The Price of Liberty
How do we place a value on life? I recently saw a video of a little girl in China that was run over and left bleeding in the street. People were walking around her like a piece of trash and then she was run over a second time before someone pulled her broken body out of the street. It’s hard to imagine living in a society where that is possible. We never think that we could be numb to someone else’s suffering, that we have some sense of humanity that protects us from cruelty. The truth is history has us shown differently. We can be influenced by society and fear of consequence and general persuasion can lead us to condition ourselves to become accustomed to all kinds of atrocity. In Nazi Germany, by the time anyone felt the problem was serious enough to speak up, the consequences were so severe they kept any protests quiet. Within the past century our own country has stood by and watched racial hatred as if it were normal behavior. During the Civil War we had a country split in half over whether or not people should have the freedom to own slaves. Many things that we now see as absolutely horrific have been viewed as normal or even majority view at some point in time.
Societies have always struggled with the emphasis of the importance of the individual versus the good of the whole. We all can agree that a society needs structure and order to keep life from being complete chaos, but should it be as the cost of personal freedom? The problem is the value of life will decline at either end of the spectrum. If personal freedom prevails, then what is to stop a person from exploiting others for their own gain? Child labor, slavery, domestic abuse, the way workers were treated during the industrial revolution are a few examples of how individual liberty can lead to declines in society. However if the pendulum swings in the other direction we can end up with tyranny and oppression, genocide, fear and complacency, where people look aside when they see suffering. Again if the pendulum swings to the side of personal freedom, the value of liberty can prevail against the value of human life and lead to rationalizing issues like mercy killing, euthenasia or abortion, after all, people are just exercising their personal freedom right? Who are we to tell them they are wrong? This is why it is sometimes difficult to see the difference between far right and far left, you usually end up in the same place. Fascism and communism have many similarities.
So what are we left with? Either extreme leads to relativism and a devaluing of life. As important as freedom and democratic ideals are, they are really more of a result than something you can strive for. Society often tries to model itself after other successful societies throughout history only to fall miserably off track. Liberty itself can mean different things to different people, and can become a complete farce if imposed upon a society without the morality to uphold its value. We associate democracy with ancient Greece, but as Plato said, “Democracy leads to despotism.” His view was people’s freedom should be based on their voluntary submission to the elite representatives that composed their laws and represented their culture and ultimately defined their truth. So a person could achieve personal freedom as long as they were able to redefine their definition of what that meant.
The liberty that we idealise today generally assumes morality is intrinsic within the individual, that given the right environment, personal conscience would prevail. This is a logical assumption when we look back upon times in our history when personal freedom was paramount, but the conditions that led to liberty must be understood to see how it was achieved. We take advantage of the morality we have been taught in that we don’t see how it colors our decisions and the consequences of our ideas. Our American culture is fortunate to have a history and constitution that instills value for human life, and personal freedom in that our system of justice defers to a higher law. The Beauty of this higher law is partly derived from the ten commandments. In fact we have them printed on the doors of our Supreme court. They are usually taken for granted, simplified or considered outdated. However if we listen to the wisdom behind these ten simple laws we can unlock the key to a successful society. The commandments have a chiastic structure that unifies the importance of all of them to a single element, the value of life.
For a society to be successful in longevity certain elements must be protected, labor and property, marriage and family, and truth. There is a commonality in the third and ninth commandment, Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain and Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Both protect truth. If we start calling God what he is not, or using God’s name with a different meaning or intention it is the beginning of redefining truth. This is important because if language is not protected and words begin to mean whatever we want them to mean, they become corruption and truth becomes relative. Bearing false witness against your neighbor is an obvious example of this corruption. The fourth and eighth also relate, Thou shall respect the sabbath and keep it holy and Thou shalt not steal. On the sabbath not only were the Israelites supposed to rest, but their animals, their labourers and also their land. Every component of a person’s property was to be respected and held in high regard. Thou shall not steal is another example of how property and ownership was to be respected. Another connection lies between the fifth and seventh commandment, Thou shalt honor thy father and mother and Thou shalt not commit adultery. These both protected the family structure. Family is what society is based on, they are the first small businesses as well. They are the backbone of education and economy and when families fall apart, everything falls apart. Finally respecting our elders leads to and ties in the ultimate commandment, Thou shalt not murder. A respect and value for life is the cornerstone for all morality that a society should be based on.
However none of these can be possible without the second and tenth commandment, Thou shall have no other gods before me and Thou shall not covet. These cannot be judged or dictated by society and this is the foundation that makes liberty possible. These are what brings forth freedom. These are commandments of the heart. We cannot measure them by actions and if they are not there or insincere the rest will fall apart. Having no other gods before Him, means putting God first, ahead of yourself. That means a lot more than most people think it means and it is that humility that allows a person to sacrifice their own gain to respect others. Thou shall not covet means more than not wanting a house or a wife like your neighbor, or simple jealousy. It means being content with what you are given. Having a thankful heart for everything God sends your way. That means every time we complain or grumble, or long for a situation to change, we are coveting. These commandments are difficult and some would say downright impossible, and ultimately they can only come from God’s grace, but they can be the wisdom we look to when the pendulum swings.
The Rabbit Hole 