Are we free within society - Essay Example

Rough Draft Are we free within society? There are areas within life that we experience freedom but some areas we don’t because of the various variations such as culture, socialization and social structure. In the first place, the term freedom is understood differently by different people depending on socio-economic status, race, age, gender and is used in many different senses. Freedom may be defined by others as doing what one likes in the society or free-will and it may mean something done or the way someone feels.

However, the truth of the matter is that one can never be free within society because society places demands and forms on what people do and think. For human to survive, they are forced to conform to what is acceptable and this is not freedom because constraints are placed on members of society. It may therefore be said that true equality cannot exists and the main thing that contributes to conformity in society is persuasion. It may be argued that many ideas and ways of living are forced upon people and persuasion is everywhere on the media.

Interestingly, the everyday societal views that people come across affect every individual whether to go along with them or reject. Most people believe that America is free yet there are still many complaints from people who think that America drifted away towards tyranny. Perception of freedom is instilled in people even by making false promises and inducing a notion implying that the people are free yet in real sense there is no freedom. For instance, Germans were made to believe that they were free when the Nazis were controlling everything and tightening every aspect of life because they refused to see the obvious since infringements came in small steps.

People are forced to perceive or do things the way the society demands but not the way they feel. If at all the society could be free then there could be no trouble doing things that were done at the beginning of civilization or conforming to things that they feel is not right or had been set by others.