SPONTANEITY AND FREEDOM

SPONTANEITY AND FREEDOM

Nildo Viana

In the current phase of capitalism, led by the integral regime of accumulation emerges the evaluative supremacy of hedonism accompanied by a new individualism that end up confusing spontaneity freely. In this context, becomes important to distinguish these two terms in a revolutionary humanist perspective, if only because such conceptions end up invading the left-leaning, as they are largely a product of time.

The key point is to understand the difference between spontaneity and freedom. Understanding this is easier from the individual analysis. A spontaneous individual is not necessarily a free individual. The most extreme examples make this clearer: a psychopath is extremely spontaneous to commit murder, as well as a religious fanatic to preach the gospel in the city's downtown streets. But any critical analyst realizes that such practices are carried out spontaneously, but not freely because they are stuck in his unbalanced mental universe.

Spontaneity is an action whose initiative is undertaken by the individual (or group). A child born in religious family and is taught to pray daily and embarrassed to do so, to a certain age will do it on their own. Freud (1974) and psychoanalysis already explained this phenomenon and named it: introjection[1]. The socialization and rehabilitation of individuals, as well as concrete manifestations in the process (trauma, violence, etc.) and the set of social relationships (including Culture) generate habits, foibles, vices, desires (sexual, emotional, consumption , etc.), actions that apparently spring from the individual in its authenticity, but in the background is social and psychological product.

This spontaneity that is introjection of demonstration or psychic imbalance, has nothing to do with freedom. Confuse spontaneity with freedom is extremely useful to those in power, it can give more space for the realization of spontaneity at the expense of freedom.

What is freedom? According to Hegel (1995), it is the awareness of the need[2]. This is a still restricted design, but brings two fundamental concepts to understand freedom: awareness and need. Freedom presupposes consciousness, reason, reflection. Obviously this does not mean defending the idea that the human being is defined to be a "rational animal", as this would be one-sided. He is a praxis, that is, that puts a conscious purpose, a project in their activities. However, it does not do this individually but socially. So it is also a social being.

In this context, you can see that the human being is still an "animal", however you want to get away from nature, for he has a body and this has needs[3]. Organic needs underlying the establishment of the specifically human needs: sociality and praxis (VIANA, 2007; MARX and ENGELS, 1991), complementary and inseparable elements.

Thus, we could say that freedom is the realization of human needs, which are the basic needs (organic), sociality and praxis. Its emergency means a process of humanization and this transforms the organic needs which are also summarized. Freedom is autotelic, ie praxis is founded on the association aimed at its realization and organic needs.

We do not need to recall here that this is a trend historical process that was relatively interrupted by the emergence of class society and alienation as Marx (1983) demonstrated, which caused the degradation of labor and sociality and therefore of life in its entirety, including the basic needs (some reaching certain individuals, for their class belonging, such as hunger, the other all in the form of dehumanized satisfaction).

Let us return, however, to focus our analysis. Freedom is the manifestation of human nature, its realization, that is, expression of sociality and praxis, or to use a neologism, the "praxity". So freedom is not "aware of the need" as in Hegel, but its implementation in the sense of materialization (satisfaction) of human needs, the praxity, expressing freedom (praxis) collective (sociality)[4] of humanity. This presupposes the satisfaction of organic needs, now under humane and truly free form.

Spontaneity is the thoughtless manifestation of desires and needs (authentic or not)[5] of individuals. Spontaneity, despite being thoughtless, can subsequently be justified and legitimized by everyday representations, doctrines, ideologies, etc. If an individual spontaneously practicing zoophilia, manifests spontaneity. Motivation can be psychic imbalance or inability to satisfaction of authentic needs in a humane way. However, if later he writes a treatise on zoophilia performing his naturalization, he expresses intellectual production of justification and legitimation of its spontaneity, which means that it will become "reflected," but it will be illusory. This process occurs every day, but in some way reflected, and psychoanalysis named this phenomenon as rationalization. In this case there is the production of a thingified spontaneity[6]. Therefore, the praise of spontaneity in capitalism reinforces the objectification process instead of humanization.

This also manifests itself in the political sphere of the struggle of classes and social groups. The spontaneity of the working classes is expressed through actions and immediate demands and reflected little and are fundamental to the empowerment and passage for later revolutionary struggles. However, it must be recognized that such spontaneity is a reaction to a situation that does not mean praxis, and therefore to be overcome. The collective spontaneity is different from the individual, as in the first case we have collective action generated by a particular social situation and in the second case individual acts generated by the life story of the individuals (and their crystallization in the psychic universe thereof).

If the individual is the passage from spontaneity to autonomy, it also occurs at the level of classes and groups. Autonomy is a step forward in relation to the spontaneity (authentic)[7], it means not only "own initiative"[8], but also to refuse submission to other instances (in the individual case: cultural violence, etc .; in the case of class: parties refusal and trade unions, etc.). The spontaneous is something that arises from the own individual or group (which can be, and is usually generated by external elements) and the autonomous is something that arises from the own individual or group with the advantage of refuse bureaucratic institutions and social pressures (here and only the internalized elements psychic imbalance may remain). Spontaneity is often its own initiative in a particular context marked by a history of life and psychological makeup of individuals and / or certain social status (class belonging, living conditions, political, etc.).

