Freedom May Be Faltering, But Why It’s Never Doomed

The Statue of Liberty in the distance with clouds surrounding

A DrHurd.com reader writes:

“A person who has such disdain for President Obama and the directions the political nature of the U.S. has taken (mixed economy, socialistic) begins listening to the likes of off-mainstream radio disc jockeys who endorse white supremacy. Can that listener develop depression from the constant thinking that this world is going to hell in a handbasket?

Or would a state of emotional depression lead to the development of an interest in white supremacy or something similar?”

First of all, let’s define depression.

From a psychological point of view, “depression” refers to a state of learned helplessness. It’s a mental condition in which a person feels that there are very few or no solutions for improving his or her personal life, or perhaps – more broadly – the world or culture in general.

A depressed person has more or less given up. He or she could turn to racist white supremacy, but probably would not. White supremacy, like any ideology – rational or not – attempts to offer an explanation and a solution.

White supremacists will say, “The problem with the world is that we have too many non-white people in charge.” They will offer “solutions” in the form of concentration camps, removing non-white people from even earned positions of power or advantage, and so forth.

No, there’s nothing rational or fair about such a solution. But it is an attempt at a solution. And the mindset of a depressed person is more likely to have given up on any idea of a solution.

Let’s examine it from the point-of-view not of a racist white supremacist, but a person in favor of individual rights and capitalism. To such a person, it’s a depressing time.

Obama is in power, and even though his personal popularity is waning, the ideas and attitudes he upholds are still the prevailing ideas of the culture. It’s quite possible that he will be succeeded either by someone with very similar ideas (Hillary Clinton) or someone who will present a false front for opposing ideas, but will hold some variation of the same ideas, i.e., Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, or some other “me too” Republican.

Either way, from the points-of-view view of pro-capitalism and pro-individual rights, it’s a depressing time. However, it’s not logical or rational to feel depressed. For depression to be logical and rational, it would have to be proven, beyond any doubt, that human beings are destined to be in a state – even in America – of continuing statism, government controls, socialism and other pernicious things. In other words, that it must end badly, because philosophical (including political and social) ideas don’t matter, and people have no free will. Yet if these assumptions of the depressed mindset were true, there never would have been a United States to lose in the first place. This whole society came about because of free will and philosophical ideas, and it’s faltering for the same reason. But nothing ever was, or is, inevitable, not in the sense the depressed person sees it.

The truth is different. The truth is that it’s possible that America will continue to drift into some sort of socialist, nationalist or otherwise government-controlled dictatorship where, ultimately, even freedom of speech will no longer exist. The trends already speak for themselves.

However, to say that it’s possible – or even probable – that this will happen is not to say that it’s inevitable. For something like a cultural trend to be inevitable, it would have to mean that human beings no longer possess free will.

Consider the case of Nazi Germany when Hitler was still in power. To have been pro-capitalism and pro-freedom in Germany at that time would have undoubtedly been a stressful and depressing thing. It could even be a life-threatening thing, if authorities became aware of your views.

However, even in that depressing context, comparatively free nations in the rest of the world were determined to overthrow that regime in order to protect their own prosperity and freedom. They were not willing to give in to Hitler, and they put their intentions into action.

If free nations had not fought and ultimately defeated Hitler, the world would have been very different. Instead of a “Cold War” between the free countries and Communist nations, there would have been a lengthy and probably very destructive war between the victorious Nazis and their rival Communists in Soviet Russia and elsewhere. There’s no telling how that would have ended, but either way it would not have been a victory for freedom and individual rights, and there likely would have been widespread nuclear annihilation followed by totalitarian control or outright anarchy (essentially the same thing).

Compared to what might have happened, the ensuing years from 1945 to the present have been far superior. In fact, they have been heaven on earth compared to what could have been. Yet to the depressed point-of-view of the time, it could not have been possible. “Hitler’s going to win. Defeat for victory and individual rights is inevitable.” Really? Not up to now.

The error of the depressed point-of-view back then would not have been its inability to predict the future. Nobody can do that. The error would have been in the depressed person’s failure to take into account the determination and ability of the semi-free countries – the U.S., Britain and others – to take on (and defeat) not just Hitler, but the imperialistic Japanese forces as well.

If you look at President Obama – an even less skillful force for authoritarian government than Hitler – as the inevitable future for the human condition, then you must not think very much of the potential for human achievement. You’d have to ignore all the triumphant accomplishments of science and business throughout the ages, and leap to the conclusion that the morally puny Obama somehow trumps all of that and can ultimately overpower it.

This is the central error of depression: It places the objectively small (Obama’s thinking) on an equal or greater level as the objectively good and the great (free will and individual rights). It grants metaphysical (including psychological) significance to those who only possess power because some of us are ignorant or irrational enough to grant it to them.

The depressed view says that Obama, or Hitler, matter as much or even more than the people and discoveries that actually advance human life. Look at all that human beings have accomplished in spite of what history’s greatest enemies have tried to impose.

The depressed idea that everything is futile and nothing is possible is contradicted by all that humanity has accomplished. So much more is possible, and even if the potential is not fully actualized at the moment, one cannot deny that the potential is there. This is what matters when trying to avoid depression over the current state of the world.

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