Freedom
And now comes the most important topic that concerns the entirety of our lives, our proclivities, leanings, our factions, and of course our biases. As it relates to government, James Madison spoke with great authority in No. 62 to the Peoples of New York in 1788. “…great injury results from unstable government. The want of confidence in the public council damps every useful undertaking; the success and profit of which may depend on the successful continuance of existing arrangements. What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce, when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? What farmer or manufacturer will lay himself out for the encouragement given to any particular cultivation or establishment, when he can have no assurance that his preparatory labors and advances will not render him a victim to an inconsistent government?” And later, “No government any more than an individual will long be respected, without being truly respectable, nor be truly respectable without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.”
Indeed, it is the truth to speak of the nature of freedom and safety, to recognize their opposing natures within reality, while in the same breath accurately surmising the need of one for the other. An egregious offense would be perpetrated on any respectable thinker to believe that a pure version of either Freedom or Security could exist without a portion of the other finding its way into the course of existence in the common parlance. But why insist upon the stability of government? In earlier Papers to the Peoples of New York, James Madison himself declared the need for Faction within a proper society, that those of differing views must have the freedom to express those differences without fear of attack or persecution. It would seem antithetical to assert the idea of Freedom and Security within the same framework; indeed, these two ideas are antithetical to each other, causing no less than a great war we must contend with each day of our lives. Yet prudence here must have resolve: If perfect Freedom requires the absence of Security, then we become slaves to the Freedom that dictates Chaos upon our livelihoods. Conversely, if perfect Security were to be the order of the day, the lack of autonomy the individual could express over their lives would be virtually invisible within the common person’s mindset; total Order would reign supreme. There can be no hyperbole here: To create a system in which both Freedom and Security share a seat at the table, and dine with the most liberal leanings of those that wish to implement such factious undertakings, is the most extensive topic buttressing civilizations throughout the ages. Those that took the approach of Security over Freedom found themselves either the oppressors of the common folk, those in the government, while the common folk, or oppressed, found themselves in contempt of those they charged with the authority of such a system.
And as balance is the order of Nature, those that created systems based upon the absolute Freedom of the Individual found themselves slaves to anarchic and chaotic penchants of all who were subjects of said system. Though it must be pointed out, however prudently as possible, that Freedom is the Natural order of biology as much as the Physical systems lean towards Chaos. So perhaps within the evolution of the Universe, it would be wise to consider that as Chaos increases, either Freedom decreases (because we as people have less control over Chaos that we are willing to allow ourselves to believe) or Security becomes all the more necessary to consider as the rational path in the fight against such Chaos, at the expense of Freedom. But let us consider for a moment what these terms are, that we may pierce the Fog of War in order to express our truest desires upon our governments, our children, our neighbors, and friends that we hold so dear.
Let us begin with an analogy, that of fire. Put simply, the question surrounding fire for the last 10,000 years is thus: Can we use it? More importantly, can we Control it? Can we exercise the necessary intervention over its Nature to subdue it for our devices? Or is the danger of that Freedom it possesses far too great for the human to express Will upon it? A question that has no answer I fear, as many philosophers engaged upon the battlefield of thought desperately have created and been consumed with the overall unknowns of such a phenomenon. Ontological arguments were put forth and then gathered dust almost immediately, as those that would ask the questions of old would become pariahs in their own classes at the idea that Nature was something that could be controlled, or something that could be understood, using sophistry as their weapon, only to fall upon its blade with an enthusiasm lost to time. Many have tried and failed to answer the question of fire, many have come before us, wishing to control the Beast. It is a great truth of the past that fire is dangerous indeed but comes with great benefit. And understanding its nature, the metaphysical and physical aspects of such a unique force, has created for all civilizations a path forward.
What the most industrial individuals understand intrinsically about this philosophical concept is walking the razor’s edge of the physical forces us to put aside the higher orders of thought and return to the simple biological questions. That there is no epistemology necessary in the moment of creation, that simply paying attention to the task at hand reveals the cosmic familiarity of Freedom & Security. And while this armchair philosophy does not help put food on the proverbial table, it does help avoid disaster at the hands of Nature. Fire holds no moral concern, nor ethics or reason. The consumptive ability of fire is its intrinsic properties given its surrounding: put plainly, Fire is to its surroundings what the consumptive quantities of those surroundings inherently possess. There is no teleological argument to be had for fire. Without becoming too verbose and giving into non-sequiturs, this is the philosophical staging point for understanding the delicate existence of Freedom in the mind of the individual, creating two questions.
