PrintMay 19, 2012
The Vanishing Feeling of Freedom
The primary reason why it is so difficult to defend political liberty today is because freedom is a rational construct, and thus cannot be understood by the irrational. Children, or adults whose moral reasoning skills are stalled at childish levels, are unable to experience it -- they literally don't know what they are missing.
This is why authoritarians of all stripes are hell-bent on producing and maintaining a society of childish citizens: dependent, trusting of the hand that feeds, obedient, pleasure-centered -- perhaps capable of proficiency in well-defined tasks, but frightened, above all else, of being left to "fend for themselves."
In short, individual freedom, in the complex sense captured in the most profound political philosophy, is completely inaccessible to a mind without a developed faculty of practical reason. And a moral concept that cannot be understood rationally cannot be deeply experienced emotionally. What does freedom feel like? What,...(Read Full Article)
