Are We Truly Free?
A friend at KnowTheNetwork, wrote a rather interesting opinion regarding liberty and freedom. Tsudonimh wrote:
Liberty - 1: the quality or state of being free: a: the power to do as one pleases (Merriam-Webster)
What does it mean to be a free society? Or for a citizen to possess freedom?
Liberty allows you the free will of action and speech up to the point that you infringe upon another’s liberty. The ideal of liberty is uncomfortable and uncompromising and belief in such an ideal makes me a radical in most every circle.
My response is as follows:
Tsu, I would agree with the very principal of your belief. I have become a little more jaded in the simple fact that people have forgotten a very primary component of Liberty - the responsibility and accountability that accompanies such a power as being free.
Freedom, in my humble opinion, is much like love. I can be selfish and call it love - but true love is a relationship where both partners are committed to the other selflessly. This creates restraint and borders where both parties can feel completely protected. Why? Because each party has the other’s best interest at heart.
Extend my argument to liberty: You are correct in that your freedom ends where it will infringe upon another’s liberty - but who is to decide this? The problem here is liberty works only in a society where its members are focused upon an attitude of service and selflessness - protection for each other.
Every argument in a marriage - every argument - comes from one party doing, saying, or acting in a selfish manner. As such, every conflict in history stems from another’s belief in something that is opposite from another and an unwillingness for compromise.
One thing that people have forgotten is that government is supposed to be the people. We in point of fact, live in a more socialistic culture where we have traded our rights of freedom for creature comforts - traded our liberty as currency to pay for the outsourcing of our hassles and worries.
Some efforts by our “government” have been good, but most have been stretched and twisted - resembling something wholly different than the original spirit of law intended.
Keep in mind, legalizing everything is not the answer, excusing irresponsible behavior is never the solution. Successful societies hold to the covenant of some standards - and agree to live by this social contract. Why? To preserve the greater good, to perpetuate humanity itself.
I admire your idealism, and I once to held to a standard that everyone could self moderate, but what I have been sadly made aware of through experience is that so many people do not - or worse - will not self-moderate their behavior.
What is truly sad to me is that these same abusive and selfish individuals claim it is their “right” to act in such a way as not acting in this fashion would impose upon their freedom. If you need any grander social experiment as proof, I would encourage you review a little thing called Woodstock 1967… Great ideals, but a miserable failure exemplifying self-indulgence and excess which resulted in soulless physical exchanges, malnutrition and disease.
No my friend, we are not mature enough to handle a “no holds barred” society.
Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.
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ChangeForge... a catalyst to affect the paradigm by Ken Stewart is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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