Every time I hear on the radio or on TV, or read on the internet, the word "freedom", my ears and eyes stand alert, and I stop whatever I am doing; for each time, I feel something akin to shivers of anger crawling in my limbs as I listen to, or read the words of, the discourse promoting "my freedom to" and "we do it for freedom" et caetera et caetera.
It seems that the noble word has fallen into profound misuse, and as a justification of anything one may do, whether lawful, marginally so, or not at all. A quote that spreads like wildfire around internet profiles runs thus:
"Je désapprouve ce que vous dites, mais je défendrai jusqu'à la mort votre droit de le dire."
Translated, it gives
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."
(The quote itself is attributed to Voltaire, but I find no sources on the internet citing the source of the quote itself...)
Granted, without freedom of speech, we would probably end up in a fairly ignorant state (or State for that matter, however you wish to read it) and not be as advanced as we pertain to be.
However, I single it out as a potentially damaging quote when not examined carefully enough - as is indeed often the case.
If by freedom of speech we mean the right to make reasonable statements, with as much due care as applicable to the situation (I would not expect a fully thought out phrase from an interviewee for example, but a speech or an article of authority should certainly not go unchecked), fair enough. But if by freedom of speech we mean the right to also indulge in stupidities passed on as truths, slander, lies and outright insult - to persons or a community, regardless - then I would want it not.
It seems however that, in many a mind, such is how the expression is understood.
A far less quoted text, possibly and sadly due to its verbosity, is that of Rousseau, in his essay on the Social Contract:
En effet, chaque individu peut, comme homme, avoir une volonté particulière contraire ou dissemblable à la volonté générale qu'il a comme citoyen; son intérêt particulier peut lui parler tout autrement que l'intérêt commun; son existence absolue, et naturellement indépendante, peut lui faire envisager ce qu'il doit à la cause commune comme une contribution gratuite, dont la perte sera moins nuisible aux autres que le payement ne sera onéreux pour lui; et regardant la personne morale qui constitue l'État comme un être de raison, parce que ce n'est pas un homme, il jouirait des droits du citoyen sans vouloir remplir les devoirs du sujet; injustice dont le progrès causerait la ruine du corps politique.
You won't find that in profile "favorite quotes"...
If I were to translate by snippets, I could (I think!) propose that it boils down to the following:
Each individual [...] may have a particular wish, contrary or dissimilar to the general wish that he has as a citizen; [...] and seeing the moral person that is the State as a being of reason, because it is not a man, he would be granted the rights of the citizen, without wishing to fulfill his duties as a subject; [...]
Or, in layman's terms, each individual could consider that between choosing to fulfill his own desires because he has the right to do so, or accomplishing his duties as a responsible citizen, and would choose the former option as it is easier and more pleasing (pardon the translations/interpretations, but French philosophers do not always write for the common man to understand at a glance).
In essence, the quote is pinpointing the two crucial aspects of being a citizen in a free country (a.k.a. "being free"): whilst we have our rights, which we may enjoy at full leisure, we also have our duties, which are not to be disregarded, and are in place not to hinder our pleasure for the sole sake of doing so, but to prevent us from hindering, through selfishness, each others pleasures. The text continues:
[...] quiconque refusera d'obéir à la volonté générale, y sera contraint par tout le corps; ce qui ne signifie autre chose sinon qu'on le forcera à être libre [...]
this being, to the best of my abilities:
[...] whomever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to by the entire body [of society]; which means none else than that he will be forced to be free [...]
introducing an old schoolkid's literery gem of an oxymoron... What it means is that if one cannot act responsibly, they will be contrived to do so willy-nilly.
It disheartens me somewhat, to hear contemporaries of mine to be spreading the words of one quote around the world whilst ignoring the other, but it especially pains me to see it come from the pens and mouths of supposedly educated persons.
For example, in the matter of the cartoons published in the Danish newspaper (and later in the French one), depicting the Prophet Muhammed with a bomb in his turban, it was not until we were fully into the second week of debate that I heard, for the first time, the word "reponsability". Everything else was revolving around (and I do imply going round in circles getting nowhere) the right of the papers on one hand to publish the cartoons, and the right of the Muslims on the other to be respected. All about the rights, the rights, the rights, but scant hint towards any idea of responsibility or consequence, as was demonstrated by the French editor's propmt dismissal from his paper - someone forgot to tip him off the fact that France was supposed to be trying to integrate its Muslim community, not alienate it.
This is not to say that censorship should have systematically been applied - it is a tool to be wielded with great care and not the main subject of this essay, however closely linked - but to illustrate the fact that even after the action was done, and on postulations either side of the debate, and considering further that the whole business undeniably provided a beatiful catalyst to the shattering of an already fragile relation with the Muslim world, the paper's representatives did not even offer a hint of a squeak of a "maybe it could be said that we did a boo boo", and instead stubbornly invoked the Holy Right to Insult in the name of Freedom of Speech. We then received reports of Muslims burning Danish flags. Nemo me impune lacessit and you reap what you sow, as the sayings go.
Examples of this shunning of Responsability in the name of Right are rife, and it would be long-winded and redundant to go into the subject here, but ultimately we are only as free as we are respectful of one another, lest we allow our personal interests and egocentricity undermine our relationships with the outer world, as individuals, communities, nations and so forth.
And so, as a parallel to the first quote of the present discourse, I will simply say: Respect may only be only be gained once given. I forget where it came from.
2 comments:
That was longer than initially intended. It goes without saying that I do not intend on translating it quite immediately, but whoever so wishes may do so...
Good luck!
Give us the Right to do something stupid; it will be guaranteed that at least one person will do it, for pure virtue of the fact that they have that Right.
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