A lecture about the way individuals think of freedom was given by a guest speaker in the University Union Jan. 21. Professor John Medearis, a political science teacher from the University of California, Riverside spoke to Cal Poly students about the theory behind what freedom is and how to define it.
Medearis made use of the chalkboard in room 216 as he wrote down names, ideas and charts concerning major ideas about how freedom has been designed by people. Major theorists include Isaiah Berlin, a Russian philosopher and Gerald MacCallum, an American legal philosopher, with opposite theories of Berlin.
Aside from basics human rights, Medearis argues that after physical boundries such as the ability to fly or to see through walls, for example, humans create their own freedoms and limits on the basis of what is socially acceptable and what others tell them they can and cannot do.
“Problems of freedom occur because of the way we have chosen to organize our society. One person can damage our freedom,” Medearis said. “We should all think about the way we organize our own lives as citizens and consumers and the kind of power we give to others to impede upon our freedoms.”
Medearis compared some of these ideas to Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement.
“Think about MLK as a dissenter in the South against civil society there. The African American style church gave him the support and therefore the ability to speak out, and a place to do so,” Medearis said, also stating that he wouldn’t have had the freedom and ability to speak out in that way in other forums.
He also touched on the current health care debate in the United States. Linda Halisky, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, asked Medearis’ thoughts on the subject. Though he did not offer an answer about what should be done, Medearis proposed ways to go about rationalizing the situation while looking at both arguments for and against. Ideas like who universal health care would benefit the most and why, as well as who it might affect negatively and why. Rather than looking and arguing for one side of the coin, Medearis recommends looking at both view points before making a decision on what one’s side is.
Cal Poly communication studies professor Dr. Jnan Blau commented on the debate as well.
“This doesn’t necessarily help resolve the debate, or do much to reconcile the two sides, but it at least highlights how complex the issue is,” Blau said. “Any bridging of the gaps stalemating us will have to come from careful, nuanced, and respectful consideration of all the aspects of the matter, including what we actually mean when we say things like ‘health,’ ‘government,’ ‘rights’ and, of course, ‘freedom.'”
Medearis said the type of “language” people use when they talk about freedom is an inherited one and generally inadequate. People, he said, only know how to say that another person is making them “unfree” and although this suffices sometimes, people need to move beyond that idea and ask why. Medearis said in order to better understand freedom, people need to consider things like oppression, suppression and domination.
He asked the audience to consider what choices each individual makes that allows someone else to oppress them. More over, is it freedom if someone is telling us how to be free? Maybe the answer to some of these issues, he speculated, lies within the hand of this collegiate generation.
Medearis said students have historically been major contributors to freedom movements like the peace marches during Vietnam. Collegiate groups have always been apt to rally for their rights and freedoms like the famous free speech protests at the University of California Berkeley in 1964 or the many protests nationwide against the hike in tuition for higher education. Even the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 was in large part because of the massive support he received from colleges and universities. Medearis urges the young minds of today to do the same, in a more thoughtful and logistical way.
“I was hoping students would get a message about how to think about freedom,” he said. “The message is that striving to be free is a natural impulse in the contemporary world. But it is a hard thing to do.”