On this 4th of July, we celebrate FREEDOM!
A dive into the meaning of 'freedom', and an expression of gratitude by this new citizen
I am out on the Jersey Shore with my family for a much needed vacation, and I will be taking a break from writing articles this week, as I focus on being present to my wife and children (grilling, swimming, crabbing, cooking, games, you know the drill!). They are, after all, the people under my immediate responsibility, and as a family, part of the true building blocks of this great nation (and any other country).
But allow me to celebrate this 4th of July with you all, with this article on Freedom that I wrote a month or two ago. For those of you who are new to my substack since, a nice treat and look into what freedom actually is. For those who already saw it, perhaps it reads different on this feast day of American independence, and freedom from tyranny. Either way: Happy Fourth of July to all you fellow Americans! *
(And to my readers from other countries: may this article help you understand the true foundation of the United States a little better. And believe me that many of us, Americans, are doing all we can to take our country back and end any unjust meddling not just in our own country, but also around the world, to the benefit of a few in the elites, as well! That true freedom might ring around the world!)
A while ago, I wrote a thread on vaccines (actually, on how to debate civilly, but with vaccines as the segue to start tackling that topic). Interesting how you have to parse your words very carefully on certain topics.
One reaction was important enough to bring me to write this article: ‘freedom’.
One of the characteristics of American thinking, is this tendency to see things very dualistic: black or white, right or wrong, my side vs your side, with very little in between. It allows for quick judgement and action, but at the cost of nuance. In my native Belgium, compromise is a national sport. So we do have tons of nuance, but nothing ever gets done.
A side effect of this tendency, is that one side in this dualistic view that we call, for lack of a better word, ‘the right’, is in effect not a single block, but a huge amalgam of different schools of thought. One such school of thought I never fully agreed with, was libertarianism, in whichever form it presents itself.
Before you slam the door on this article, hear me out.
In the US, freedom is a true foundational value. No doubt. It is one of the strengths of the US. In Europe, when we hear ‘The US is the greatest country on the face of the Earth!’, we laugh. What do those arrogant Americans know about true culture or actual long history, we’d counter, rather arrogantly ourselves. Now I lived here in the US for about 15 years, and have become a citizen, I still chuckle a little, but I now understand the truth behind those words.
It doesn’t mean the US is perfect, nor that the US is ‘better’ than other countries. It simply means, and correct me if I am wrong, that the US offers the truest freedom to her citizens. Where the criteria for who is and isn’t a citizen are very generous and rather hard to pin down. And most importantly, it is held that those freedoms Americans enjoy and espouse, are innate, not ‘American’! Which means that every human, in any country, should be allowed the same freedoms!
This is, in a way, revolutionary. Not necessarily new, but revolutionary. (There is a very interesting link, tracing the foundations of that idea to medieval times in my native Flanders, but that would be something for a different article: keep an eye out this coming July 11th!). This is why I do agree with this statement: ‘The US is the greatest country on the face of the Earth!’
But what is Freedom?
Too many think of freedom as the absence of obligations, being free from oppression, tyranny, from others telling them what to do or what not to do. “Nobody gets to tell me what to do/think/say, I am FREE!’ We’ve all heard it, we might have even thought it or said it at some point ourselves.
It is rooted in a very strong individualism. The core actor is seen as the individual, and this is made absolute.
There are many ways to approach this topic, and many ways to dissect, define and view it, I am well aware. I am not about to give an exhaustive and in-depth review on ‘freedom’.
But here is the angle I want to present, for your consideration:
Imagine being placed in a grass plain, flat, and stretching out as far as the eye can see. You could walk in any given direction for days, weeks, years, and not reach the end of it. Here, it is said, you are free to go where you want! But is that really freedom? I argue it isn’t, as it does not matter what you do, or even if you stay where you are.
Now imagine that the people who placed you there, also placed a fence, and said: do not cross this fence. Many would think that this is the beginning of a loss of freedom, but I would argue that it is the beginning of freedom!
For now your hitherto aimless and undefined wandering about becomes focused. Will you stay well clear of the fence? Will you remain close to it, as sailors of old did to the coast as a point of reference? Or will you flirt with the prohibition, sitting on the fence? Dangling your feet on the other side, while remaining in? Or step over? Really cross it and go far into the forbidden territory?
NOW you have options, and NOW you are free!
This might be a perplexing, and even shocking thought to some. But think of it: the opposite of love is not hatred, either, but indifference. Similarly, the opposite of freedom is not ‘having rules/limitations’, but having no rules at all (which is, when you think of it, simply another form of indifference). Or, viewed differently, the opposite of freedom is not ‘the Ten Commandments’, but ‘Do what thou wilt’.
An interesting though experiment, isn’t it? The main flaw in the common understanding of freedom is that we are not insular beings, disconnected from others. It isn’t just you on that plain, but several billion other people, as well, in various degrees of familiarity and closeness. The main guiding principle has been ‘your rights end where those of others begin’, which can be cast as ‘my freedoms end, where those of others begin’. A deeper, wiser take would be the golden rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
So, freedom cannot be taken in an absolute form, or, more precise, an absolute individualism cannot be used as the foundation to apply freedom to. Which is, to circle back to the beginning, why I am not a big fan of libertarianism as understood in the US. For starters, because absolute individualism is not tenable, and second, because such ‘freedom’ rejects any limitation at the preference of each individual, regardless of the freedoms and rights of others.
