid. When we can see the atrocitious nature of our policies and freely access the discourses that make the reasons for them demostrable, these policies would inevitably shift to reflect a more equitable and just world. Our declarations for universal human rights and freedoms are testaments to the goodness within all of us yet the manipulation of our will continues and paints us as a contradiction.
Like everything else we strive for in order to balance ourselves and our society, perhaps it has become necessary for us to take some time to practice actualizing our authentic free will, completely free from media and political manipulation. How can we truly have mastery over ourselves and our lives when we cannot make the time necessary to practice mastery of our very own free will?
When gorgeous actors on our monitors, including the news anchors, politicians and experts tell us the reasons for war against this nation or that people, our free will to participate in the public sphere should kick in. That is, rather than taking their reasonings as fact, one ought to simply view it as a point of reference, then take the time necessary to adequately engage in that discourse. When one can take the time to authentically engage in public discourse, our universal declarations can become truly global.
