Free to be influenced

In a world in which society is bombarded with advertisements, where political campaigns are being run on X and social media have become echo chambers of one’s own thoughts, how free are we to choose? There is no straight or simple answer to this question. To open up the following reflection on common grounds and fairness, it is appropriate to start with an agreeable definition of freedom. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, freedom is the condition or right of being able or allowed to do, say, think, whatever you want to, without being controlled or limited. This is to say that freedom is very strongly correlated to the ability, and opportunity, to practice critical thinking and follow up with thoughtful actions, which are the necessary and sufficient conditions for freedom. To put it in a more logical-mathematical friendly language: if no limits to critical thought and thoughtful actions, then freedom.

In this view, freedom of thought means not only being free to hold conventional and unconventional positions and ideas regarding any issue, no matter how ‘hot’ the topic is, but also to do so consciously, through self-reflection, critical thinking, and open-mindedness. In other words, if you were to ask yourself whether you are free, you would more accurately be asking yourself the following questions: are your ideas born out of free and critical thought, or are you unconsciously being influenced by society? Is your freedom to choose, think and act authentic, or is it limited to a selection of socially accepted norms of behavior?

The provocation I am making here is obviously not meant to point at some conspiracy theory about people being purposefully controlled and manipulated. It is rather intended to be food for thought towards the plausibility that in the increasingly globalized, interconnected and dangerously polarized world of today, freedom is becoming gradually more conditional to our community and the social acceptability of ideas and actions. To illustrate this through an example, a simple open question follows: ‘Living in a red neighborhood in the US, how free would you feel in sharing and being open about your support for Harris in the Presidential election of November 2024?’ What is even more interesting, is the question of how likely it is that one would even ever support a blue candidate growing up in a Republican environment. This dynamics of partisan hostility, and of political and affective polarization are a dangerous development for the land of freedom.

To be even more specific, the limit to freedom consists of the high -direct or indirect- influence the society and close community have on individuals. This influence reduces the types and amount of choices available to individuals. Ideally, indeed, an American citizen should be equally informed about all the available candidates they could vote for. The political and electoral system reduces the choice to two because of the SMD system dynamics. Moreover, because not only the opposing party but the people voting for that party are perceived negatively, the influence of the places and people we interact with reduces even more our freedom to choose. Hence the American neighborhood example: individuals (political) choices are increasingly influenced by the close community.

Societal influence is not new in history, but its magnitude is: it has been exacerbated by the dynamics of the online web and social media; this is to say that the new digital era is food for polarization through the fast and unconscious placement of users in echo chambers. This is not something inherededly ‘bad’, but definitely something we need to be aware of in order not to preclude ourself some possibilities of choice and preserve our freedom. Awareness: here is the end point of our discussion. In order to think outside of the box, one needs to be conscious of the box in which they are situated: a highly demanding exercise, given that to look beyond one needs to believe the ceiling is not the sky.

Carlotta Moscarella