Freedom vs. Responsibility
Rev. Amy Russell
October 22nd, 2006

When you talk to people with different political and economic theories about the definition of freedom, you get different answers.  Some people think that freedom from government interference in the marketplace is going to provide people with the most freedom.  Others think that providing citizens with assistance for choosing viable life options gives our society more freedom. 
                 
You will recognize these two viewpoints as basically liberal and conservative viewpoints.  However, I think it’s more complex than simply whether the government stays out of business regulation and whether government offers assistance to those in need.  Questions of freedom in democracy seem to also resonate around issues of responsibility.

The earth is not a commodity to be owned by individuals and corporations some would say.  The earth is our home and the home of all other creatures of the world.  And therefore, it is our responsibility as trustees of the earth to care for it and to assure it’s well being.  But the earth also gives us gifts of wealth- and it is the distribution of this wealth and how it is used that often calls up the questions of freedom vs. responsibility.

Should corporations have the freedom to operate as they wish in a capitalist society?  Should they be free to treat workers as they wish?  Should they have the freedom to use the earth’s resources as they feel they can gain the most profit?  Or does a democratic capitalist state have the responsibility to protect workers and consumers from the excesses of  corporate greed?  Should businesses have the freedom to give great amounts of money to political campaigns and therefore influence the outcome of legislation that regulates business?

We are hearing more and more in this election about the corruption of lobbyists and of big business using their money to influence votes in Congress.  The word “lobbyist” has become a dirty word.  But at least now some of these corrupt practices have come to light and voters are becoming more aware of the kind of politics that goes on between lobbyists and lawmakers.

By having more knowledge about how legislation is influenced, we must take on more responsibility.  We must make it our business to find out how our Congress works and to vote into office, people who take integrity seriously.

We are very lucky to have the freedom to vote our conscience in this country.  But with that freedom comes responsibility.  The responsibility to know more about how our country operates.

Political thinkers pose questions about freedom that help us to analyze what kind of freedom we are shaping in our society.  If we make assumptions about freedom, such as freedom does not give you the freedom to interfere and impose yourself on others.  With this assumption comes some difficult societal questions like-

• If one person’s religion expects him/her to pray during the day out loud, shouldn’t children be allowed to pray in school?  Will this freedom, allowing certain children to pray, infringe another child’s right to not be exposed to any religion in school?
• Does saying the Pledge of Allegiance which contains the words “under God” impose religious beliefs on people who don’t believe in God?
• If your religion expects that you will live in a marriage with more than one wife, should the country allow exceptions to be made to its’ laws about marriage?
• As a business owner, should you have the freedom to decide who you will hire and how much you will pay them and what kind of benefits you will offer them?
• As a parent, shouldn’t you be able to decide when and what type of medical treatment your children will receive?  If your religion doesn’t allow medical interference, shouldn’t that belief be respected?

The answers to these questions are complex.  Because all of these questions have not just a political component, but they have a moral component- what people believe is right and wrong morally or religiously. 

So, our moral beliefs about how humans live with one another have everything to do with how we believe government should operate. 

George Lakoff, a political analyst whose last book, Don’t Think of an Elephant, introduced a conceptualization of liberal vs. conservative thinkers, tells more about his concept in his new book, Whose Freedom?.    Lakoff’s concept is based on family models of behavior as metaphors for political thinking.  He sees liberal thinkers as operating out of a moral framework that he calls the “nurturant parent” mode.  He says that conservative thinkers operate out of a moral framework that he calls the “strict father” paradigm.  These paradigms of thinking are metaphors for ways of thinking about government.  He is not saying that all conservatives have one kind of family and all liberals have another kind of family.

In the strict father paradigm, the father is the patriarchal head of the family.  He knows what is best for the family and he makes all the decisions.  The father is the benevolent dictator.  In this metaphor, the father is seen as the government with the citizens of the country being the children.  This model fits well with the Christian Fundamentalist God who is seen as a strict father.  Children, the citizens of the country, must obey the father’s commandments or they will be punished.  If you work hard and obey the rules, you get rewarded and get loved.  This paradigm is taken a step further in foreign policy because there the U.S. is seen as the Big Father to all other countries - the moral authority in the world.  Thus it becomes the moral duty of this country to maintain its sovereignty over all other countries.

In the nurturant parent model, the parents are seen as a government which recognizes the citizen’s (children’s) rights to make some of their own decisions.  The government in this mode is the benevolent protector of the citizens who are assumed to be good and assumed to become independent and strong given support and love.

Lakoff sees empathy as the key difference between fundamentalist conservative values and liberal values.  “Caring about others as well as yourself is at the heart of the value system.  Its natural companion is responsibility, the responsibility to help-to act on our empathy.  Empathy without responsibility is hollow. ..In the progressive worldview, progressives, as citizens, should be both empathetic and responsible.” (Lakoff, George, Whose Freedom?, p. 86)

Lakoff goes further with this principle of empathy.  He says that having empathy puts an important modifier on freedom.  Exercising your freedom should not interfere with anyone else’s freedom.  Lakoff puts forward the notion that if everyone followed this basic premise which is really no more than a re-statement of the Golden Rule, do unto others, that it would create a just and equitable society.

