Liberty

{{politics}}
{{cquote|Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.|||[[Benjamin Franklin]], November 11, 1755<ref>[https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0107 Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 11 November 1755] ''National Archives''.</ref>}}

{{cquote|They take away our freedom<BR>
In the name of liberty.|||"Suspect Device" by Stiff Little Fingers, regarding [[The Troubles]]}}

'''Liberty''' is the state of being free. In most [[Western world|Western societies]], liberty is considered a good thing, and something that is to be preserved. Writing in 1917, John Dewey echoed Leo Tolstoy's critique of the conception of liberty in classical [[philosophy]] as '''freedom''' that is protected but also constrained by the [[rule of law]], dismissing it as resignation in the face of oppression.<ref>"The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy" by John Dewey. In ''The Essential Dewey'', edited by in Larry A. Hickman & Thomas M. Alexander (1998) Indiana University Press.</ref>{{rp|46-70}} He argued that philosophy should be more than apology for established order and that liberty should be conceived as the freedom necessary as individuals strive for full self-actualization.

==History==
{{cquote|Freedom has never been free|||Medgar Evers (1963)<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170323084048/https://www.biography.com/news/medgar-evers-a-life-for-freedom-21254137 Medgar Evers: A Life For Freedom. The assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Miley Evers galvanized a nation against racism and discrimination. And while his death may have been the catalyst, the strength of that reaction came from his life.] by Andrew Cannizzaro (Jun 10, 2013) ''Biography'' (archived from March 23, 2017).</ref>}}

The Swiss canton of Vaud has enshrined the word ''Liberté'' on its {{wpl|Coat of arms of Vaud|flag}} since 1803. Nevertheless, the [[United States]] considered itself the defender of liberty for a long time. However, despite the rather large [[Statue of Liberty|statue]] devoted to Liberty (given to the US in 1886 by [[France]]), the US government backslid considerably after [[9/11]] by denying the [[due process]] that keeps its long-suffering citizens liberated. (Some people would have you believe that giving people [[gun]]s is the answer to that problem; this ignores the fact that the government can always bring bigger and better guns.) That's not even getting into the things that the [[NSA]] and [[TSA]] have been doing since 2001. Then there is the whole matter of [[slavery]] being legal for the first 89 years of the country's independent existence. 

"Liberty, [[equality]], and fraternity" was the slogan of a revolution [[French Revolution|that ended up going very badly]]. Too often, people promise liberty just in order to switch out the boot that's doing the oppressing (e.g., the [[Russian Revolution]]). People may also deploy a conception of liberty that demands a [[privilege]]d status for themselves and the subordination of others, as is the case with the contemporary American [[Tea Party]] movement.

In the [[United Kingdom]], Liberty (the National Council on Civil Liberties) is an organisation that seeks to protect [[civil liberties]] and promote [[human rights]] for everyone.<ref>[https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/ Liberty] ''The National Council for Civil Liberties''.</ref>

==Negative and positive liberty==
{{cquote|Freedom requires its forms: sovereignty, unpredictability, mobility, and factuality. If I claim them for myself, then I must do so for everyone.&nbsp;… It is logically incoherent, [[moral]]ly obtuse, and [[political]]ly ineffective to claim freedom only for oneself. that is choosing the isolation that [[tyrant]]s would have chosen for us.<ref name=onfreedom/>{{rp|201}}}}
Negative liberty has been defined as the absence of barriers to one's actions, whereas positive liberty has been defined as having opportunities to choose actions in one's life.<ref name=carter>[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/ Positive and Negative Liberty] by Ian Carter (Nov 19, 2021) ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''.</ref> This distinction has been traced at least as far back as [[Immanuel Kant]].<ref name=carter/>

