What is the Meaning of Freedom?
During our class discussion about the Declaration of Independence Dwight Chase pointed out the trouble caused by the document's definition of freedom. What exactly do people mean when they use the word freedom? Examine the chronological list of quotations about freedom.
1. Which statement about freedom comes closest to your own beliefs? Explain.
2. Do any of these authors appear to disagree with each other? Explain.
3. Write your own twenty-first century definition of freedom.
Euripides, Greek dramatist (484-406 BC). "Greeks were born to rule barbarians,... not barbarians to rule Greeks. They are slaves by nature; we have freedom in our blood."
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman (106-43 BC). "Freedom is participation in power."
Christian New Testament, Galatians, 5:1. "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Samuel Adams, American revolutionary leader (1771). "The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought."
James Madison, United States President (1788). "I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
Rosa Luxemburg, German socialist (circa 1900). "Freedom is always freedom for the man who thinks differently."
Rabindranath Tagore, Indian philosopher (1861-1941). "He only has freedom who ideally loves freedom himself and is glad to extend it to others. He who cares to have slaves must chain himself to them. He who builds walls to create exclusion for others builds walls across his own freedom. He who distrusts freedom in others loses his moral right to it."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, United States President (1934). "The freedom guaranteed by the Constitution is freedom of expression and that will be scrupulously respected - but it is not freedom to work children, or to do business in a fire trap, or violate laws against obscenity, libel and lewdness."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, United States President (1941). "(W)e look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world. The
second is the freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want - which...means economic understanding.... The fourth is freedom from fear, which means...a world-wide reduction of armaments..."
Theodor Adorno, 20th century philosopher (circa 1950). "People have so manipulated the concept of freedom that it finally boils down to the right of the stronger and richer to take from the weaker and poorer whatever they have left."
Martin Luther King, Jr., American Civil Rights leader (1963). "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed.... Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro."
Rudolph Giuliani, Mayor, New York City (1994). "Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it."
George W. Bush, United States President (2005). "In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. . . . By
making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear and make our society more prosperous and just and equal."