Our Unitarian Universalist principles stress the importance of our individual respect of others, and that we work toward justice, equity, and compassion for others.  Our principles are based around this empathy principle.  Our principles are stated as an affirmation- we say “We affirm” to these principles.  This means that we not only believe this is the way individuals should lead their lives, we think society should be built around these principles and we’ll put our beliefs into action to make this happen.  Lakoff calls this the “responsibility for freedom” principle.  He says that when people are working collectively toward this goal in a society that creates more freedom for everyone.

In our American history, it was when our collective group was working with this “responsibility for freedom” principle that we created the foundations for the freedoms we enjoy today.  When our founding fathers and mothers worked for this country’s independence it was not for their own individual freedoms alone, it was working toward the goal of a country based on these freedom principles. 

The Civil War which had complex causes but resulted in the freeing of the slaves became a time when the people began to realize that oppressing another people meant that the country was oppressed.  Creating freedom for slaves created a more free society overall.

This was true when a few visionary women including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a Unitarian, worked together to unite women toward gaining their voting privileges.  Gaining those privileges not just for themselves but for all women moved our society further toward being a country founded on the principle of freedom for all.
The Civil Rights movement, the labor movement, the anti-War movement against Vietnam, and the environmental movement have all been based around these principles- that when we have empathy for others, we work for freedom for all and create a society with more basic freedoms for all.

If we follow the basic responsibility for freedom with empathy as its core, Lakoff says that we must understand the complex causation that creates social systems, not just a direction causation.  He says the progressives tend to recognize complex systems in the world as having a cumulative effect on others, even when no direct harm is evident. 

An example of this would be how we use the earth’s resources.  As Unitarians, we recognize the interdependence of everyone on the planet and the complex nature of cause and effect when we misuse the earth’s resources.   Every time we make a decision about what we buy, when we use energy or gas, how we deal with our trash, and how much water we use for ourselves- we are affecting others who share a stewardship of the earth with us.

Direct harm is easier to see than cumulative harm.  Lakoff gives the example that if you owned the mineral rights to a mountain in West Virginia, and you want to mine coal.  Now if you went out and stole the equipment to do this, you would be causing direct harm to the people from whom you stole the equipment.  It would be easy to see the direct cause of your action on others.  But if you decide to strip the mountain by mining the coal, causing large amounts of pollution into nearby streams which ends up poisoning fish, which people eat and end up with different kinds of pollutants in their bodies. 

It’s not easy to see the direct harm that your action would be causing.  It’s an indirect effect and may not happen for many months or years, but the effect would still be there.  And with lots of people mining for coal and sending pollution into the environment there is an overall cumulative effect.  The interdependence that we all have on the earth’s resources is evident in this example.  It shows we need to have an understanding of complex systems and their effects on a wide range of victims in order to understand how we might be harming someone else.  We all have a responsibility when we make decisions for our own lives, but it’s not always easy to see the effects we are having.

We are very blessed to live in a free democratic nation that values the freedom of individuals to work toward a happy and peaceful life.  There are basic values of freedom that most in our nation seem to agree upon: a representative government with a balance of power between the legislative, administrative, and judicial branches, free elections, a civilian controlled military, and freedom of individual rights protected by a bill of rights.  While we agree on these basic premises there are some very important freedoms that are still being debated:

• the freedom for adults to marry whom they please in a civil marriage
• the freedom of privacy to not have the government listen into your phone calls, examine your private affairs
• the freedom of one’s reproductive rights
• the freedom of science to use stem cells to research cures for diseases
• the freedom of people working to make a living wage and receive health benefits

Fundamentalist conservatives have at the heart of their values a religious dogma that emphasizes a moral authority- either God, the strict Father, or the President.  The emphasis is on self discipline in following rules that were outlined in the Bible.  These rules must apply to all people even if those people don’t believe in that religion.  There can’t be a separation of church and state because Christianity is seen as the law that everyone must follow.

Progressive citizens have at the heart of their values an emphasis on responsibility for self, and empathy for others.  A respect for all other people and their freedoms is the main agenda for progressives as it is for Unitarian Universalists.

Barak Obama was shown on television lately visiting Kenya, the birthplace of his father, with his wife.  He had heard about the difficulty in Kenya of getting people to get tested for AIDS.  The AIDS epidemic continues in Africa with the stigma of having it or even getting tested for it.  Obama asked what he could do.  They told him that if he and his wife would get tested and tell the African people about it, that would help remove the stigma.  The piece shows Obama and his wife in the health center getting tested and then going outside and telling crowds of people that they had gotten tested for AIDS.  The crowds looked confused and first and then cheered.  The health officials said that the stigma of being tested has been much lessened from Obama’s example.

This is the example of someone with empathy for others.  Obama didn’t preach to them that they shouldn’t be having sex.  That for having sex outside of wedlock would cause God to punish them and give them AIDS.  He simply showed them that there was no shame in being tested.  He went out of his way to show empathy for these people without making moral judgments.

As Unitarian Universalists, we stand for certain values.  Those values are founded in working toward freedom for ourselves and for others.  We take responsibility for guaranteeing freedom, not just for ourselves but because we care about others, for everyone’s freedom.  For if someone else is not free, we are not free