The first question is the telos of Freedom, it’s purpose. From a previous essay it was established that a Law of Human Interaction exists: All beings quest for Power; Alternatively, All beings quest to reduce Powerlessness in their own lives, in the pursuit of Power. Freedom is a source of Power; those that are Free have the ability to forge their own futures, and those Without are at the whims of those that Have. The argument can be made that Freedom is the original source of Power, as those that achieved the most power arguably were the most free to exercise their will upon the surrounding environment, yet in the past this was almost always accomplished by destructive penchants, spreading Chaos in the ways of warfare, and ruling by despotism whilst suppressing freedoms of others. The telos of Freedom is more a check upon Chaos than an antidote. It treats the symptom, however incompletely, rather than eradicate the disease. Those governments that maximized Freedom for their citizenry have seen the greatest growth, the greatest flourishment of all, rather than those that choose Order delivered by way of Government. Those governments that hold self-evident truths of individuality, equality, and reality as the core tenants of their societies see Freedom as the essence of these truths, rather than the opposite. It’s no secret throughout history: where Freedom showed deficiency, whether in the established Law or the common parlance, Prosperity suffered to find its way into the hands of the ordinary Man. Certainly those in power, the politicians and those that supported them, could exercise freedoms at will (the classic adage – ‘rules for thee, but not for me’) almost always at the expense of those without those same freedoms, and often in perpetration of those individuals. Atrocities are often committed in these situations, with politicians exercising unchecked control over the populaces they supposedly represented. I won’t enumerate those examples here, as there are entire novels and encyclopedias written documenting these acts of terror. One need not search far to uncover the truth in this.
The second question is the exercise of Freedom. How shall a government allow such exercise of this practice without the inevitable anarchy of Nature finding rule amongst our civilizations? What laws must be in place to establish Freedom at the highest order of natural life? This is a question that has many answers, and many historical examples, but for sake of brevity, let us look no further than the US Constitution. In order to create a more Perfect Union, the core concept was to be laid out of recognizing the necessity of Government whilst simultaneously reducing its Power, so as not to infringe upon the rights of Man. There can be no greater truth than this: In order for Freedom to truly exist in a society, there must first exist a way in which the necessary Government cannot infringe or abolish the very essence of the concept. Ironically, Hamilton himself opposed the idea of a Bill of Rights within Federalist 84, stating “for why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible presence for claiming that power.” And how true! The very idea that there is a power to be claimed by a party invites the need for such a claim to be staked. Many claim this to be a rhetorical fallacy, asserting the circular argument of claiming power must begin and end somewhere, and truth be told, both arguments are correct. Power began somewhere; it began when the first man emerged from the darkness of his cave and discovered the secrets of the world, fire, tools, technology, whatever it was. The power struggle of survival began in that moment. But from there, the circle began upon itself in a relentless fashion, through war and destruction, rebirth and growth, with the eventual death of a society into the birth of a new one. Perhaps recognizing this circular nature of the world can help us exercise our freedoms more cautiously. More importantly, alongside caution, we can safeguard our freedoms in a way that reduces authoritarian inputs to a degree most agreeable with the future of a nation, for individualism is the cure to the disease of imprisonment through governance.
I fear the length of this paper has gone on long enough. Suffice it to say, the idea of Freedom in its purest form is something to strive for, while in similar fashion, cautiously applying it to our current lives, in an effort to create a prosperous civilization, one based upon the idea of uplifting each other’s strengths, rather than the detractions of our collective weaknesses. There may never be a proper answer to the idea of Freedom, or the Nature of it either. But there will continue to be those that seek to remove it from the less aware, and thus I offer this warning: Be vigilant of those that would seek to grant you more Freedoms, for they are the ones who wield the knowledge necessary to someday remove the very objects they wish to bestow upon you. Only through your inner understanding of individual Power can you exercise the self-evidence of your autonomy, which no government, man, or god can truly rescind from you, lest you willingly surrender it.
G.S. Frank