PREFACE

The reader is presented with a collective monograph that offers a perspective on the ethical questions of (non-)freedom. Freedom as such has a significant place in human life and is part of human society within a functioning ecosystem of living and non-living nature. It is impossible to separate the microsphere—the person’s inner world formed by his psyche—from the macrocosm of human society on Earth and the megacosm extending across the universe. In these worlds, regularities operate, certain analogous rules of interdependence conditioned by such tolerance. It is in this tolerance that freedom is hidden. Freedom of decision, with an unconscious-level knowledge of things, in a person with a highly developed personality structure (his microsphere), and in the conscious direction of a person and social groups in the macro-world of human society within that ecosystem, together with cautious attempts to enter the space of the megaworld.

We do not directly realize freedom. Only when the aforementioned tolerance disappears, and this is felt by the whole being as unfreedom, does it become apparent. In a person there is a hidden longing for harmony and a sense of beauty, which should be cultivated with kindness throughout the evolutionary process from conception to the whole course of ontogenesis, in which phylogeny is condensed in the form of life itself. Social anthropology describes human development in the macro-world of social relations, in its history. It maps culture, customs, traditions, and manners in social relations within family and the family’s place in social grouping. With some confidence, it points to common features of necessary coexistence rules between individuals and groups so that humanity survives and continues to develop.

The basis of higher forms of life is the cell and its mathematically precise, programmed ability of blastogenesis to achieve varied forms, which under optimal conditions tend to develop to perfection, which the human eye perceives as beauty. If, in a living organism, an individual cell does not submit to coexistence with other cells, it crosses its assigned field, and the whole immune system is disturbed. The defense mechanism fails, and the cell multiplies chaotically at the expense of others. The organism’s entire energy is exhausted in overgrowth, and eventually it dies. Similarly in human society, which needs an evaluative and control system. Evaluative criteria are ethical principles—an understanding of what is considered good and bad from the standpoint of the societal needs for development. Ethics, morality in customs, culture, traditions, and habits form social conscience, which is also formally condensed in the legal system for different areas of social life.

Reading the collective monograph, we learn about the formation of human personality as a natural being through the internalization of external relationships, which a child absorbs relentlessly like a dry sponge. For healthy development, a family environment with relationships to parents, siblings, and other close people is needed. These are saturated with mutual love. Being responsible for oneself and for one’s close ones is mutual and is an unwritten obligation. It is, however, an ideal—adhering to moral principles in a confined (non-)free family environment. In this context, we can read that, in relation between the individual and the broader social environment, the enforced control by others hides social unfreedom. A person becomes an unfree being because, within oneself, they do not create a free space for spirituality and spiritual life, and their behavior becomes egocentric, focused on satisfying individual needs at the expense of others.

Social work today is under strong influence of neoliberal ideas, where freedom is interpreted as acting according to one’s own will regardless of others. Large capital openly determines its ethical values through the media it owns. These values are often oriented toward the most primitive needs of individuals in a consumer society. For this reason, it is necessary to welcome the call for a new politics that does not cause harm but protects the interests of humanity. It should support its orientation toward the light of knowledge for its future survival. It should use the ability to anticipate dangers threatening the existence of every form of life and protect it with respect.

The analysis of individual freedom in relation to poverty is also noteworthy, raising the question of whether poverty truly limits human freedom, or whether this limitation is left to the poor person and their illusion that they are free, and that they alone bear responsibility for managing their situation. We cannot avoid remarking that transferring responsibility from accountable politicians for social conditions to those afflicted by poverty resembles the current psychiatric labeling of children with an ADHD diagnosis, who in the past were also considered overly lively children and whose activity is medically suppressed. We may ask: is this ethical? Social policy in this direction shifts the burden of the social and economic crisis onto the backs of those living in poverty and does not create space, when addressing this societal problem, for meaningful social work. One can agree with the view that poverty is a cruel reality of unfreedom and that social assistance is only a label with empty phrases for people’s survival problems, because for socially and economically affected individuals and groups to become free, they need an open free space with clarified rules, and people affected by poverty must solve their own problems. That is the direction true social work should take. This also concerns the Roma family and its poverty, because every person is worthy of respect, has the right to development, and has the right to lead a meaningful and full life among their close ones, in family. It is an ever-searching desire for stable values, certainty, and happiness among one’s own, among those with whom one wants to belong. A person needs something to lean on, in order to find solutions to various dilemmas not only in daily life but also, in crisis situations, to receive a satisfactory answer for the future, hope. Yet there are individuals who, for various reasons, do not find this in family. Inner social security is often found after leaving one’s family, in the closed society of a religious sect. For field social work to address the problems of those wishing to resocialize after experiences in closed social groups into ordinary society, as well as in designing socialization programs, it is necessary that the subjective perspective of field social work not be projected into its qualitative research. In a confidential interview, a researcher assumes a moral commitment to prevent abuse of information and to ensure that the personal freedom of the research participant is not endangered, which can be highly sensitive for former sect members, victims of domestic violence, and others. This concerns professional values, which are an important consideration in ethical decision-making in dilemma situations, where the object of social work’s interest (the term client is avoided because it contains too much impersonal, commercial meaning) must have the right to autonomous self-determination with human dignity, where a unique identity in a closer or broader social environment does not trigger a sense of injustice (social justice).

