America’s Relentless Pursuit of Freedom
The American Mindset is Built Around Freedom. But Do We Truly Understand It?
“…And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.” Martin Luther King, Jr.[1]
Freedom Is “Front and Center” in Election 2024
At the recent Democratic National Convention, the word “freedom” was used over two hundred times.[2] The word was not only a key part of the Convention’s theme, but for the event’s music as well. Beyonce’s song “Freedom” became the convention’s anthem.
It did not go unnoticed by many DNC viewers, including those with the Republican Party, how much the Democratic Party was now using “freedom” not only as a convention theme, but had incorporated it into its 2024 presidential campaign. Up to this point “freedom” was a word that Republican Party had generally viewed and assumed was its “wheelhouse.” This has been part of a significant turn of events.[3]
So, the evidence is there- in this presidential election season we are now hearing the term “freedom” possibly more than ever, used in the divided context of the current state of American politics. If you think about it, that’s really saying something since the word has always been major part of our American “DNA” and our national vocabulary. But it is unmistakably at the forefront now.
Yet, it raises some timely key questions for all of us to consider.
Freedom - What Do We Really Understand About It?
We Americans love our freedom. We talk about it all the time. Many recall Dr. King’s 1963 milestone civil rights “I have a dream” speech at the National Mall about freedom. We sing about being “…the land of the free…” in our national anthem. We have the word “liberty” ensconced in our Pledge of Allegiance- liberty for all.
Yet, ask yourself this- what do we Americans really know about freedom? Do we know as much about freedom as we assume? What do we teach about freedom? Importantly, what is it that we do not know about freedom? We Americans, both individually and collectively, have demonstrated repeatedly that we are most dangerous to our democracy when our civic literacy isn’t strong enough to prevent misuse by some in the public square.
Negative Freedom- Our “Go To” Idea of Freedom
When asked to think what freedom means to them, many Americans would likely answer the question with the definition with which they are most familiar. Freedom to most Americans means we are “free from” government interference, intervention, and surveillance into our individual and collective lives. This means freedom from government oppression, whether it is freedom of speech, freedom of movement (travel), freedom in writing what we wish, freedom from excessive government regulation (whatever that means, depending on who you ask what is “excessive”), freedom to protect ourselves, our family and our property, freedom to worship how we chose, as well as freedom to think and believe as we think we wish. We point to the U.S. Constitution as the document that ensures our freedom from this oppression.
This “freedom from” is commonly referred to as “negative freedom”, the term having been coined over fifty years ago by philosopher Isaiah Berlin as he was attempting to establish a conceptual framework to understand freedom in political sociology.[4] This is the concept of freedom we Americans are most familiar and comfortable with, understand, and expect our government to observe and respect. This type of freedom is what we are taught and what we think of when we sing “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty.”[5]
The “Other” Freedom
This American perspective of freedom- “freedom from,” is fairly one dimensional. It ignores the various facets of the other type of freedom Berlin spoke of, “positive freedom,” which is the “freedom to.”[6] This other dimension of freedom, “freedom to,” is wide ranging. It can be freedom to become well educated, freedom to be healthy with access to good, affordable healthcare, freedom to retire with adequate means, and the list goes on.
As Umair Haque points out in his treatise, “How Freedom Became Free-dumb in America,” this positive freedom, “the freedom to,” requires collective action.[7] It goes beyond the individual’s prerogative to what “freedom from” is based on. Instead, it rests on a collective consensus of the larger population of Americans who believe that their government should guarantee “freedom to” in order to have access to things like good healthcare, a good education, or a good living, to name a few.[8] “Freedom to” requires more than the individual deciding what is best for he or she.
Why We Often Reject “Freedom To”
Haque argues that the concept of freedom for many Americans means only “freedom from,” meaning the removal of any restraint- negative freedom- “on the exercise of individual desire, the satiation of individual appetite.” Freedom for most Americans does not mean freedom to have “…good healthcare, retirement, education, and so forth, because what freedom has never meant (to Americans) is any form of collective action.”[9] When programs or social initiatives are proposed targeting a goal that “frees us towards” an outcome to address a greater societal good, this requires collective action. Collective action requires a societal consensus that this need (whatever it is) should be met to further the common good. However, instead of coming together in collective action to achieve positive freedom, many Americans are quick to “vilify” such things. We often label them as liberal, socialist, “big government” or communist, or whatever pejorative term comes to mind at the time that seems appropriate in order to disparage it.
