Over the past several months, I have been looking for ways to make sure that I retain and apply everything learned in and out of classes in college. Blogging, I realized, is a means to that end. Now with more personal motivation to blog, more entries will definitely be on their way to this page.
Pre-19th Century: Liberty and Government
While the concept of liberty intersects heavily with political philosophy, with negative liberty considered protection from the elimination of rights, while positive liberty is the freedom to act. Negative liberty arose with its modern context in Enlightenment philosophy.
As the concept of progress replaced views of cyclical history in political theory, thinkers saw liberty as a means to achieve a better society. By giving individuals the freedom to act, they would behave (more or less) in a way that benefited the greater good. Hopefully, for these philosophers, individual liberty would help the people more than aristocratic rule and feudalism. This sunny byproduct of rationalism arose from the writings of Rousseau, who had such faith in humanity to suggest that:
Rousseau continued on to express the necessity of preventing corruption of the popular interest to maintain the purity of the general will. Here is an exclusive emphasis on negative liberty, in the interest of good governance. It was in this spirit that the early American notion of liberty arose. Faith in the intentions of mankind, overseen by a protecting government hybridized between aristocratic and popular rule, would bring collective benefits."The general will is always in the right and inclines toward the public good...People always desire what is good, but they do not always see what is good."
The 19th Century: Rugged Individualism
The perception of liberty would change in the nineteenth century (1) for the American experience and (2) for philosophy as a whole. The "pursuit of happiness" therefore would take on greater importance than ever before.
(1) The frontier spirit, represented by Andrew Jackson and other icons of pioneering in the West, pervaded American thought as thousands of settlers operated almost independently in the virgin lands of mid-America. As pioneers moved West, they fought not only with unfamiliar land and distance from authority, but Native Americans. In a decades-long struggle that raged with particular ferocity on the farm line in Texas, frontier America overcame the Native American threat to Western security and successfully plowed millions of acres for their survival and sustainability. The frontier, according to Frederick Jackson Turner, was closed by a self-made race of men. In truth, the frontiersmen definitively earned this sense of worth.
America thus left the nineteenth century with an ethic of the individual operating not for the government as an institution, but for a larger ideal of autonomy and ability to conquer. This could possibly relate to the rise of romantic nationalism, transcending the operation of government itself. Irish nationalist Thomas Francis Meagher said in 1846, "A strong people alone can build up a great nation." In sum, the individual could achieve greatness as the sole master of his own fate.
(2) John Stuart Mill made a push in the direction of the modern perception of the impetus for individualism as part of his Harm Principle:
"The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."
At this point in the evolution of individualism, the right of the individual to possess positive liberty becomes distinct, not a means to achieving greater social progress. Mill still upholds the value of negative liberty by asserting that one must be considerate of others' liberty in his actions. Thus, in application, both positive and negative liberty entail the same governmental actions, but arise from different intentions.
The Early to Mid 20th Century: Heritage and Decay
The memory of the American frontier began to fade, yet the sanctification of positive liberty did not fade. The United States fought two world wars with a strong sense of national pride, and waged an ideological conflict in the Cold War under the popular banner of liberty and sovereignty. Great American political figures built foreign policy around the right to self-determination. Th United States sought to replicate its own journey and fight for freedom in other countries around the world. But to what end? It is not possible to promote a standard of liberty abroad when its meaning is lost domestically.
The decay of liberty came not from a place of authority, but as a collective shift. After all, history is the sum of the thoughts and actions of individuals manifested through certain recorded events and documents. As has occurred before in history, the population continued to understand liberty as freedom of action, but forgot its origins, as outlined above. Positive liberty dominated negative liberty as an ideal, and service to government lost priority as an aspect of the importance of freedom. As the foundations of negative liberty are eroded, and the individual forgets that it is critical to not harm the liberty of another. When the respect of the other leaves the equation, the stage is set for radical individualism. Ayn Rand provided philosophical backing for the movement that came.
The Late 20th Century and Early 21st Century: Radical Individualism
While I will never be a Luddite, technological expansion that redefined communication faster than the natural human tendency to adapt accordingly resulted in the final puzzle piece for the most recent change in perception of the individual. In what some writers label "The Cult of the Individual," the increasing mobility and interconnectedness of humans allowed for the deconstruction of the age-old sense of community. People now possessed unprecedented control over their own contact and communication.
Fusing this tendency with the loss of respect for the other and the dominance of positive liberty at the expense of negative liberty leads to an emerging culture of entitlement. Selfishness and self-absorption becomes an ethic, in a perversion of the heritage of positive liberty. As a population naturally forgets history over time, the context behind the value of positive liberty is lost. Americans especially seem to forget that their forbears experienced a journey to attain and maintain their positive liberty, which codified the right to act for oneself. Now, the sense is that certain rights are earned by virtue of simply existing.
In no way is this a universal value, but it has become entrenched in popular culture, helped along not only by the aforementioned progress of technology, but by changing connections in the communication between the public and business.
Consideration of Neo-Marxist Response
With business in mind, it is possible to blame private institutions as creating the sense of entitlement and radical individualism, as well as many other related problems in modern society. It is tempting to place blame on something altogether intangible such as "the corporation," yet one finds a causality dilemma: did the business create the values or the values create the business?
My interpretation of history as the sum of individual decisions and discovery and the measurement of foundational change by ideas (see Hegel here) leads me to differ from a Marxist-leaning interpretation. Class struggle is superseded by the clash of ideas.
The Future of Liberty and Individualism
I will choose to focus on the more optimistic solution to this problem, maybe because it fits my context as a policy-minded college student still youthfully idealistic.
From consideration of the small window I have found into the history of liberty, it seems that John Stuart Mill articulated the balance of liberty best. The value and understanding of the intentions behind negative liberty is necessary for a nation to succeed, as Meagher suggested. My personal values and desire to strive for the knowledge of God's love in all things, as well as the personal journeys of others all require understanding the value of positive liberty.
Government, therefore, should seek to reconnect with what Rousseau believed was the benefit and necessity of the general will to the furthering of the collective good. The promotion of negative liberty and national service ties in with the classic Kennedy quote of asking what one can do for their country. Therefore, the two forms of liberty must work together to bring about both what the individual wishes to seek, and what the individual must contribute to the government and collective good to ensure that all individuals have the opportunity for the same pursuit.
John Steinbeck, from "East of Eden"
"This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government that limits or destroys the individual."
