There’s a fundamental flaw in the way we describe freedom. And the strange thing is that this flaw is relatively new.
Episode 22 of the Make Saints podcast: “Free”
We’ve been talking about freedom a lot lately. From civil rights to lockdowns and mask mandates, the idea of what it means to be free, and particularly, what it means to live in a free society, has been a constant talking point.
Now that Elon Musk is following through on his attempt to buy Twitter, it seems like everyone is talking about a particular kind of freedom: free speech.
And, as a perfect embodiment of the concept, we all seem to think we know what free speech definitively is. So…why do we seem to be in such disagreement?
The truth is that, for all this talk of freedom, we’re missing something integral to the conversation. The ingredient that makes the concept real.
It’s time to talk about freedom.
Let’s start with Free Speech.
So what is Free Speech?
It basically means that any person is able to say pretty much anything. At least, that’s how we tend to think about the concept.
We use a kind of shorthand to make sense of this kind of freedom. And, because we use the shorthand, we sort of trade in absolutes.
Speech is best when it’s free.
No restrictions on speech leads to better speech.
Of course, we can all easily think of examples of speech that doesn’t lead to better speech, a healthier community, or a more honest world. Anti-semitic or racist epithets, for instance. Those are easy to name.
Then, once we name the examples of why the absolutes aren’t completely accurate, we are able to see some of the contours of freedom.
The most famous examples include yelling fire in a crowded theater or the right of kids to swear at school. Most are willing to allow some restriction of speech as necessary.
What’s interesting is what happens next.
Doubling Down or Expanding
Some don’t like the idea of restricting any speech anywhere at any time. Any restriction gets labeled: “censorship.” They see it as a slippery slope. This is a foundational principle of the American Civil Liberties Union: the ACLU. They famously support both Jews and Nazis in their pursuit of free speech. A path that is relatively intellectually consistent, while making pretty much everybody mad at some point.
Others see the use of exceptions to certain freedoms as an opportunity to make their cause exceptional.
Consider the original RFRA: the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The first RFRA was passed in 1993 with near universal support among all faith traditions and political ideologies. Persons of these many faith traditions sought to protect the religious freedoms of Native Americans in a broad sense so as to preserve the freedom of all.
Twenty years later, conservative Christians sought a new round of RFRAs at the state and national levels, seeking to expand their freedom. These, however, did not receive broad or eccumenical support, precisely because this expanded freedom would come at the expense of others, including other Christians.
The cake example
The most popular example of this kind of conflict over freedom involves the question of wedding cakes. Can a shop owner use their religious beliefs as a reason to refuse baking a wedding cake?
While this sounds like a simple question of religious conviction, it exposes the root problem in the whole conversation.
If we give the cake owner a freedom to deny a cake for sincerely held religious beliefs, we are necessarily restricting the freedom of a couple demonstrating their own sincerely held religious beliefs.
What some are calling greater religious freedom is less religious freedom for millions of faithful people.
This is the problem with unregulated freedom: many of the things we’re calling “freedom” benefit some and condemn others. This broader vision of absolute freedom works only in a vacuum because the expanding boundaries of your freedom will eventually find the expanding boundaries of mine. And something will give. Either one of us will have more freedom than the other—or both of us will have the same amount.
The origins of freedom
As much as we talk about freedom like it is a constant, or more precisely, that our present conviction around freedom is how we’ve always thought about it, we really couldn’t be more wrong.
The American vision of freedom is famously founded on Roman ideals of the concept. And these ideals understood the inherent tension of balancing freedom of the individual and society. That ensuring freedom for the individual and for everyone often bumps up against each other.
Throughout history, the human understand of freedom could be boiled down to a simple equation:
Freedom = Liberty + Equity
As we saw in the cake example a minute ago, if one of us has freedom to exercise her religion 100% of the time and another has to go find the special place to get a cake to exercise hers, then there isn’t really freedom here.
One person has unfettered liberty and the other does not.
Of course, if the plan is to maximize liberty and we strongly oppose any fettering at all, this seems like a kind of win, right? The baker is exercising a right she should have. But then we have to deal with the other. So what do we do?
