Why is it that so many on the right find wearing a mask to prevent the spread of disease is an infringement on their freedom, but those on the left don’t? I suspect that behind this difference are three different understanding freedom in a social context.
In the 1950s, Isaiah Berlin wrote an essay entitled, “Two Concepts of Liberty.” He identified what would be frequently simplified to ‘freedom to” and “freedom from.” In the former sense, one was free to the extent that no one interfered with one’s actions; the latter sense, one was free to the extent one makes one’s own choices, that one is not compelled by external forces.
Both of these ways of understanding freedom Berlin addresses define freedom for the individual. I am free if no one interferes with my actions or I am free when I make my own choices. The difficulty is that, as Aristotle describes us, a human being is a zoon politikon. This is often translated as humans are a “political animal,” but a better translation is that humans are an “animal of the polis” or humans are social animals. We cannot be completely human outside society.
This clearly sets up a tension, a tension the philosopher Immanuel Kant termed “social unsociability.” On the one hand, we need to be a member of a society in order to reach our full potential as human beings, but at the same time, that membership limits our freedom. We cannot act however we wish without jeopardizing our membership in the society. Criminals, for example, a persons who have behaved in a way which is unacceptable to society so they are removed from society.
There are three basic strategies for addressing this tension.
Freedom From Society
The first strategy for dealing with social unsociability is “freedom from society.” We have the saying “A man’s home is his castle,” but I’m not sure how many have actually thought about what this saying means. Many people, I think, interpret it as if it was “A man’s home is his palace,” the place where a person enjoys life and can feel comfortable. But a castle was a military fortification. It was protection from invasion from an external enemy. Your home being your castle meant that inside your home you were protected, secure. You did not have to fear enemies outside. Your freedom consisted in being able to act as you wished while on your property.
In the early days of the Constitution, voting was limited to those who owned a certain amount of property. Servants, apprentices and wives could not vote because they were dependent, not independent. Since being free was equated with owning property, these people were dependent on their master or husband, so they were not free and, therefore, not able to make an independent decision. Therefore, they could not vote.
On a more philosophical level, this is the view of freedom we find in the work of John Locke. He argued that governments are formed primarily to protect property. This notion was almost enshrined into our founding documents. In the draft of the Declaration of Independence, the phrase was originally “life, liberty and property.”
Rights are frequently used like property as a way to limit the ability of other people to interfere with what you want to do. Much of “cancel culture” is merely a matter of some people believing they can speak as they like because they enjoy freedom of speech without having to suffer any consequences from that speech. They believe that freedom of speech is a kind of castle that protects them from outside interference.
One of the classics of libertarian thought shows the paradox of this idea of freedom. In Atlas Shrugged, all of the industrialists claim their freedom from society and shrug their responsibilities. The irony is that they all retreat to Galt’s Gulch and set up their own society. In Galt’s Gulch they form their own industrialist society. Not even these rugged individualists can avoid being part of a society. They believe they are free because they–collectively–establish the rules for their society.
Society Above Freedom
The second way one can address social unsociability is by placing society above freedom. If the libertarian chooses freedom at the expense of society, others choose society at the expense of freedom. The nationalist, who puts country above all, the communist, who puts party above all, the theocrat, who puts church above all; all manifest those who give up significant aspects of their freedom of what they regard as a “higher” cause.
It may be the case that those enthralled to this position don’t even realize they have sacrificed their freedom. Throughout our childhood we are enculturated into the norms of our society. As the word suggests, these norms are regarded as “normal.” Many people will go through their entire lives never questioning the ways of their culture. As important, those who do question social norms are frequently seen as threats.
This, then, is where we get the current attacks on education. Education has many purposes. Among them are enculturating children into their society. But there is also the matter of teaching them what is true. In the current conflict over teaching the history of race in the United States, there are clearly those who believe that truth should be subordinated to their ideas of society.
If we look at these first two ways of addressing the problem of freedom and society, we can see the right in the United States is made up of a coalition with two distinct ways of addressing the problem. You have the libertarian portion of the right which places freedom above all else allied with the patriots, who place the country above all else and the theocrats who place their understanding of God’s law above all else. What is especially interesting is that these are not seen as contradictory or even necessarily in tension. There are patriotic libertarians, Christian nationalists and even some Christian libertarians. Ideological consistency is not a central concern on the right.
Freedom In Society
As conservatives frequently point out, it is in the polis that we learn what it means to be human. We are taught simple behaviors for getting along with others, such as how to behave at meals and how to properly greet someone. We learn these social expectations when we are just children. We have no say in the formation of these rules and no standards by which to judge them. By the time we are in a position to question the customs of our society, these rules have become so ingrained that most of us never get around to calling them into question, let alone acting to change them.
The conservative has no difficulty accepting society’s rules. In fact, the conservative looks upon society's rules as either “divine commands” or as “the wisdom of the ages.” In either case, you are obliged to accept and follow social norms.
From a moral point of view, there is a problem with this conservative position. Are you truly a fully adult human being if you do as your society tells you? Wouldn’t you be a much more mature human if you not only followed your society’s customs, but knew why those rules were the way they are? And wouldn’t you be a still more mature individual if, upon questioning the customs of your society, you worked to change those you believe were wrong?
This is something of the reasoning that went on in the German states, primarily Prussia, at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. After its defeat at the battles of Jena and Auerstadt, Prussia was occupied by Napoleon’s army. In order to eventually throw off their occupiers, the government of Prussia realized that they needed to make significant social changes. One of the most important was that they had to turn subjects, who simply followed orders, into citizens, who could think for themselves.
Prussia was an absolute monarchy, so in order to make citizens out of subjects, some significant changes had to be made. Among these were the formation of local councils which gave at least some the ability to make decisions for their locality. Another was a change in the educational system. Prussia introduced universal primary education as well as a new system of secondary and university education.
The idea of freedom which these new educational institutions promoted was that of freedom in society. We are free to the extent we help take part in the society’s decision making process. It is important to note that this was not simply a matter of voting in elections, it is also shaping public opinion by taking part in the public square.
This understanding of education was brought to the United States from Germany in the 1870s with the founding of the first US research universities. Instead of merely passing on the wisdom of the past, the research university was designed, on the one hand, to expand knowledge and, on the other hand, to help students develop their own views and opinions. You can see why conservatives have difficulty with higher education.
For conservatives, to be free means to have overcome one’s impulses and to have accustomed yourself to social norms. With this understanding of freedom it is no surprise that they would object to critical race theory and telling the truth about America’s past. Similarly, policing the public square is dismissed as “political correctness” or “cancel culture.”
The left, on the other hand, does not need to maintain a pristine view of society. They can hold society up to examination and look for improvement while still knowing not to wipe your nose on your sleeve. They can realize that while they may be able participate in the public square, not everyone has the same access and that accommodations need to be made. The leftist knows how to live with the tension of social unsociabiity.