To be just means having acquired moral values that ensure the reliability of proper human action. Failures to observe them in society should be spoken about openly, with feedback given to those who fail to follow them for whatever reason, so that situations containing unethical content can be addressed publicly through common sense. That is primarily what the media should serve. Journalistic practice, in general, when giving an objective description of reality, should adhere to ethical principles in pointing out the dangers of egocentrism, self-concentration, and intolerance toward others. Sympathetic too is the call for media education in journalistic ethics and the need for inner self-reflection based on moral principles embedded in the ethical journalism code.

Social expressions of intolerance, asserting superiority through various forms of bullying, are a primitive psychological mechanism that helps to free oneself outwardly from inner (personal) unfreedom by depriving others of freedom. It is a complex inner deficit—a weakness in empathy and thinking of the bully, whose causes can be found in an unstable family of origin that did not provide the needed support, a sense of basic security, and protection within defined boundaries. In this way, the bully becomes internally unfree and unable to act according to moral principles. They do not feel with another person; they feel their own pain and project it onto others by causing pain to them. Thus one becomes subjectively free by limiting others’ freedom. This is even harder for those who grow up in institutional conditions in children’s homes, where their stay is prolonged into adulthood. Pointing to conditions of emotional unfreedom, or rather to the “freedom” of permanent psychological deprivation, leads to psychologically and socially unprepared persons who do not feel free and are never truly at home. Their personal and social identity is diffuse. Behavior in various social situations is unspecific; they become, because of their helplessness, often victims of abuse by antisocial individuals.

When emotional grounding acquired in the family during childhood and clarified relationships to others in a value-evaluating system are anchored in the structure of a person’s personality, then even despite later-acquired disability, this gives its bearer a real chance for free and creative life. For that, however, essential health and social rehabilitation and subsequent adaptation of the environment without barriers are needed so that free movement is possible. A person with a disability does not need help as such, only a created free space and human understanding in which they can find creative self-reflection. Freedom of movement without barriers for a wheelchair user is an open challenge for self-employment among others. Movement, as a natural property of both living and non-living nature, also belongs to the human body. Through bodily feeling, awareness was formed in early childhood. Awareness of one’s body and its movement in a community of others is generally determined by a harmonized sequence of actions and expresses overall health—freedom of will and thought. If movement is carried out without regard to the actor’s psychosocial needs for the benefit of other people—a phenomenon that can often be seen in helping professions (teachers, doctors, social workers)—and one does not take account of one’s own health, such a person becomes unfree, a slave to work activity. In doing good for others, one must also think about doing good for oneself to avoid burnout syndrome. One must know how to live for oneself in this moment too. Ethics of doing good for others must include oneself and being part of society. This frees the spirit from the slavery of mandatory kindness toward other people.

The collective monograph provides many creative prompts for reflection when seeking answers to ethical questions of freedom and unfreedom in relation to the real possibilities of socialization of a person in personal life among close ones and other individuals across different areas of social life.

Antonín Kozoň

CONTENT

I. ETHICS IN THE NATURALITY OF THE HUMAN PERSONALITY – THE QUESTION OF FREEDOM IN SOCIALIZATION
Ethics in the nature of human personality - the question of freedom in socialization

  1. THE NATURALITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON IN SOCIAL WORK: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MORALITY AND ETHICS
  2. ETHICS AND MORALITY IN SOCIAL WORK
  3. ETHICS – ORIENTATION OF SOCIAL WORK’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE HUMAN BEING
  4. THE NATURALNESS OF HUMAN PERSONALITY IDENTITY
    A. THE NEED FOR ETHICS
  5. FORMATION OF PERSONALITY IDENTITY

II. SOCIAL FREEDOM, SOCIAL UNFREEDOM AND THE QUESTION OF (NON)MORALITY
The social freedom, social unfreedom and question (non)morality

  1. ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF FREEDOM
  2. ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL FREEDOM
  3. ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL UNFREEDOM
  4. FREEDOM (SOCIAL FREEDOM) VERSUS SOCIAL UNFREEDOM
  5. REFLECTION ON THE CONCEPT OF FREEDOM (SOCIAL FREEDOM) AND QUESTIONS OF (NON)ETHICS

III. SOCIAL RELATIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF ETHICS AND SPIRITUALITY
Social relations in the context of ethics and spirituality

  1. SHARPENED INDIVIDUALISM AND QUALITY OF HUMAN LIFE
  2. INDIVIDUALISM AND PARTNER RELATIONSHIPS
  3. SHARPENED INDIVIDUALISM AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE IN SOCIETY
  4. RESTORATION OF ETHICS, VALUES, AND SPIRITUALITY

IV. POLITICS, ETHICS AND (UN)FREEDOM IN THE PROCESS OF NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION
Politics, ethics and (un)freedom in the neoliberal globalization process

