A version of this article appears in the Philosophy of Life Newsletter.
Key points:
True freedom comes from controlling our reactions, not external circumstances or possessions.
Social media pressures can undermine autonomy by promoting harmful appearance comparisons.
Resisting conformity fosters a freedom that supports happiness and emotional independence.
Human beings have always struggled with the tension between giving in to pressure to conform, on the one hand, and pursuing their own individual preferences and freedom, on the other.
Today’s digital culture creates new challenges to our freedom as we face unprecedented pressures to behave in specific ways in online environments.
Many people deeply wish to live with freedom and authenticity, but find that external pressures can be too powerful to resist effectively.
It is a misconception to think that the experience of freedom is easy to cultivate.
Subscribe to the FREE Philosophy of Life Newsletter
Explore the Philosophy of Life Newsletter 🧠 One philosophy article. Broken down into 3 ideas, 3 reasons it matters, and 3 questions to sit with — every week. That's the Philosophy of Life Newsletter. Join 2,000+ readers making philosophy useful again. 👉 Subscribe Today .
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus (c. 50 – c. 135 AD) recognized this. He thought carefully about the topic of freedom throughout his life. In fact, he had been a slave in Rome as a child and youth. Although he was eventually freed, it is understandable that the dichotomy between slavery and freedom would matter a great deal to him.
In his book on Epictetus, Long discusses the philosopher’s views on freedom in the context of his life. Freedom, for Epictetus, is ultimately a psychological and attitude matter. It means not being subservient – in our attitudes and emotional reactions – to persons, events, values, or states of the body. Any of these experiences of subservience take away from autonomy and make us victims to distressing emotions.
In his Handbook, there is the following dialogue between Epictetus and a student:
The man who is not subject to hindrance and has things ready at hand as he wants them is free; but the man who can be hindered or compelled or propelled into anything against his will is a slave.
And who can never be hindered?
The man who sets his desire on nothing that is not his own.
And what are those things that are not our own?
Those that are not in our own power, either to have or not to have, or to have them of a particular nature, or under specific conditions. Our body, therefore, is not our own, its parts are not our own, and our property is not our own. So if you become attached to any of these as your own, you will be punished, as he deserves to be who sets his desire on what is not his own.
I want to pause and consider the idea of being attached to our bodies.
Notice that Epictetus says that our bodies are not our own. By this, he means that we cannot ultimately control what happens to our bodies. By contrast, we have control over our reactions to things that happen to our bodies.
This idea is especially relevant in today’s world, which is heavily image-based and in which we are constantly being evaluated for our bodily appearances.
A recent paper in the journal Current Opinion in Psychology reviewed the literature on social media and body image. One common finding has been that photo-based platforms like Instagram are particularly injurious to peoples’ body images because they are so focused on physical appearance. They provide users with endless opportunities to internalize appearance ideals, self objectify, and make negative appearance comparisons.
But from Epictetus’ point of view, these are the kinds of attachments to the body that make a person unfree.
Resisting the pressure to conform to social media standards is challenging because social media is at the heart of so many peoples’ lives.
But nonconformity here is likely what makes the difference between living with a kind of freedom that is conducive to happiness, and the opposite – being a slave to circumstances which at bottom are not within our control.