Morality Affecting the Meaning of Freedom
Morality encourages a hegemonic society by the principles enforced for the public, such as the laws, rules and regulations. Individuals who do not follow the common ideology are known as the subalterns because they lack institutional validation. To decrease subalterns, society encourages parents to guide their children to become members of society for cultural hegemony to continue. The principles of morality help citizens to distinguish between right and wrong conduct, to be integrated into society. Consequently, morality separates the wrongdoers and the victims in society within the justice system. However, who has the power to state what is right or wrong in society? The power is in the hand of different institutions who socially construct the value of morality based on their own perspective. “Moral concept may be necessary or at least helpful to ultimately sustainable affirmation of particular lives.” Morality does help distinguish the wrongdoer and the victims; however, who has the power to decide if “some lives are worthy of affirmation, whereas other truly are not.” Even though morality distinguish the right and wrong within society, this concept creates limitations for individuals to express their freedom, and increases inequality within society.
Restrictions on Sexuality
Morality affects “lesbian, gay, and transgender people in the United States” because they “live surrounded by the hatred of people who would eliminate [them] if they could.” Individuals who value heterosexual relationship, criticize other sexualities because it does not follow what has been known to be the common sexuality. Several individuals who disapprove of homosexuality is due to the religion they practice. Religion is an institution that encourages morality within society. When individuals state that homosexuality “violates the word of God,” religion is creating an obstacle for other sexuality. However, the public “meet sinners every day, and [they] treat them lovingly,” which creates inequality because heterosexuals are treated different based on their sexual identity. In this case, morality is affecting individuals’ freedom because lesbian, gay, and transgender members cannot express their sexuality, without being criticize by institution such as religion. Although institutions encourage traditions for several community, sometimes these traditions can affect other groups freedom.
The Media Portrays Morality
Media is another institution that displays morality in the entertainment industry and affects individual’s freedom. For example, several Disney movies portray what is the correct standard for beauty. In this case, morality is being used in media to describe the standard of beauty. The princesses in Disney are seen with an hourglass figure, which affects children and their perspective image of beauty. If women do not meet the standard of beauty, then women are body shamed. “Today’s culture teaches women that their worth is more about beauty and less about their intelligence.” The media emphasizes the image of what a likeable body image is preferred. In other words, the media industry fails to explain that women are worth more than just their body. That they are independent and educated. These films encourage inequality by establishing gender stereotypes in films. Because media has created gender stereotypes for women, this idea has led women to use their body as a sign of protest to get the public’s attention. These women must use their body as a sign of protest because the media has objectified women through their body. For example, in Kenya, women had to ban sex to get the public attention. These women use their body to explain that they have control over their body. The media has affected women’s freedom because women now must use their body to get recognized because words do not get public’s attention.
The Workforce Shaping Morality
Morality in a workforce is enforce through rules and regulations by the company’s management. These rules and regulations affect individual freedom from expressing their emotional feeling toward their labor. According to Arlie Hochschild, Karl Marx describes the workforce labor, but fails to mention the emotional labor within a work environment. In other words, not only are employees labor managed, but their personality must also be managed to distribute goods. For example, in Delta Airlines employees’ duty is to assist their clients with a smile because of the company’s standards. The workers would explain that their smile “was on them but not on them.” The smiles “were seen as an extension of the make-up, the uniform, the recorded music,[…] which taken altogether orchestrate the mood of the passenger.” The smiles are painted on the employees because of management. Therefore, these regulations provided by management restricts individual’s freedom of expressing their personality to the public.
The Affects of Morality
Freedom is an important value for American citizens; however, individuals should realize that their right of freedom has become a fantasy. A fantasy that citizens are made to believe as real. Institutions affect individual’s freedom by creating restriction through the concept of morality. Morality separates the community from wrongdoer into victims, and the separation makes one group superior than the other group. Shaping superiority within a community creates inequality because superiority shows an idea that one is better than the rest which restricts new innovations. Making the public believe that the common ideology is the best ideology for society, limits individuals with different ideology from expressing their perspective. In this case morality forbids new ideas from overthrowing the common ideology from society because institutions encourage their perspective to be the correct regulation for their environment.
