From the Frying Pan into the Fire

I was reading some literature from my "Liberal Studies Reader" a selection from John Dewey's Experience and Education and stumbled upon this quote:

"Impulses and desires that are not ordered by intelligence are under the control of acidental circumstances. It may be a loss rather than a gain to escape from the control of another person only to find one's conduct dictated by immediate whim and caprice; that is, at the moercy of impulses into whose formation intelligent judgment has not entered. A person whose conduct is controlled in this way has at most only the illusion of freedom. Actually he is directed by forces over which he has no command."

This is, of course found in a context, that being the assertion that education as Dewey saw it was more about regurgitation of facts than the offering of profound educational experience that perpetuates further education and enjoyment. But the nature of this quote made me think on several conversations I've had with good friends about the illusion of freedom. Freedom is a tricky thing. When at first it would seem that we are free, all because we've thrown off by the bonds of "custom and established routines," as Dewey puts it in the selection I read, we find ourselves our own masters, seeking to fulfill every whim that we have. But a truly freeman is he who submits to another authority: society, love, intellectualism--call it what you like, it's what defines you. What governs who you are. It is the measure by which you set yourself. And until we free ourselves to submit to such an authority, we shall forever be in bondage of something.