  1. GLOBALIZATION – THE CRISIS OF ETHICS AND FREEDOM
  2. ETHICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL INTERCONNECTIONS OF GLOBALIZATION
  3. CHANGES IN THE FIELD OF POLITICS IN THE PROCESS OF NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION
  4. NON-ETHICS OF GLOBALIZED INITIATIVES
  5. ETHICAL RELATIVISM IN DEVIATION OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM
  6. FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN A NEW TOTALITY AND THE ARROGANCE OF ETHICS
  7. DEFORMED FREEDOM: THE UNFREEDOM OF NEOLIBERALISM

V. IS POVERTY A RESTRICTION OF FREEDOM?
Poverty is restriction of freedom?

  1. THE MEANING OF THE CONCEPTS FREEDOM AND POVERTY
  2. POVERTY AS A RESTRICTION OF FREEDOM
  3. THE IDEA OF REAL FREEDOM
  4. REAL FREEDOM AND PUBLIC POLICY

VI. ETHICS IN SOCIAL WORK WITH THE ROMA FAMILY
Ethics in Social Work with the Roma family

  1. BASIC TERMINOLOGY
  2. SOME ETHICAL PROBLEMS IN SOCIAL WORK WITH THE ROMA FAMILY
  3. SELECTED ETHICAL PROBLEMS IN SOCIAL WORK WITH ROMA PEOPLE AND THE ROMA FAMILY

VII. LACK OF FREEDOM OF INDIVIDUALS IN NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
Lack of freedom of individuals in new religious movements

  1. FREEDOM OR UNFREEDOM OF THE INDIVIDUAL?
  2. SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL ISOLATION
  3. A NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENT FOR THE EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH
  4. THREATS TO HEALTH AND LIFE

VIII. SOME ETHICAL PROBLEMS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Some ethical questions in qualitative research

  1. PROBLEMS IN DATA COLLECTION
  2. ETHICAL PRINCIPLES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

IX. IDENTIFICATION OF SOCIAL WORKERS’ PREPARATION FOR PROFESSIONAL VALUES AND DEGREE OF IDENTIFICATION WITH THEM
Identification of preference of social work values and the degree of identification with them among social workers

  1. VALUES OF SOCIAL WORK
  2. PREPARATION FOR THE VALUES OF SOCIAL WORK AND DEGREE OF IDENTIFICATION – A STUDY

X. ETHICAL PRINCIPLES AND THEIR IMPLEMENTATION IN MEDIA PRACTICE
Ethical principles and their implementation in media practice

  1. MORAL CULTURE OF THE HUMAN BEING
  2. MORAL CULTURE AND EMOTION, MORAL CULTURE AND MORAL UNDERSTANDING
  3. JOURNALISTIC ETHICS IN PRACTICE
  4. REGULATION AND SELF-REGULATION
  5. ETHICAL PROBLEMS IN INTERNET MEDIA

XI. BULLYING AS AN EXPRESSION OF UNFREEDOM
Hazing as a result of the lack of freedom

  1. BULLYING AS AN EXPRESSION OF UNFREEDOM
  2. AGGRESSIVENESS AS INNER UNFREEDOM
  3. PREVENTION OF UNFREEDOM

XII. DISADVANTAGES OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH LIVING IN RESIDENTIAL-STYLE ORPHANAGE SETTINGS
Disadvantages of children and youth living in orphanages college type

  1. ALTERNATIVE FAMILY CARE
  2. PROFESSIONAL PARENTS
  3. RESIDENTIAL ORPHANAGES OF INSTITUTIONAL TYPE – CONSEQUENCES OF (NON)FREEDOM

XIII. FREELY LIVED, DECENT LIFE AFTER INJURY – POSTTRAUMATIC DEVELOPMENT
Freely, decent living after injuries - Posttraumatic growth

  1. CONSEQUENCES OF INJURY
  2. MASTERING A NEW ROLE
  3. PATHS OF LIFE, PATHS OF LIVING
  4. RELATIONSHIP BOND
  5. SPORT AND EXERCISING LIBERATE

XIV. ETHICAL ASPECTS OF SHAPING PEOPLE’S INTERESTS THROUGH PHYSICAL ACTIVITY EDUCATION
Ethical aspects of influencing the interests of people by physical activeness education

  1. THE HUMAN BEING IN SOCIETY
  2. ON THE VALUE OF FREEDOM

XV. THE ISSUE OF BURNOUT SYNDROME IN SOCIAL WORK FROM AN ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE
The issue of burnout syndrome within social work area from an ethical aspect

  1. MORAL ACTIVITY OF SOCIAL WORK AND ITS BASIS
  2. ETHICS AND BURNOUT SYNDROME
  3. RISK FACTORS – THE CRISIS OF MORALITY
  4. ETHICAL DILEMMAS OF SOCIAL WORKERS
  5. CONSEQUENCES OF BURNOUT SYNDROME
  6. BURNOUT SYNDROME, WORK-RELATED RELATIONSHIPS AND ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITY