Re: Oppression is political, not circumstantial

"It's entirely definitional that freedom is about having more choices." One thing about Harrington's book is that she describes how, in her youth and early adulthood, she bought into the liberal ideology of choice and personal fulfilment, and saw child bearing as an impediment to her self-actualisation. But then when she did finally have a child she found that her feelings were completely different to what she had expected. She discovered that she felt more fulfilled with this "burden" then living as a selfish individual. She left maternity until rather late in life, which resulted in medical complications, and she could only have one child, but she was grateful for the one. The point is that choice is of little value unless you truly know what you are sacrificing by making one choice over another, and that the market is not a neutral medium but tends to create its own ideology that determines people to make certain choices. Harrington was grateful that she at least had one child. Other women might feel unfulfilled their entire lives without knowing why. I think Harrington would question the overarching value of "freedom" if it is defined as "more choices", and this agrees with my own experiences. Although, as a man, I cannot have the experience of maternity, I too, when I was in my 20s, lived entirely for myself. Then, in a later phase of my life, I lived with a wonderful man in a relationship in which I had to provide an increasing amount of unpaid nursing care. Over time, this entailed abandoning more and more of my ego, putting my "self-actualisation" on hold for the benefit of another human being. This would have been inconceivable to me when I was a young man. But you know what? I am happier and more fulfilled now, with all my "burdens" and the concomitant restrictions on "choice", then I ever was when I was in my 20s.