In his wide-ranging book ''On Freedom'', historian Timothy Snyder expands on the ideas of negative and positive freedom, defining positive freedom as having five 'dimensions', the normal three spacial dimensions, the fourth dimension of time, and a fifth 'dimension' of people having individual choices.<ref name=onfreedom>''On Freedom'' by Timothy Snyder (2024) Crown. ISBN 9780593728727.</ref> He contrasts these dimensions to his earlier concepts of the politics of eternity<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/16/vladimir-putin-russia-politics-of-eternity-timothy-snyder Vladimir Putin’s politics of eternity] by Timothy Snyder (16 Mar 2018 02.00 EDT) ''The Guardian''.</ref> and the politics of inevitability, withe former representing three-dimensional [[authoritarian]] regimes with no future, and the latter representing the four-dimensional political systems where the ideology is that things will always progress regardless of individual actions. The politics of inevitability represents the widespread post-[[Soviet]] belief that capitalism alone can bring democracy to the world.<ref>[https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-politics-of-inevitability-2022-03-20 The Politics of Inevitability] by Roger Berkowitz (03-20-2022) ''The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities, Bard College''.</ref><ref name=onfreedom/>{{rp|149-161}}<ref>''On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century'' by Timothy Snyder (2017) Tim Duggan Books. ISBN 0804190119.</ref> The fifth dimension represents not just that people's actions matter but that people should be given the ability to make personal choices, including serendipitous ones if they are to be positively free.<ref name=onfreedom/>{{rp|66-68,99-100}}

In ''On Freedom'', Snyder explores five aspects of positive freedom:<ref name=onfreedom/>
#Sovereignty — Snyder refers to the two German words for body, ''Körper'' and ''Leib''. Though they are roughly synonyms, ''Körper'' can also refer to a corpse, whereas ''Leib'' implies a person with the ability to make informed judgments or with liveliness. In [[Nazi Germany]] the word ''Körper'' was almost exclusively.<ref name=onfreedom/>{{rp|21-62}}
#Unpredictability — Making serendipitous choices in life can sometimes change one's life and others' lives for the better, and is one way that enables informed choices. In post-Soviet Europe, a [[trade union]] leader became prime minister (Lech Wałęsa in [[Poland]]), a playwright became president (Václav Havel in [[Czechoslovakia]]), and an actor became President ([[Volodymyr Zelenskyy]] in [[Ukraine]]).<ref name=onfreedom/>{{rp|63-111}}
#Mobility — the ability to move freely in the world experience new perspectives, as well as the idea of social mobility<ref name=onfreedom/>{{rp|112-161}}
#Factuality — the idea that [[fact]]s, that one cannot make informed decisions without having access to truthful information.<ref name=onfreedom/>{{rp|162-194}}
#Solidarity — one cannot be free without the support of other people, past and present, one's family, one's friends, one's community, or one's labor union<ref name=onfreedom/>{{rp|195-226}}

==In practice==
On January 6, 1941, US President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] gave what became known as the Four Freedoms speech as a State of the Union address to [[Congress]]. At that time, [[World War II]] was already ongoing with [[Nazi Germany]] invasion of its neighbors, and Imperial [[Japan]]'s full-scale war with [[China]]. The United States had not yet entered the war. The four freedoms that Roosevelt outlined were:<ref>[https://www.fdrlibrary.org/four-freedoms FDR and the Four Freedoms Speech] ''Franklin D. Roosevelt Library & Museum''.</ref><ref>[https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/fdr-the-four-freedoms-speech-text/ Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1941 State Of The Union Address “The Four Freedoms” (6 January 1941)] ''Voices of Democracy''.</ref>
#[[Freedom of speech]] and expression
#[[Freedom of religion|Freedom of worship]]
#Freedom from want ("secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world")
#Freedom from fear ("world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world")
The speech also argued against [[isolationism]] and for supporting countries that were resisting aggression, implicitly [[Great Britain]], [[France]] and China.

After Japan initiated war with the United States, Roosevelt signed an executive order that took away the freedom of 120,000 Japanese Americans for the duration of the war ([[Japanese-American concentration camps]]), a majority of the detainees were US citizens.

==See also==
{{Fun|Freedom}}
*[[Liberalism]]
*[[Libertarianism]]
*[[Privacy]]

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Political terms]]

Categories: Philosophy, Political terms