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Capability to Exercise Free Will and Individuality

In this modern age, there are a lot of technological and cultural advancements that have

undeniably improved the lives of humans. This improvements had made our lives more

comfortable and progressive. However, in exchange of these advancements, there are also a lot

of human emotions and perspective being curtailed due to growing inequality in the society. One

of this is the exercise of free will. Though expression of free will is often limited due to societal

and economic factors which are beyond our control, individuals are still capable to exercise their

free will to huge extent by acknowledging their rights and talents and believing that they are

capable of great things.

The curtailment of human freedom as individuals is consistently constrained by various

forces- patriarchal, political and technological. For example, in Jia Tolentino’s essay “Always Be

Optimizing” in her book Trick Mirror, Tolentino begins with a discussion of how society's

current ideal woman has turned leisure activities into a form of work. Currently, this ideal is

"always optimizing" (Tolentino 63), trying to improve herself through technology, money, and

time. Her body is shaped by exercise and highly controlled. Tolentino looks at historical images

of the ideal woman, writing that this ideal has always been "engineered to look natural"

(Tolentino 64) and rarely allows for individuality. Tolentino further situates women's self-

improvement, "a ridiculous and often amoral project" (Tolentino 65), within capitalism. The

ideal of always being out of reach encourages this optimization.

I think that many women today are so obsessed with the thought of conforming to the

societal standards set by the modern community and influenced by media and capitalism.

Women are encourage to optimize themselves according to the massive progress in the industry

and oftentimes, their desired individuality and self-expression is met with criticism or
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disappointment. It felt like they do not belong if they have excessive body weight, not wearing

the latest fashion statement or are not using the latest beauty products. Self-care seems to be

more of a commercial activity rather than an opportunity of taking care one’s self. I think this is

influence by capitalists who wants to take advantage of these women obsession and make profit

from them.

On the other hand, In Joseph E. Stiglitz's essay “Rent Seeking and the Making of an

Unequal Society”, he talks about inequality and how drastic it has become. Inequality in society

was made by the people that benefited from it. The inequality level in America isn't normal

compared to other countries and even the past in America it is an unnatural inequality (Stiglitz

388). This is very unusual even in a recession, the economy weakens and wages drop which

causes the price of goods to drop. But now even with the wage drop, many firms are still making

good money. Those in power that helped this inequality come about use their power to

strengthen their own positions economically or politically (Stiglitz 388). They also have made it

seem like what the people want is unattainable or impossible to change or reach. By this, the

government also changes the dynamics of wealth by taxing everyone but also offering free public

school plus more. The government does this all discreet and small all for the benefit the leaders

in power.

In this essay, we are presented with the concept of rent-seeking. It is an umbrella

ideology that includes various unethical practices used by the wealthy to drain the lower classes

of their wealth and redistribute it at the top. In order to get rich, we can either make wealth or

take away wealth from someone else. Basically, there is an abuse in power as the government

leaders imposed policies that keep on ripping off ordinary citizens while boosting the wealth of
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the upper classes. Many people are made to believe that it is their own fault why they are poor

and no matter what amount of work they do, it will not significantly changed their status.

Rent seeking pertains to the many ways by which our current political process helps the

rich at the expense of the rest of us (Stiglitz 395). Rent seeking takes many forms: hidden and

open transfers and subsidies from the government, laws that make the marketplace less

competitive, lax enforcement of existing competition laws, and statutes that allow corporations to

take advantage of others or to pass costs on to the rest of society (Stiglitz 395). The term "rent"

was originally used to describe the returns to land, since the owner of land receives these

payments by virtue of his ownership and not because of anything he does. This stands in contrast

to the situation of workers, for example, whose wages are compensation for the effort they

provide. The term "rent" then was extended to include monopoly profits, or monopoly rents, the

income that one receives simply from the control of a monopoly. Eventually the term was

expanded still further to include the returns on similar ownership claims (Stiglitz 395).

One of the ways that the concept of rent-seeking is exhibited is in our financial sector.

The financial sector has developed expertise in a wide variety of forms of rent-seeking itself.

Those at the top make money by taking advantage of their market and political power to favor

themselves, to increase their own income, at the expense of the rest (Stiglitz 393). These

examples include (1) taking advantage of asymmetries of information by selling securities that

they had designed to fail, but knowing that buyers didn't know that; and (2) taking excessive

risk-with the government holding a lifeline, bailing them out and assuming the losses, the

knowledge of which, incidentally, allows them to borrow at a lower interest rate than they

otherwise could; and getting money from the Federal Reserve at low interest rates, now almost

zero (Stiglitz 393).

