Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The Philosophy of Liberty
I've watched this video several times recently. It fascinates me on many levels. In the political realm, it sums up my inclinations quite well. But it equally well sums up my parenting inclinations and my educational inclinations. It always seems to me that having a concisely articulated summary of key points allows me to focus and live truth in a way that frees me from getting clogged up by conflicting emotions and rationalizations.
However, while this video addresses justice in human interrelations, it does not make anything explicit about where our lives come from. And for some, I suppose, this question may not loom hugely obvious in the mind: Did I make myself? My answer to this is an obvious No, of course I did not make myself. The life I have as mine is a gift, just as the life each other person has is a gift. So, this video can say that the first principle of Liberty is that I own my life, and it is true. However, it is also true that my life is a gift, given by my Creator. To me, the lack of this connection being made explicit is not a difficulty. In fact, to me, it makes the fact more plain because it actually causes me to think of the question.
So, this is a very useful tool for me to meditate on how to live in justice, and in charity, (for can you separate them?) with other people. And that's just something I need to spend a lot of time meditating on these days.
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4 comments:
Marie, I have to say that I disagree with this video from the beginning. I DON'T belong to myself -- I belong to God -- and this isn't a minor shift or splitting hairs. While elements of the video are true -- they are only so in as much as these things are gifts from God. To put so much "responsibility" on humans is to doom us to failure. It's a positivist position -- "if only people do X..." -- while it's simply not true -- people will never all do X until Parousia -- ONLY through their voluntary dependence (complete and utter dependence) on GOD -- not on an ideal of human making. It is CERTAIN that politics will not save the world nor myself. This video suggests that all we need to do is educate people to a kind of natural law notion of what the human person is. It's not so, Marie. Every human plan degrades. And thank God -- if we could make justice in this world without placing ourselves completely and utterly in his hands, then we could imagine that we can do without him.
As I see this video, it is addressing the question of whether another human authority has power over me, or whether this human authority belongs to me. And this human authority does belong to me -- because it does not come from me, it is given to me.
To say "my life belongs to God" begs the question of how one understands "God." You and I share the same understanding, but some would hold that "God" means that because I am a woman, I am subject to absolutely anything the patriarch of my community demands of me, for example. And to step out of that (into personal ownership of one's life, the right to my own life) is to step out of line with the ultimate order of the universe. This is also completely untrue.
I don't see this as reflecting a human plan towards perfection, but the manner in which we cooperate with the design of God for humans. OF COURSE we can't do this without grace. I never said this was a complete theological treatise.
Right, okay, but why not mention God (not "a god" but the God you and I both know)? I think the text in this video would have to be different. The authority -- "my" authority -- is not exactly mine.
I guess my problem with this video is that I could actually see Obama watching it and then saying, "That's why I govern the way I do -- so women aren't forced to have abortions...etc." This is why I can't see freedom without being explicitly spoken of in the same breath as God (of St. Paul, and me, and you).
Ok, so this is not my whole response to this, but a friend just shared this quote, which fits very well what I understand by "owning" one's life:
"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." - G.K. Chesterton
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