What is Freedom?

The most important question of all

“Life is freedom; its purpose, liberty.” — Gregory Corso

In a few days, we will fly the flag, grill some steaks or hot dogs, and maybe watch a patriotic ceremony on TV. Personally, I always make it a point to listen to a few Sousa marches, as much for the pure musical enjoyment as for the patriotism.

Independence Day, the 4th of July, commemorates the adoption by the Continental Congress of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Its immediate purpose was to proclaim from the English crown, but its significance is far greater than a single revolution. The Declaration famously put forward principles that stated, not how men should be governed — that would wait for the Constitution — but why and to what extent they should be governed at all.

There’s a silly little “libertarian” named Cory Massimino who has openly stated that “all the American Revolution did was to give the world another government.” No, you ideological cul de sac, all the American Revolution ever did was to question the very role of government itself and to demand that it exist to secure our rights or not exist at all. Anyone who knows how to read already knows this:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” (Transcribed from memory; please excuse a misplaced semicolon or comma.)

This is the font of genuine libertarianism: The assertion that government is good only to ensure the liberty of its citizens. We all know, of course, that governments not only fail frequently in that duty, but that they often violate the rights of the very people who rights they are supposed to secure. Therefore, the writers of the Declaration followed the above with:

“That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it…..”

Note “whenever any form of government.” Not “whenever there is monarchy instead of democracy” or “whenever we find the form of government not to our liking.” The offending government could be a monarchy, an oligarchy, a democracy, it doesn't matter. Every kind of government has the potential to turn against the people it governs. When that happens, the people have the right to force change on that government, or to eradicate it altogether.

Only, why? Why is the securing of rights such a fundamental matter? Why are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness essential to society? Where does this belief come from?

It comes from humanity’s essential nature: the condition of freedom.

As the poet Gregory Corso wrote (see above), life is freedom. Its purpose is liberty. Freedom is the heritage we are born with as humans. Liberty is society’s recognition of that condition. The words “freedom” and “liberty” are often used interchangeably, but I believe the distinction made by Corso (and others) is correct. Freedom comes automatically with being an adult human. The lines prior to the Corso quote are: “Every man is free/ Be he in chains or at sea.” This was also the core belief of psychologist Victor Frankl, the Auschwitz survivor who observed that those who lived through Nazi concentration camps were generally the ones who maintained an inner freedom to deal with the horrors of the camps on their own terms.

If we are already free, why do we need liberty? The answer is in those concentration camps. When governments do not recognize the inherent freedom of humanity, hell follows. Liberty is the establishment of societal supports for freedom. The existence of liberty — the establishment of which is, as Corso noted, life’s purpose — is necessary to maximum freedom, to guard against those would would deny human nature and suppress freedom.

Liberty is the exercise of freedom. Freedom is always within us, but without liberty, it can wither and sometimes die. Freedom is the inner condition, while liberty is its external manifestation. Frankl in Auschwitz knew that he was free inside, but he was not so naive as to think he had the liberty to express that freedom.

All of this leads us to the major question that prompted this post.

What, then, is freedom?

I raise the question because of the upcoming holiday, but also because of a recent conversation with a liberal friend. Discussing the rights of the LGBTQ community — if indeed there is such a thing as a “community” of people so diverse — we disagreed regarding special protections for these people, including their “right” to demand to be called and treated as the gender of their choice. To my friend, as to so many on the Left, a biological male has the right to proclaim he — excuse me, she? — is a girl and therefore has the right to participate in girls’ sports. His final word on the subject:

“This is America! We are supposed to be free!”

Freedom for my liberal friend meant that anyone was free to slip the bonds of biology and be anything he/she wants to be. (Well, at least within gender identity. If I proclaimed that I was a woman, he’d be fine with that, but if I declared myself to be a black woman, he’d object. The “freedom to be what you wish” stops at race, I guess.)

The Left sees freedom as a facet of social equality. Boys are “free” to be girls because everything should tend toward the condition of sameness (“equality”). Everyone should have the same income, live the same lifestyle, exhibit the same sexual ambivalence, and believe the same things about the universe, which by the way is made entirely of matter. (Consciousness is just an epiphenomenon produced by all those neurons.) For the Left, freedom only comes when equality (i.e., sameness) is established over and above nature’s inherent hierarchies. Nothing is good or evil. One culture’s truth is just another culture’s lie. Anything is beautiful if you wish it so.

For the Right, freedom is humans’ ability to see the world as it is.

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two is four,” wrote George Orwell.

There really are such things as truth and falsehood, good and evil, beauty and ugliness, and they are not a matter of choice. The exist independently of us, and our freedom is all about discovering them. They are not given to us automatically. Every man and woman must see truth and goodness and beauty for him/herself. This is not “subjectivism,” but rather a kind of individualism. The world remains as it is, but all men and women must grasp its truths for themselves. Some will mistake one attribute for the other; falsehood for truth, evil for good. People err. But that’s precisely why we must all be free to explore the world of experience and decide for ourselves. In making those decisions, the one thing we must not do is substitute our imaginations for reality. Boys cannot be girls. Socialism doesn’t work, despite the Left’s moralizing insistence that it does.

True equality, which flows from the natural condition of freedom, is every individual’s capacity to arrive at the conclusion that two plus two is four. This is freedom, guarded by any government that claims to champion liberty.

And now, Maestro John Philip Sousa’s greatest march. (Get out your piccolo.)