Cuz We Said So

In trying to place a cost/benefit assessment on the value of Freedom, Ninja asked, "How many lives is freedom worth", to which I replied that the correct way to ask the question is, "Is freedom worth my life?" Ninja cried foul.

The more I ponder this issue, the more convinced I am that the question really is, "Is freedom worth my life?" Because the value of one's freedom depends on how highly one chooses to value it. For myself, I would not choose to live without the basic individual freedoms I have come to enjoy as an American. I would fight, die, and kill to secure and defend these freedoms for myself.

Moreover, if you communicate to me that you value these freedoms equally, that you are willing to fight, die, and kill to secure and defend your freedoms, then my sense of ethics would suggest that I should stand with you and fight, die, and kill to secure and defend your freedom. In fact, I would die, if needed, to secure Ninja's freedom (a decision I am now coming to question). Moreover, I know from experience that David shares my values in this regard. I would not hesitate to kill David, if I believed that it would ensure Ninja's freedom, because I believe that's what David would want.

But, if you don't communicate to me that you value freedom, should I reach the same conclusion? Should I fight, die, and kill to secure the freedom of someone who does not value their freedom as I would?

It's a difficult moral dilemma, on par with "is it right to stop the abuse of a masochist?" After all, hurting people is wrong. But what if they like it? Who am I to deny them the abuse they cherish? By analogy, if people really don't desire freedom and individual liberty, who am I to foist it on them? If you're happy suffering under the Crushing Yoke of Imperialist Repression™, then let me help you out, and help those bastards keep you down.

We have much to learn by exploring this analogy. After all, if masochists really want to be hurt, then surely we should accomodate them, and give them what they desire. In an ethics class we debated this, and at one point the Golden Rule was redefined as, "do unto others as they would have you do unto them." At the time it seemed to make sense.

I am now not so sure about this. Should I honor that, and abuse the masochist? Or should I stick with the original version of the Golden Rule, and "do unto the masochist as I would have them do unto me" - if I were in their shoes - and help me out of the trap I am in?

Modern physchology would have us understand that masochism is a mental illness. People don't really want to be hurt. It's just that they are comfortable with the familiar. People act on old patterns. Change is painful. Masochists receive the messages they expect when they are hurt. And so on and so forth.

Modern psychology also offers us another tantalizing tidbit into human nature: the change curve. People will only become willing to change in response to a problem (1) when they recognize the problem as such and (2) when the pain of not changing exceeds the pain of changing.

To apply this to our analogy, masochists will only accept "help" when they (1) recognize that their patterns are causing them pain and (2) that pain exceeds the pain of changing. If both conditions are met, then change will happen almost on its own accord, since the individual is motivated to seek a solution. If we can agree that there is a problem, all that needs to happen is (1) either the pain of the problem must increase sufficient to motivate the change, or (2) the pain of change must decrease sufficient to motivate the change. And if we cannot agree that there is a problem, then the masochist will stay in the painful situation until somehow it becomes apparent to them that there is actually a problem. In fact, if the masochist doesn't feel the pain of the problem, then attempts to help are actually counterproductive.

Applying this analogy to the issue of people who lack freedom but do not see it as a problem worth fighting about gives us an interesting calculus: