{"id":53,"date":"2024-09-29T17:24:21","date_gmt":"2024-09-29T17:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/?p=53"},"modified":"2024-09-29T17:32:13","modified_gmt":"2024-09-29T17:32:13","slug":"freedom-of-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/2024\/09\/29\/freedom-of-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom of thought"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The \u00abfree world\u00bb likes to look down on despotic societies, past or present, whose citizens were obliged, or strongly persuaded, to think in certain specific ways &#8211; and sent to Siberia, burned as witches or stoned to death if they had other ideas of their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But perhaps our society might turn a critical eye on itself.  Do we really think freely?  Or are we enslaved to ideas and attitudes we&#8217;ve never thought to question?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>things taste better with salt or sugar<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>kids don&#8217;t like vegetables<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>success means buying more things<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>work is for earning money<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>we need to make noise<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>let&#8217;s buy something new<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The list could be endless.  And in each case we are fed these ideas with more than one purpose.  Firstly, to prevent us from thinking freely &#8211; free thinking might be catching.  Secondly, to keep the money machine rolling.  Everywhere we hear: a good life costs money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>processed food companies have got us hooked on salt and sugar<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>fast-food outlets give us what we&#8217;ve been conditioned to like<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>advertising consistently gives us the spending buzz<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the market is flooded with labour-saving devices<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>shopping malls and caf\u00e9s use noise to incite consumption<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>manufacturers make us think we need \u00abthe latest\u00bb<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Free thinking has to be creative.  To break free of the shackles of conditioning, we need first to recognise them, and then, as Hamlet said, <em>by opposing end them<\/em>.  This doesn&#8217;t mean a radical upheaval.  Why not take opportunities as they come: if the dishwasher has broken down (again!), we might find we actually <em>enjoy<\/em> washing the dishes by hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s the difficult bit, because the conditioning goes deep down and our first reaction would be: <strong><em>You must be joking!!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Can we?  It depends on how free we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"767\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/working-for-nothing-767x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Paquita harvesting carobs - for about 3\u20ac an hour!\" class=\"wp-image-56\" srcset=\"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/working-for-nothing-767x1024.jpg 767w, https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/working-for-nothing-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/working-for-nothing-768x1026.jpg 768w, https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/working-for-nothing-1150x1536.jpg 1150w, https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/working-for-nothing.jpg 1434w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 100vw, 767px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Paquita harvesting carobs &#8211; for about 3\u20ac an hour!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u00abfree world\u00bb likes to look down on despotic societies, past or present, whose citizens were obliged, or strongly persuaded, to think in certain specific ways &#8211; and sent to Siberia, burned as witches or stoned to death if they had other ideas of their own. But perhaps our society might turn a critical eye [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles-in-english"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58,"href":"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/58"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masbla.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}