Abstract

The idea of human freedom is essentially rooted in the concept of human development, according to Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen's 'Development as Freedom' thesis. And the idea of human progress is a construct that is designed around the axis offreedom. What is freedom? Is it only lack ofsocietal constraint, withdrawal of discipline and punish, willing suspension of the panoptic super ego that they address as the 'mainstream'? Or is freedom a concept much more fundamental, to be read into the texts of Rabindranath Tagore, Romain Rolland or Walden? Sociologists claim that civilization is what we are and culture is merely an arrangement of artifacts that we happen to use during the course of our politics of everyday life. Civilization, however, is also a system of values that is handed down generations as a movement of socialization that laymen identify as 'progress'.