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In the examples given, I think that it is not only the resources of the poor that are being

taken advantage but also their lack of education or access to information. Proposals from the

market seems to be package in a manner that is strongly beneficial to the public. Behind the

façade of that beautiful package is the ill intention of the people in power to rob from the public

discreetly. The abuse of power and political authority seems to be an old scheme existing for

how many centuries. People at the bottom structure of the society are being siphoned of their

meager assets for the advantage of the people at the top.

Now, we are going to talk about the technological factor that constrained our free will. In

Franklin Foer’s essay entitled Mark Zuckerberg’s War on Free Will, the technological aspect of

free will curtailment was explored. Foer explains how algorithms erode individuals free will and

minimizes human choices. Algorithms are made “to automate thinking, to remove difficult

decisions from the hands of humans, to settle contentious debates.” (Foer 114). Ultimately, it

allows its user to have an efficient way of living and to avoid any alternatives. Foer explains how

these algorithms can showcase what they want and block out other options.

Everyone has the right to speak their mind on social media, to fulfill their intellectual and

democratic potential and to express their individuality (Foer 103). An excellent platform for this

expression is in Facebook. Facebook is participatory and empowering. It allows users to read

widely, think for themselves, and form their own opinions. However, in reality, Facebook is a

tangle of rules and procedures for sorting information, rules devised by the corporation for the

ultimate benefit of the corporation. While it creates the impression that it offers choice, Facebook

paternalistically nudges users in the direction it deems best for them, which also happens to be

the direction that thoroughly addicts them (Foer 104). Even though that this algorithm has the
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best interest in mind, it limits the access of the people to see the information they ought to see

and are somewhat force to engage on content which is commercially influenced.

Foer states that “Facebook makes its own choices about what should be read. The

company algorithms sort the thousands of things a Facebook user could possibly see down to a

smaller batch of choice items. And the within those few dozen items, it decides what we might

like to read first.” (Foer 112). Many algorithms follow by those rules, they pick up the patterns of

what users view and cuts down and suggests what they are more likely to choose; basically just

cutting the corners and being more efficient. Instead of dealing with dozen of choices, the

algorithm dwindles down alternative choices and picks out the best one for its users.

While it is true that Facebook offers efficiency for users to narrow down their options and

searches in a matter of seconds, it somehow limits the free access of users to a stream of

information wherein he can exercise his free will on a particular subject matter. I think that the

intention of the algorithm is good but being deprived to see valuable information just because the

algorithm decides it does not fit in your news feed would mean that users are push to choose on

the limited options being presented by Facebook. I think that even though the algorithm might

find the information or posts unnecessary or disturbing for the user, I think the final decision to

dismiss the information or not is solely on the user.

In sum, the essays mentioned above discloses the factors that inhibits human free will

particularly in patriarchal, capitalist, political, technological industries. Women’s desire to

conform to the societal standards of beauty and definition of “ideal women” make them tirelessly

work for it instead to cherish their individuality. On the other hand, the passiveness of the

government to act on the sufferings of the marginalized individuals economically and favoring

the business market on their money-making schemes tolerates the unending existence of
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inequality in our society. Meanwhile, our freedom to be able to decide on a particular subject

matter is being lessened due to the algorithm that filters the contents that we can see.

Individuals can still exercise their free will by acknowledging these facts and try as a

society to change the old system that corrupts our freedom and individuality. These truths should

be acknowledged in the sense that the powerful people in the top of our economic structure are

willing to give up their comfortable lives to meet halfway the people in the lower class of

economy. These factors that constrained our free will are interwoven to one another and should

be addressed hand-in-hand especially by the people in position in power such as giant businesses

and the government. Lastly, as individuals, we should acknowledge our own strengths and rights

and assert them. This is to maximize the free will we are all entitled to have.
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Works Cited

Foer, Franklin. “Mark Zuckerberg’s War on Free Will.” The New Humanities Reader, edited by

Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer, 6th ed., Cengage, 2016, pp. 103–14.

Stiglitz, Joseph E. “Rent Seeking and the Making of an Unequal Society.” The New Humanities

Reader, edited by Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer, 6th ed., Cengage, 2016, pp.

388–411.

Tolentino, Jia. "Always Be Optimizing." Tolentino, Jia. Trick Mirror. New York: Random

House, 2019. 63-94. Print.