Our Misunderstanding of Freedom Runs Deep
Political columnist and commentator Leonard Pitts, Jr. shows us just how misunderstood, deeply flawed many Americans’ understandings of the concept of freedom is today, and how entrenched we are in in this view of freedom being only “freedom from.” Pitts points to an airing of “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” where a video was shown of a man who whined “…There’s no freedom no more.” Pitts points out, “…The clip was from the 1980s, and the guy had just gotten a ticket for not wearing his seatbelt.” Pitts observed “…We’ve been down this road before. Whenever faced with some mandate imposed in the interest of the common good, some of us act like they just woke up on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall.”[10] Pitts adds this commentary on our beloved “freedom from”:
“It’s an unfortunately common refrain. Can’t smoke in a movie theater? Can’t crank your music to headache decibels at 2 in the morning? Can’t post the Ten Commandments in a courtroom? ‘There’s no freedom no more.’ Some of you seem to think freedom means no one can be compelled to do, or refrain from doing, anything. But that’s not freedom, it’s anarchy.”[11] (emphasis mine)
Is Freedom from Government an Illusion?
Another question about freedom that Americans wrestle with is- can one have freedom with an absence of government? Ryan Cooper tackles this question, writing in his essay “What Americans Are Finally Learning about Freedom,” that while Americans are supposedly “a freedom loving people,” we are “in fact an extraordinarily unfree people.”[12] Cooper goes on to describes Americans’ lack of freedom saying that we have:
“…generally sat and taken it. This is in part because of our typical notion of freedom, based entirely around the ability of the individual to do whatever he or she wants free of government interference, is a preposterous notion. Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that freedom from government is the highest ideal when in fact government is the only way that any kind of freedom can be realized.”[13] (emphasis mine)
Coopers persuasively argues that there are limitations to Berlin’s positive and negative concepts of freedom and that Americans’ one-dimensional view of freedom is a false paradigm. However, in the midst of the Covid pandemic he conceded:
“…an especially blinkered individualist sense of negative liberty has won out in the popular American consciousness. For Americans, freedom basically means going about one’s business free of government meddling…This makes no sense even on its own terms, for even advocates of negative liberty admit that one cannot be free to do harm to another, and the main function of a mask is to prevent infecting others.”[14] (emphasis mine)
Other Democracies’ View of Freedom
It is interesting to do a little “comparative politics” and examine how other western democracies, all having younger constitutions than ours, address freedom.
Canada and many European nations have embraced both types of freedom, especially positive freedom, according to Haque. In fact, some European nations have written the “freedom to” into their constitutions. Accordingly, Haque concludes that by embracing both types of freedom, these nations have done something “radical and transformative”- meeting their citizens’ basic needs.[15] Haque goes on to make his case as to the wisdom of these countries’ embrace of positive freedom:
“…The logic of why Canada and Europe provide basics to all goes like — it’s about freedom, but in a much, much deeper, more elegant, thoughtful, sophisticated, and beautiful way than Americans understand. If I am fighting for the basics — bitterly battling everyone else for food, water, money, medicine, to survive, what does that make of me? I become embittered, hostile, angry, resentful. I grew callous and cruel. I become suspicious and distrustful and isolated and alone. I don’t grow as a person — I shrink and wither into my worst self. The Greeks would have said: I grow weak, morally, intellectually, socially, culturally. And people weak like that are not capable of sustaining a democracy.
What happens, on the other hand, if I do have the basics? Then I’m free. Not just free in the superficial, narrow American way: free to have stuff. I’m free in an existential, social, emotional, cultural, human way. I’m free to cultivate, develop, nurture higher values and virtues. I can be trusting, kind, generous, empathic. I can be thoughtful, critical, reflective. I can be humble and warm and appreciate beauty and truth. I am free to be a genuinely good person. Human goodness has been freed in me.[16] (emphasis mine)
What is the Consequence of Our Present Understanding of Freedom?
What is the outcome of our current thinking about freedom being primarily “freedom from”? We have seen it. John Farmer, Jr. describes it in his article in The Hill titled, “The Real Constitutional Crisis: We Forgot What It Means to be an American” as:
“…absent that basic understanding of the necessity for accommodation of opposing views, compromise has died in our culture as virtue. Our freedoms have become unmoored from any sense of civic responsibility and indistinguishable from our appetites (emphasis mine). Consider this:
· Our resistance to restraints on our economic appetites nearly caused a world economy to collapse- twice.
· Our resistance to any limits on the right to carry firearms has flooded our country with 300 million weapons; mass shootings have become appallingly routine.
· Our resistance to any limits on speech has led to the normalization of pornography, with exploitation of women and children.
· Our equation of spending with speech has led to a political arena in which a rich person’s or corporation’s “speech” is necessarily valued more highly than an average or poor person’s speech.
· Cable news and social media have become engines of extremism, a wasteland in which the pressure always to have something to say- and to say something extreme enough to drive up audience share and, with it, profits- acts as an accelerant to any public argument, driving people further apart.
