The Tyranny of Misunderstood Freedom | James Kalb | Catholic World Report
“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” — John 8:32.
“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” — Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.
Everyone says freedom is a good thing. Christ promised it. America is based on it. Libertarians and libertines want it. Even the Chinese call their armed forces the People’s Liberation Army. But what is freedom?
Answers differ, because people’s concerns differ. A libertarian wants freedom from government regulation, a libertine freedom from moral restrictions, and an old-line Chinese communist freedom from poverty, foreign domination, and other social evils. The quotations above from St. John’s Gospel and the Supreme Court suggest two different approaches to the question, both backed by eminent authorities. Catholics and many others accept the first, based on the sovereignty of truth, but influential and respectable people today increasingly insist on the second, based on the sovereignty of human choice.
Catholicism views human life as a whole, and accepts that man is naturally oriented toward goods beyond himself. For that reason, it views freedom comprehensively: prison, poverty, and physical handicap are restrictions on freedom, but so are habitual drunkenness, obsessive greed, and—as John’s Gospel suggests—ignorance of the Faith. The last point is important. The freedom that matters most, in the Catholic view, is not freedom to get what we want but freedom to pursue what is best. A Catholic society would see overcoming sin and moral ignorance as part of human freedom, because those things get in the way of our goal as human beings. When St. Peter was put in chains or St. Francis married Lady Poverty they were freer, in a Catholic sense, than the careerist who is mainly interested in professional success and high-end consumer goods.
We live not in a Catholic society but one in which the view of freedom expressed by the Planned Parenthood court is generally accepted by social authorities. In that view, freedom is freedom to choose what to treat as real and meaningful.
“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” — Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.
This is not a new quote. It was essentially plagarized from the Serpent in the Garden.
Posted by: Bender | Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 01:02 PM