Birth-place restricts freedom, whether this enslaves or enables
Evidence
Besides sexual routines, permissibilities and prohibitions, the examples are more or less pervasive. Consider birthing practices licensed and prohibited. Similarly, birth certificates define what and how one is named and thus recognized legally and administratively, how such recognition or its failure furnishes social standing. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1708 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Thus we begin to catch a glimpse of the paradox of freedom: there is freedom only in a situation, and there is a situation only through freedom. Human-reality everywhere encounters resistance and obstacles which it has not created, but these resistances and obstacles have meaning only in and through the free choice which human-reality is. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1164 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Many people now favour Genet’s view over Sartre’s, considering that regardless of other factors that may enter the mix, some of us simply are gay, or at least have a strong propensity in that direction. Sartre seemed to feel that, if we do not completely choose our sexuality, we are not free. But, to turn his own words back on him, ‘we cannot follow him in this’ — at least, I can’t. Why should sexual orientation not be like other mostly innate qualities, such as being tall or short — or being extroverted or introverted, adventurous or riskaverse, empathetic or self-centred? Such tendencies seem at least partly inborn, yet even within the terms of Sartre’s philosophy they do not make us unfree. They simply form part of our situation — and existentialism is always a philosophy of freedom in situation. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 717 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Birth certificates and permitted birthing practices confer or deny social standing — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1708; Freedom chooses its being but cannot choose not to be — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1146; Freedom arises when necessity manifests its inner identity, not by its removal (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- Birth certificates and permitted birthing practices confer or deny social standing
#expands(0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1708 - Freedom and situation are mutually constituting rather than opposites
#expands(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1164 - Innate qualities constrain but do not abolish freedom within a situation
#expands(0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 717 - Freedom arises when necessity manifests its inner identity, not by its removal
#corroborates(0.82) - Maternal vocation is socially imposed, not instinctually innate
#exemplifies(0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 693 - Freedom chooses its being but cannot choose not to be
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1146 - Freedom requires a resisting, brute world rather than being limited by it
#corroborates(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1153 - Creativity is an inborn birthright that social imperatives suppress
#corroborates(0.78) — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 420 - Freedom depends on overcoming negativity and constraint
#qualifies(0.75) — Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 147 - Coercion can substitute for trust when freedom is restricted
#complicates(0.72) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2725