We focus on the opportunity. We say that the person seeking the cake is only seeking the opportunity to have a cake. As if the emotional labor in finding a cake shop rounds down to zero so everybody really does have 100% liberty.
Notice also that we never speak of the shop owner’s opportunity to make a sale. Seeing opportunity as the lower bar, or the floor for freedom is our way of upholding a deeply flawed system. A system in which one person gets all of their rights and others have to just deal with it.
So why is it flawed?
We confuse personal liberty for freedom.
One’s personal liberty is not the entirety of freedom. We aren’t free if some get to be more free.
The vision of freedom throughout history, into the founding of the United States, and has formed our history and evolved with our history may be summed up in Martin Luther King’s articulation of the civil rights saying:
“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
Because liberty and equity is the substance of freedom.
You are free when we are free.
What we’ve done is redefine freedom.
Over the last half century, many have tried to strip equity from freedom. They have wanted the abstract notion that unlimited liberty is itself the goal and the basis for our understanding of freedom.
Some do this from the side of the silenced. This is how the ACLU sees the world. They see where freedom does not appear to be. And I think, way more often than not, they’re right. In part because a robust individual liberty is consonant with strengthening equity.
Others, however, are seeking to strip equity from the equation on purpose. They want freedom to be only individual liberty. Often because they want a constitutional right to reject a pluralistic society. So freedom can only be real if they get their way every time.
This is all so abstract, so we probably want to get more specific.
We can all easily find the limits of some liberty, particularly when there is a victim involved. But it is hard to describe why. Much like the famous decisions by the Supreme Court around decency. The Court couldn’t actually articulate what pornography is, but argued: “we know it when we see it.”
This is why some worry about any limits on liberty. Because some liberty will be restricted without warrant. Because, in other words, anything can be described as pornographic. And we’re not really interested in trusting that people really do know it when they see it.
But this is not actually freedom.
The ideology of unfettered liberty is never actually satisfied. Nor will it ever find true freedom as possible in the world. Not as long as we see any limits on liberty at all as an affront to our freedom.
Unfettered liberty is itself the epitome of a slippery slope. One that never has an end and takes us further and further away from the summit.
The most obvious place in which we can appreciate the limits on our liberty for the sake of equity is in our traffic laws. In the U.S., we drive on the right side of the road, stop at red lights, and (generally) respect speed limits.
In an absolute liberty sense, I have ZERO freedom. But in reality, I have incredible freedom to make it from point A to point B in relative safety. And to do so pretty much whenever I want to. Not in spite of this supposed lack of freedom, but because of the presence of equity. Equity, which, combined with a great deal of genuine liberty, creates this generally free movement around my community.
We all are freed by the ability to trust one another.
Absolute liberty is not freedom.
No matter how much we seek to measure freedom only by liberty, we will continue to find ourselves imprisoned by our sense of lack. Liberty’s appetite is never sated.
But the experience of sharing liberty, offering more people the liberty I experience, the more freeing it all feels.
Now, I can’t possibly contain all of the nuance of legislating freedom in the U.S. There is way too much there. What we can see, however, is what happens to our understanding of freedom when it is only personal liberty. It not only makes our sense of freedom unbalanced and unequal. It makes it impossible and unsustainable.
Under unfettered liberty, few are truly free.
And we’re making ourselves miserable because of it.
Fewer limits on speech is not reducing division. More guns in our communities is not reducing violence. More power in the hands of police is not reducing incarceration.
The material of freedom, depicted explicitly in the Bill of Rights is built by combining two very different concepts working in tandem: liberty and equity. So we can strive for as much liberty as possible and as much equity as possible.
It is not only about opportunity. It is about a playing field in which all are present. Because the field (not just the players) is protected.
Survival of the fittest isn’t freedom.
It isn’t even human nature.
Humanity thrives by friendship, support, and altruism. Physical and social scientists keep proving this over and over again. The greatest evolution in human history came when humans learned to protect their elders and care for the needs of their weakest members .
The fastest teams always ensure we all cross the finish line.Freedom is a team sport. Letting the fastest cross the line while the rest of us get a DNF (Did Not Finish)? That isn’t freedom. And we shouldn’t let the people with the loudest voices steal our gold medal.