In short, as a society we have become not fulfilled but deformed by the excesses of our appetites…ultimately, our politics cannot be separated from a culture grounded in ignorance of our basic values, a culture that has substituted unrestrained appetites for ordered liberty…”[17] (emphasis mine)
Freedom 2024- Where Do We Go from Here?
We now are barely two months from a presidential election, a pivotal time for the United States. While there are many aspects to it, this election boils down to a few fundamentals. One of those is the wide difference between the candidates’ vision for this nation’s governance. And a critical key part of how each candidate’s vision is pursued is their conceptual framework for our freedom. What does each candidate believe that freedom actually is, and how it is manifested in our daily lives? Is it “freedom from” or “freedom to” or both? It is clear that the Democratic campaign gives voice to both types of freedom. Read the GOP’s de facto platform Project 2025 (or the actual platform that is closely related called Agenda 47). It heavily emphasizes “freedom from.” In many cases it speaks to removing freedoms we now enjoy.
We have seen how a major schism on this idea of freedom played out during the height of the Covid pandemic when “freedom from” government mandates of wearing face masks were rebelled against by many Americans on a large scale. This “face mask rebellion” was supported by many elected officials, a majority of which were Republicans. More recently with the overturning of the Roe v. Wade case by the Supreme Court, we are seeing the opposite. Many Americans are openly in dissent with the Court’s decision and instead advocate pursuing “freedom to” in the form of restoring reproductive rights.
Freedom’s Pursuit Requires Not Falling into “Either-Or Thinking”
Perhaps the answer to many of our major divides in American politics lays in educating and building consensus among Americans on this concept of freedom. Perhaps we can discover that freedom is truly multi-dimensional. That it can be “freedom from,” “freedom to,” as well as both forms of freedom working together in balance simultaneously. Most importantly, perhaps we would discover that these different types of freedom can co-exist in a way that is harmonious with democracy because it promotes and enhances our common good.
This means we must learn to think of and understand freedom in a different way. When faced with questions of our liberty and our freedom, perhaps the place to start is to ask this question- free from what, in order to do what? When we can answer that question in unity, then perhaps our pursuit of freedom will come into a clarity of focus as to what the American people have always desired from the days of our nation’s founding to the present- to be truly free.
[1] Transcript of Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech : NPR
[2] Words Used at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
[3] “How Harris at DNC is Seizing on 'Freedom' Theme after Years of GOP Monopoly” - ABC News, by Tal Axelrod, August 24, 2024, 4:13PM.
[4] “How Freedom Became Free-dumb in America, Why the World is Horrified by the American Idiot”, by Umair Haque, Eudaimonia and Co., May 5, 2020, https://eand.co/how-freedom-became-free-dumb-in-america-baee33dc6476 and Positive and Negative Liberty (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
[5] America, (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee), https://enwikipedia.org/wiki/America_(MyCountry,_%Tis_of_Thee)#Lyrics
[6] Positive and Negative Liberty (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
[7] “How Freedom Became Free-dumb in America, Why the World is Horrified by the American Idiot,” by Umair Haque, Eudaimonia and Co., May 5, 2020, Ibid
[8] “How Freedom Became Free-dumb in America, Why the World is Horrified by the American Idiot,” by Umair Haque, Eudaimonia and Co., May 5, 2020, Ibid
[9]“How Freedom Became Free-dumb in America, Why the World is Horrified by the American Idiot,” by Umair Haque, Eudaimonia and Co., May 5, 2020, Ibid
[10] “Goodbye and Good Riddance,” by Leonard Pitts, Jr., limaohio.com, September 30, 2021, https://www.limaohio.com/opinion/478739/leonard-pitts-jr-goodbye-and-good-riddance
[11] “Goodbye and Good Riddance,” by Leonard Pitts, Jr., limaohio.com, September 30, 2021, Ibid
[12] “What Americans Are Finally Learning About Freedom,” by Ryan Cooper, The Week, July 18, 2020, https://theweek.com/articles/925896/what-americans-are-finally-learning-about-freedom
[13] “What Americans Are Finally Learning About Freedom,” by Ryan Cooper, The Week, July 18, 2020, Ibid
[14] “What Americans Are Finally Learning About Freedom,” by Ryan Cooper, The Week, July 18, 2020, Ibid
[15] How Freedom Became Free-dumb in America, Why the World is Horrified by the American Idiot,” by Umair Haque, Eudaimonia and Co., May 5, 2020, Ibid
[16] “Why Freedom Became Free-dumb in America,” by Umair Haque, Eudaimonia and Co., November 24, 2020, https://eand.co/why-freedom-became-free-dumb-in-america-4947e39663f2
[17] “The Real Constitutional Crisis: We Forgot What It Means to be an American.” By John Farmer, Jr., The Hill, October 9, 2019, 9:30AM EDT, https://www.thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/464678-the-real-constitutional-crisis-we-forgot-what-it-means-to-be-an-american