The topic of liberty is not one easily understood. It took a complex, winding path to being the basis for a society. Along the way, the were many tangible examples of how throwing off authoritarian pressures allowed for personal and cultural growth, enabling many to pursue happiness. We have not yet arrived at true liberty, but we are close enough to have thrown off the vast majority of false on-high precepts placed upon us.
Alas, and akin to the title of this blog, the blade was not tempered correctly and has warped. Liberty is ordered chaos. The belief that every individual has a duty to himself and to his community; to pursue what is best while not bringing harm to the world around him. The chaos comes from allowing individuals to act in an individualistic way, finding their own path, and dictating their own priorities. The order demanded from liberty is that a disciplined approach to pursue life in an individualistic way does not prevent others from doing the same. This small societal law ensures we can each seek to better ourselves and our place without depriving others of the same opportunity; liberty does not, however, dictate that we must all take the same path.
Surely reading this makes it clear that my description of liberty here are not very well represented in our culture at large. I did start off the previous paragraph with a note of how we seem to have wandered away from the principles of liberty. The individualistic drive is innate in all of us, but to survive as a culture or a community, it must be mindful, disciplined, and aware. Conversely, taking the individualistic drive and divorcing it from sensibility, and one is left with anarchy. Unchecked hyper-individualism is unconcerned about consequences to others by way of one's own actions.
In short, liberty is ordered chaos. Anarchy is chaos ordered. There is a call within anarchy to not just be focused wholly on the self, but to do so in a manner that is callous towards the outcomes for others. Ironic in that anarchy is supposed to operate without order, but the philosophy of anarchy orders its adherents act in a manner that is devoid of order.
Marrying these lukewarm coffee thoughts with what has been a personal motto of mine (we are two steps out of the jungle, not from utopia), I have come to the conclusion that liberty--as it should--has allowed for a perversion of itself to operate. It is not just that we have the freedom granted to us by liberty, but that there are some of us who have thrown liberty to the side in the name of individualistic principles. The loss of structure, either through out-dated punitive measures brought about by authoritarian rule or by the well disciplined mind, has created pockets of moral failings and cultural anarchy on one end and the return of authoritarian lust on the other.
Liberty now lives in the gray area of having failed us but not. Moral education and awareness fosters liberty; promising freedom without morality ensures chaos. In the name of liberty, it should be a greater focus of society at large to educate young people in morality and the meaning of liberty (I may appear to be enacting my own law on myself, but hold off on that for a moment). There is no dogmatism here, however, unless we view liberty, perhaps the highest of human philosophical achievements, as being a dogmatically held belief. By teaching the virtues of self-discipline and the spectrum of human morality, we can hope to develop a world where we have tougher minds and softer hearts.
There is much more to be said about this, and I am sure I will continue to write on the matters of liberty, freedom of speech, and of the failures of understanding those principles by society (and the damage that it causes). For now, though, I am out of coffee.
This has been an unedited rant. @nrokchi
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