Last summer, I studied abroad at Oxford. Feeling the urge to be obnoxiously stereotypical, I decided to take a Shakespeare class.
My craving for a quintessentially British experience was satisfied, and then some.
The classroom was the professor’s office, and its walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases that broke only for the fireplace. They were filled to the brim, and extra books were stacked in random piles on the ground. The man who occupied that office was a caricature of a bumbling professor. He had a quirky sense of humor and a love of minutia. He often took us on extended verbal journeys during which he inevitably forgot his intended destination.
One such rant began when, in a response to a question about how we were doing, a classmate of mine answered, “Good.”
That was a bad idea.
For 20 minutes:
“Good … good. What an interesting word! “Good” used to have such an important meaning—is it not an idea that provides the basis for all moral action? And now we use it innocuously without thinking! And isn’t it sad, really, that words can lose their potency like that, or even morph into something else entirely? Take the word “anon.” In Shakespeare’s day, of course, it used to mean “Right now, this very second,” and now it means something like, “In a while, please!” Ridiculous!
That rant (one of many) did not seem particularly significant to me at the time. As comments made by crazy but ingenious bumbling professors tend to do, however, it came back to me months later, after I had left the cozy world of British academia to return to a United States consumed by the 2012 election brawls.
And I observed: The word “freedom” is thrown around these days with a nonchalance reminiscent my friend’s “good,” and in the process its meaning has been similarly skewed.
“Freedom” is the favorite buzzword of conservatives. While liberals often use language that appeals to equality (“for all people,” “the 1 percent,”), conservatives often appeal to the concept of freedom to promote a lack of government intervention.
And that’s what freedom has come to mean: a lack of government intervention in our lives. We are free, we are told, except where the law constrains us. Thus, conservatives have become the freedom-lovers, while liberals simply hold other ideals in higher esteem.
But that modern understanding cheapens the idea of freedom. Freedom does not mean being free from the constraints of government. Freedom means being free of all constraints, so that we are at liberty to do as we choose.
Thus, enslavement can take on many different guises, and the whip forcing us to comply may not be fear of the powers of government.
Is the person free who works 12-hour days at a miserable job she cannot quit because she would lose the healthcare benefits that cover the treatment of a daughter with leukemia? Is the person free who is forced into inhospitable working conditions yet is prohibited by threat of firing to join with others to collectively bargain for better treatment? Is the person free who has no choice of product because monopolies have been allowed to develop? Is the person free who needs money for food, and thus succumbs to a loan shark with ever-increasing, ever-more impossible demands? Is your mother free, working overtime during the holidays to pay for your student loan?
I do not mean to say that laws cannot be the shackles that bind our hands. I do not even mean to say that measures taken by the government to prohibit scenarios like the above from occurring never inhibit freedom. I only mean to take the definition of the word “freedom” back to where it started and reclaim it as an ideal that can be championed by both political parties.
The freest people I’ve ever met live in Sweden. Though their tax rates would make a conservative balk, the average citizen never acts out of fear of hunger or illness or the inability to send their children to school. They have long vacations and breaks, and many average citizens have money for a second home, usually a modest summer cottage in the archipelago.
Are we freer than the Swedish? That is a worthy debate. After all, they do have less choice. They don’t get to choose how to spend a larger portion of their money, and they have less choice in things like universities, none of which are as impressive as the universities in the United States. But framing the debate in terms of freedom on both sides means that we are once again speaking the same language, once again arguing from united ideals.
Conservatives and liberals often seem these days to be fundamentally different beings, philosophically irreconcilable. I don’t agree. Once we truly examine ourselves, we realize that we all—liberals and conservatives, Ayn Rand and Karl Marx—just want to be free.
Let’s start with that.
Ellie Schaack is a Trinity sophomore. Her column runs every other Friday.
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