December 22, 2002
FREEDOM VS. SECURITY:
Don't set the people free: many poor souls need institutions, but the ideologues and cost-cutters insist on giving them autonomy (Theodore Dalrymple, 12/14/02, The Spectator)If freedom entails responsibility, a fair proportion of mankind would prefer servitude; for it is far, far better to receive three meals a day and be told what to do than to take the consequences of one's own self-destructive choices. It is, moreover, a truth universally unacknowledged that freedom without understanding of what to do with it is a complete nightmare.Such freedom is a nightmare, of course, not only for those who possess it, but for everyone around them. A man who does not know what to do with his freedom is like a box of fireworks into which a lighted match is thrown: he goes off in all directions at once. And such, multiplied by several millions, is modern society. The welfare state is - or has become - a giant organisation to shelter people from the natural consequences of their own disastrous choices, thus infantilising them and turning them into semi-dependants, to the great joy of their power-mad rulers.
It was by visiting prison that I first learnt that not all men desire freedom.
One suspects these guys only have the urge to security in its most extravagant form. The desire for security is surely one of the great driving impulses of mankind--standing in stark opposition to the need for freedom. That's why we always have to be skeptical when we read stories about the decline of the Left or the Right. It's hard to see how either can be more than a temporary situation. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 22, 2002 7:38 AM
I don't think security and freedom are opposites. For adults, who can live as free men, freedom brings great economic security -- compare the U.S. with any unfree country in the world, and we are vastly more secure in every way. It is only for infants and small children that freedom and security are opposites. Dalrymple is quite right that it is the "infantilising" welfare state that turns freedom and security into enemies.
Posted by: pj at December 22, 2002 8:41 AMBunk.
In the state of pure freedom the strong (men) prey on the weak (women). That's why the rise of the Welfare State so closely parallels the rise of women's political power.
How can men prey upon women except by (a) violence or (b) with the women's consent? In a state of freedom, violence is barred, and in a state of adulthood, people don't allow themselves to be preyed upon.
Posted by: pj at December 22, 2002 12:17 PM"In a state of freedom, violence is barred"
By what?
Some liberal anthropologist -- Geertz? Been
so long I've forgotten -- argued that the
social status of men v. women is hard to
explain, theoretically.
Well, I never bought into that. But we can
observe, right here, that 1) we are very secure
(unlike our ancestors, we don't live in
fortresses); and 2) very free and 3) women
seem to be as free and secure as anyone else.
This is as observable in liberal as in conservative
communities. Once again, I can't see this as
a liberal v. conservative question.
If by freedom you mean a Hobbesian war of all against all, then I'm amazed that you're for it. Surely freedom means a civil society in which each person has well-defined and limited powers and respects the powers of others.
Freedom has always been a challenge to achieve because of the "by what [is freedom secured]?" question. As soon as you empower guardians of freedom, then you have to guard the guardians, and so on. I don't pretend to know the ultimate solution but plainly the U.S. has made the best practical answer in human history.
pj:
That's why I'm not for pure freedom--I think libertarians are utopians too.
As for America's success, I think that's a function of the historic religiosity of its people. Having internalized behavioral norms we have less need of government to enfore behavior.
Gotta be more to it than that. Religiosity is
the norm around the world and freedom is
not.
I do think a big part of American freedom (which
may be radically different from such other
freedoms are there are or may be) consists
in a popular disinclination to push things to
a conclusion. Where did we get that? I dunno.
Yeoman farmer tradition? Lax government and
absence of preachers during the formative
period? Probably.
It is, though, impossible to imagine an
American Dreyfus Affair.
Harry:
You're right; it's not mere religiosity but Judeo-Christianity.
Freedom has never been the norm in the realm of Judeo-Christianity. Freedom emerged only when the civil power of the church was suppressed.
If ideas have consequences, then knowledge really could be power. Nothing is more characteristic of the attitude of judeo-christianity to each than the action of the pope after French troops restored him to Rome in 1849. He had the streetlights, which had been put up by the radical republicans, taken down.
Even a cynic like me could not have devised a more perfect parable.
You don't need streetlights if you're home at night. We have none here.
Posted by: oj at December 24, 2002 9:57 AMI you want your morning paper, somebody
has to be out at night.