The autonomy is therefore an advance and opens the way to practice, which means that spontaneity must be overcome is to generate autonomy or directly praxis. Autonomy is therefore between spontaneity and praxis, freedom. But not even be praxis, is another moment that must be overcome. The achievement of self-determination, of praxis, it is overcoming the spontaneity and autonomy.

Certain spontaneous demonstrations are merely ways to express reproduction or consequences of existing society[9]. In the individual case it is almost absolute. This also occurs with certain groups and classes. Where spontaneity is not reified refusal, then it is limited, but the starting point for the transition to autonomy or practice. The freedom, on the other hand, if marginally expressed as an individual practice, and should be generalized to finish making up the collective and individual freedom, the first condition of the latter.

Thus, spontaneity is far from freedom. Even in the narrower sense of freedom, as pointed out by Bloch and Fromm, the "free", which means "freedom from something" it is something broader than spontaneity. Another element that can not be overlooked is that individual freedom can not be fully achieved without the collective freedom. In a class society, founded on exploitation and domination, an individual, however rich, intelligent, powerful that is can not be fully free. In class societies sociality is degraded, and the work that is alienated. In capitalism, sociality is permeated by conflicts (of classes), competition (and everything that derives it: envy, jealousy, possessiveness, selfishness, utilitarianism, individualism, etc.) and work and set of human activities are rather than realization of human potential (creativity, development of physical and mental energies) become controlled by other actions aimed at ensuring the exploitation and domination, and denial of them, mortification and dehumanization.

The social transformation in which sociality overcome conflicts and competition, replaced by solidarity and the overcoming of alienated labor and widespread alienation and its replacement by praxis, means the collective freedom, which allows individual freedom, the individual freely associated with other individuals and generalizing the practice. This is the utopia that needs to be accomplished, it is a human need, and can only exist in a self-managed society. Anything that opposes this process of human liberation, even though speaking in its name, is an obstacle to be overcome. All ideologies and hedonistic and current new individualists conceptions are challenging the cult of spontaneity and reified so this service needs to be overcome, it is one of the obstacles to human emancipation.

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[1] Some ideologues like Jean Piaget, seek to find there, by the time a child spends playing by itself against what it has built into society, such as "autonomy" (VIANA, 2000; Piaget, 1990). It is, of course, an ideology that inverts reality and entering in visible contradiction with the psychoanalytic discoveries.

[2] The Hegelian conception of freedom is complex and points to the relationship between consciousness and freedom, but goes beyond liberalism and puts its implementation in the state as ethical and universal. "Hegel was the first I heard of exposing an exact way the relationship between freedom and a need. For him, freedom is nothing other than the conviction of need "(Engels, 1990, p. 95). Marx overcomes Hegel showing that only "freely associated individuals" with the abolition of the state, is that one can attain freedom.

[3] Christianity is the religious form that expresses this more clearly to think "life after death", which is a complete break with the animal world, the "pure spirit," who does not eat, has no sex, etc.

[4] Here we do not use sociability why this concept gets a more restricted meaning to express another social phenomenon (VIANA, 2008) and "association", because this is wider. The term "sociality", used by Simmel (1983) with another meaning and the Portuguese translation (which could have used another term and translators put this explicitly), it seems more appropriate to express the meaning we want to pass on the social character human being, and it exists only inside social relations and needs them both for survival when a psychic reasons and only then is a human being and becomes human. The human being is a social being, ie integrated into society, sharing it as a necessity and reality, whether in the humanized or dehumanized form. The sociality is the bond between human beings and the other, which in the absence generates madness, suicide or unhappiness. Why is this is a psychic need (some would say "existential") of the human being.

[5] We must remember that in addition to the primary needs (organic) and secondary (specifically human, sociality and praxis), historically produces new needs, which we call tertiary, which may be consistent with the radical needs (primary and secondary) or not . In the first case, they are authentic and express a continuing process of humanization and in the second case are inauthentic and express a denial of human and humane essence.

[6] Reified mean transformed into "thing", something autonomous, with its own life and not being social and historical product. In this case, reified spontaneity means the transformation of spontaneity into something that has its own life and without social and historical roots, creating a fantastic isolation winning autonomy and takes place on its own. No doubt this empowerment only occurs in the realm of ideology and not on concrete reality.

[7] In the case of an inauthentic spontaneity, ie, that does not express the radical human needs, but generated by its denial (alienation, repression, restraining, etc.), then it is an autonomy that deepens this process of inauthenticity and dehumanization.

[8] Own initiative in the sense defined above, that is, on its own, but that is determined externally.

[9] The capitalist society, for example, generates selfish, competitive, jealous, people, etc., according to the modern sociability and its reproduction process (competition, bureaucratization and commodification), playback elements of society (VIANA, 2008). Prostitution, for example, is a consequence of that society and its existence can generate inauthentic spontaneity manifested in the alleged desire to submit to the body commodification process. This obviously manifest sexual oppression in a society which commercializes all. Many prostitutes deny prostitution and recognize their alienated character, an activity that is kind to other needs, while others claim that this is something we really want spontaneously. This manifests thingified spontaneity (imbalance or psychological in certain cases). So when the liberal ideology is to defend the thesis that everyone does what you want with your body (it's their "private property," his "merchandise") only legitimate in this case oppression and body commodification of these women .