Now, when I state that such individual freedom cannot be absolute, and that thus a certain level of rules and limitations can and should be imposed by the communities we are part of, does not mean that you have to take my point to the extreme, and accuse me of espousing or promoting authoritarianism. On the contrary!
Even Truth Social, for example, weeds out bots, and otherwise conservative writers have no problems banning and blocking trolls and others who bring in dangerous and unlawful talk (spam, porn, calls to violence come to mind), to protect their forum and those who are on it. Are they against freedom, by denying those individuals their ‘right to speak’, or are they protecting our collective freedom? If you merely look at the individual, some here get angry “don’t tell us what we can and cannot do or speak about!”
Yet, if you look at the forum as a whole, such actions enable it to continue and to flourish, it encourages meaningful debate and conversation, for those who want to and engage in actual open conversation that is respectful and/or properly supported.
Is that a contradiction? Only if you limit your view on too small an area (the rights and welfare of individuals), or on too wide an area (the rights and welfare of the community). It isn’t either/or, but BOTH. We are individuals, AND we are members of a community. Our freedom, then, by necessity, has to be a reconciliation between both tensions and sets of rights.
Lastly, as a thought exercise, to prove my earlier points: If I am correct that true freedom is not wholly measured by the individual, nor by the whole of society, and if I am correct when I claimed that the opposite of freedom is not ‘having rules/limitations’, but having no rules at all, it should be possible to be free in prison.
Did I just lose my mind?
No, not really. We all have read the stories of prisoners, who defied their tormentors, simply by remaining free, despite the external limitations placed upon them. They realized, that since the opposite of freedom is not ‘having rules/limitations’, the actions of their captors, while restricting their temporal freedoms, did not alter they actual freedom. And their captors knew it, and it enraged them to no end, drove them mad, for they could not reach their captives, who proved them powerless, despite the obvious circumstance.
A truly impressive example, is that of the Jewish musician, Schächter, a brilliant Czech conductor, who was held in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Deprived of so much freedom, he banded together with a group of fellow prisoners, and he taught them how the sing the Requiem, by Verdi. The Germans had allowed it, since it was not deemed ‘subversive’, and Verdi was Italian, not Jewish. Schächter brought in the score for the Requiem, and its beauty and complexity kept the prisoners' minds focused on hope.
(A beautiful tribute to Schächter and his chorus was made, in the form of this documentary.)
They performed for their Nazi captors, even, and some of the survivors later said: “It was not entertainment, it was a fight for life.”
The text was sung in Latin, and the prisoners hoped the Germans wouldn’t understand the parts aimed against them:
A written book will be brought forth,
which contains everything
for which the world will be judged.
Therefore when the Judge takes His seat,
whatever is hidden will be revealed:
nothing shall remain unavenged.
There they sang, those Jews, deprived of so many freedoms, in mortal danger, shackled, shaven, hungry, worked to the bone, but still FREE.
As one of them, survivor Marianka May, later said in the film: “We proved beyond the shadow of any doubt that, yes, they have our bodies, yes, we have no more names – we have numbers. But they don't have our souls, our minds, being. Also, it will not be taken away when we are shot."
Or another survivor: “I don’t think the soul has to be nourished by anything but by heavenly music. The soul doesn’t need anything else.”
Such a freedom brings hope. Such a freedom is the ultimate defiance and rebellion. As Albert Camus famously wrote: “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
Such a freedom cannot but ultimately prevail.
But many, in this day and age, have no longer learned to think deeper than the surface, and how to deal with more abstract or complicated topics. As someone said: they can’t think critically.
If you ask me, besides a failed education system and the culture we live in, in general, an individualism run rampant is at the root of this, where each styles themselves a teacher and researcher, even without any proper foundation to be such. The incredible ease of access to information is part of the growing attitude, as well. But, that too is a different topic.
Here is the danger of not properly understanding the true nature of freedom: Such people will focus on the hopelessness, on the deprivation of this or that freedom, and as their oppressor shackles their body, they themselves shackle their own minds and hearts. As such, they will remain unfree, and will never be able to even see, let alone seize, the opportunities to regain the external freedoms they had been deprived of.
Since freedom, in the right to liberty, is endowed by our creator, who is man that claims to have taken it from me? I find that vision and understanding far more powerful, especially in light of the dangers our liberty might be in. It gives a hope, and a fire, that freedom WILL be victorious, for it can never be quenched.
Nothing enrages and is feared more by evil, than a truly free man or woman. For they stand in the light and promise and hope of God, who gave it to them and us all.
Let’s all be such free men and women!
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Addendum:
I have learned to love this country, and freedom is indeed it's greatest export product.
You have heard it before, how foreigners or immigrants say how 'if the US falls, where do we go?'
Imperfect as she is, the US is a symbol of freedom not just for Americans, but for the world.
Which is why Hong Kong waved the Stars and Stripes when they protested, which meant: WE WANT TO BE FREE!
So I am very grateful that I was given the privilege to become a citizen of the United States of America, and to attach my fate to that of yours.
To pledge my own live, fortune and sacred honor to each of you.
And the acceptance I have since felt, assures me that this ideal is not mere words, but still truly a reality.
(For most, and actually, for enough to make it so, still.)
Ut vivat, crescat, floreat!
Just beautiful. You write so well.
This is wonderful. Thank you, dearest friend and have a blessed and Happy Independence Day!
Another beautifully written piece. Thank you !