Why The Average Man Does Not Want To Be Free

“The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” by H.L. Mencken. I do agree with what H.L. Mencken is saying that an average man does want to be safe but I would also have to disagree. People need to feel as if they are free at a certain extent. Countries tend to have cults and gang related violence. This is probably how dictatorship had come about and how other people would argue that as Americans , we don’t care much for our freedom.

As American essayist and social critic H.L. Mencken wrote, “The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” To be free is to have the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without restraint. This type of freedom can be offered in many places whether it be home, school, or work. Safety is the condition of being protected from or unlikely to because risk, danger, or injury. Safety should be seen as an advantage to have because it’s never truly guaranteed. Most people claim they are proud of the freedoms their nations offer, though many people manifest the willingness to give up these freedoms to secure personal safety.

A majority of people that chose to accept freedom believing it would give them better opportunities in life soon realised that life as a free person wasn’t as positive as they initially thought.

So many courageous people fought for some kind of freedom. For example, in 1775, colonists during the American Revolution fought for their independence from Great Britain, and in 1865, slaves had to fight for their freedom too. These freedoms could be something as simple as being able to go to a friend's house, or it could be as serious as same-sex marriage. No matter how big or small the issue is, freedom must be repeatedly won by each generation.

Safety and freedom are both essential components of society and many argue over which component holds the most desirability in modern civilization. Many, like H.L. Mencken, believe that humanity’s desire to be safe trumps the want to be free. This view may hold true for some but there are varying interpretations of what is means to be safe and have freedoms.

(Busch 141) Washington’s army is pushed out of Boston. America lost one of the biggest cities and we need to get it back.( Paine 153) it will take great sacrifice to gain freedom.If you fight for your freedom and get it, it will be that much better.They have a powerful meaning. Freedom is the reason that we left England in the first place and I will fight to make the move worth it.

From the earlier times in our lives till now, we humans have been struggling hard to be free and independent of the things that limit our right to be free. And even though some people say that having security in life can regulate our lives and messy societies, I believe that too much security or limitation causes more dilemmas. Also, by being independent and free, one can learn new things rather than just by sticking to some widely held beliefs. We can see many examples related to this assumption everywhere in our lives, movies, books, and history.

On the other hand, some say freedom is the barrier standing in front of safety. Freedom is what America arrived on during the revolutionary war. Freedom is what people fight for, what people are willing to die for. Freedom has been several of society's main goals for as long as one can remember. What's the point in living in a leash, unable to truly live, just so one can feel

"When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. “ – Malcolm X

Freedom does not mean free. The saying has been established in the past, present, and the future which happens to be the setting of where Brave New World by Aldoux Huxley takes place. In futuristic London, though people living there come off as happy with all their wants satisfied and fulfilled, by looking closer into what seems to be a perfectly utopian society, a dystopian society strongly seems visible due to total authority and corrupt government control as further developed by perspective. Huxley's choice of point of view as the rhetorical device contributes to the dystopian purpose for the novel.

The opportunity of freedom is a base for your life. It puts you in a position and gives you the time to look at yourself, to look at the world and to decide what you will do with your life. Everyone will look at life with a different approach. See life through different glasses. We all have our own approach to life and no matter what handicaps of scientifical fixes people try to do we can never be totally and fully equal to one another. All our differences put together form a community, a city and our

Freedom should be demanded, because not everyone listens when you ask for something, if anything people would laugh at these people who want freedom and not take them seriously when they do ask for freedom. If people take a stand and demand what they really want and show they want it and fight for it there would be people standing up with that one person too, then there would be an uprising on how people need freedom and demand it even more. A great example would be the the day Martin Luther King Jr. took a stand and said his word on how there needs to be freedom and how it must be demanded in order for us to get it, the day the pastor took a stand and demanded freedom for his people (blacks) and as he kept saying his word and talking about freedom for the blacks more and more people agreed with him and took a stand. It is a great example of how freedom should be demanded and not given.

Freedom is the ultimate goal—this intrinsic desire has been manifested within human civilization since the beginning of time. Although, humans crave the idea of complete freedom, they do not understand what complete freedom entails. I believe freedom is a social construct that is conceptualized. The definition of freedom almost always varies from person to person; my interpretation of freedom is being given the ability to act, reason and believe with the condition of minimal constraint. Moreover, the terms freedom and free-will must be differentiated between, they cannot be defined within the same realm. Free-will is a psychological capacity, directing ones behavior in a way responsive to reason, while freedom is constrained by rules that govern us through social order. Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor proclaims that it is not freedom that brings man happiness, but security. On the contrary, Socrates a famous Greek philosopher, places much emphasis on freedom that he accepts death over living a slave.

"The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it."

The American essayist and social critic, H.L. Mencken wrote a statement that says “ The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” I feel as if the statement that he wrote can relate to the society that we are in today. People may believe that they are in a free place were their safety is completely guaranteed. I believe that the problem is still being faced today . During the 1800s-1956s, a suppose that slavery was still a problem. Even though slavery is not being used today race is a big problem. People are constantly being ridiculed because of the way they act, speak, and even look. Freedom is not even the problem to begin with, we are allowed to be free and express ourselves anyway we can desire. But, if he go out into the world and express ourselves are we really going to be free from the words of others. We have no idea what tomorrow or the day before that will bring.