In today's episode I'm thinking at great length about the subject of freedom and coercion. Are you thinking about the same these days?

It seems to me that there's coercion all around us. Now, it's perfectly possible that I am temperamentally more likely to notice people attempting to coerce me and that others may be less likely to notice it but regardless of a person's level of sensitivity it's important to know that coercion and freedom are opposites; diametric, mutually exclusive, opposites and they always – and without exception – will be.

Coercion is compelling a person to act in an involuntary manner – in any way. So, it might not just be through the use of threats or the threat to withhold resources, although it can be in those ways. It can be at the point of a gun. It can be at the threat of not giving you access to food or water or medical care. It could be not giving you access to work; the ability to support yourself.

Or, it could be more subtle things, such as allowing you some food and some shelter and some ability to work but treating you as an outcast or a less-than until you adopt certain ways of being that the coercive party wants you to. So, coercion is definitely on a spectrum and it can be hard to spot; more subtle in its forms, but these days subtle and overt forms are everywhere; all around us.

And I wonder whether I am the only one who sees it…