The Spring Edition of Lapham's Quarterly is entitled "Freedom". I am about two thirds through it but thought I would reprint some of the quotes that are interspersed throughout the articles.
But first, I searched my own blog for other posts about freedom, and I enjoyed rereading all three, so here they are in reverse chronological order.
https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-right-to-choose.html
https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2018/07/freedom-vs-security.html
https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2011/09/repeal-of-dont-askdont-tell.html
So, back to the quotes.
"I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.
Mikhail Bakunin, 1871
"Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it."
George Bernard Shaw, 1903
I quoted something similar to Bakunin in a recent, previous post. I paired it with Shaw's quote because I see this as the critical link that most people seem to be forgetting today. Freedom is not just doing whatever you want, and passing laws that elevate your (sense of) freedom by removing someone else's. Inherent in the ideal of freedom is the responsibility to advocate for freedom for everyone, which is surely the hardest and most dreaded byproduct of liberty for all. Sort of like acknowledging that trans people have a right to drink beer and shop for clothes at a local department store and that by so doing, you are not less free.
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"Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."
Rudy Giuliani, 1999
Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant -- democracy to many."
Marguerite Gardiner, 1839
At first I was surprised by Guiliani's quote, then, once I thought about it realized that he was always about freedom coming from authority, sort of like trickle down freedom, which makes his attraction to Trump all the less surprising. I paired it with Gardiner's quote to remind myself that democracy allows multiple voices to be heard, but even within that political system, as we so often see in today's political climate, there are voices that demand allegiance to their particular brand of tyranny, whether you call it political correctness or anti-woke ideology.
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"There are only two kinds of freedom in the world: the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounce possessions."
Anais Nin, 1940
Freedom of the press is only guaranteed to those who own one."
A.J. Liebling, 1960
Anyone who has read even a fraction of my posts knows that I am not a fan of the rich, especially the super rich. I often feel that Nin's quote reflects the dichotomy of how freedom exists in the world today, in that the rich and powerful are far too often free of accountability for their crimes. Liebling's quote flows along a similar line of thought, especially in light of the recent settlement between Fox and Dominion which, while it was certainly a large sum of money, has not stopped Fox News Corp from continuing to wield huge influence in American politics, despite the lies that were promoted about the 2020 election, and the continued lies spun out everyday since that verdict. Murdoch seems to be the poster boy for the negative aspects of both quotes.
Of course, it is easier said than done to renounce possessions, but not as difficult if one remembers that possessions are merely a tool, not the goal.
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Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.
Agnes Repplier, 1916
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
John Adams, 1814
I linked these two quotes as if to demonstrate, through Repplier's assertion, why Adams' quote is true. But not just to depress the reader, because I think it is only due to man's tendency to succumb to taking the easy way out, individually as well as collectively, that leads to democracy failing. It isn't because we don't know the ideals and heroic possibilities, and certainly not because we don't reach the occasional summit, but because we waste our energies on petty battles related to who should be more free, we exhaust our electorate by pulling them this way and that with the culture war of the day, then, and this may be viewed as my depressing statement of where America is headed, we kill off the best of those ideals and heroic possibilities by choosing the easy path which always leads to denying liberty and freedom to those regarded as "others".
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"Freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically speaking, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive."
Thomas Mann, 1940
"When a man says that he is Jesus or Napoleon, or that the Martians are after him, or claims something else that seems outrageous to common sense, he is labeled psychotic and locked up in a madhouse. Freedom of speech is only for the normal people."
Thomas Szasz, 1973
As is true for most of these quotes, I was unfamiliar with Mann's and Szasz's quotes but feel that both offer an interesting perspective. I paired them because I thought that Szasz gave an extremely apt example of how society and the individual can be mutually exclusive. One might go so far as to say that there are only two types of people in the world, those that agree that the good of the many outweigh the good of the few, and those that believe that if each individual looked out for herself, all would be better off.
Of course, those who choose a course which is beneficial for themselves, at the cost of others, might face opposition from those who are used and abused so that one person can "take care of themselves".
But then again, a plantation owner who believes that only through free labor can he maintain the plantation and provide for the dozens of people who live there, might emphasize the "sacrifices of the few for good of the many" The fact that most people acknowledge that deciding to act for the good of the many should be a voluntary choice, not one demanded through cruelty and fear.
Ultimately, I don't think freedom and equality have to be mutually exclusive, but perhaps that is one of the goals of humanity, one of the tasks set forth by the creator for us to aspire to; an age where both concepts coexist.
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"There's one thing about freedom. Each generation of people begin by thinking they've got it for the first time in history, and ends by being sure the generation younger than themselves have too much of it. It can't really always have been increasing at the rate people suppose, or there would be more of it by now."
Rose Macaulay, 1923
"I prefer liberty with unquiet to slavery with quiet."
Sallust, c, 35 BC
"Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; the liberation from the shackles and restraints of government."
Emma Goldman, 1910
As a wrap, three quotes which suggest that freedom is an ongoing process which appears to be always evolving in a positive way yet always remains out of reach. What is interesting about the Sallust and Goldman quotes is that they suggest that real freedom is, if not violent, certainly messy. The problem, of course, is that violence is more often used to squelch freedom, especially by an authoritarian government, so it is easy to confuse and justify violence as a requirement for freedom.
It occurs to me that in the quest for freedom, in the texts and essays and impassioned rhetoric, the word wisdom does not appear as often as liberty. Is that also a necessary part of the process of attaining freedom? It almost seems that raw emotion is cited, is brandished one might say, to attain freedom, as opposed to a thoughtful approach.
Is that the essence of the problem within humanity's struggle for freedom? Too much emotion, too little wisdom?
I am reminded of the serenity prayer, God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Is wisdom the missing link when it comes to striving for freedom for all? The wisdom to know that "I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation," as Bakunin so eloquently stated?
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