Social freedom

“ A new sense of freedom and joy is pervading the hearts of the people as their individual faculties are awakened, and they discover, in a social life which permits alike of the completest concerted action and of the fullest individual liberty, the long-sought-for means of reconciliation between order and freedom—between the well-being of the individual and of society. ”

“ I would like to underline in the most emphatic way that it is possible to have this Great State, essentially socialistic, owning and running the land and all the great public services, sustaining everybody in absolute freedom at a certain minimum of comfort and well-being, and still leaving most of the interests, amusements, and adornments of the individual life, and all sorts of collective concerns, social and political discussion, religious worship, philosophy, and the like to the free personal initiatives of entirely unofficial people. ”

“ If we regard all nations as moving on in the sphere designed by Providence, each seeking and finding its happiness in its own way, [Pg 7] —some less capable of self-restraint than others, some enjoying a high degree of political liberty, and some, on the other hand, in possession of a high degree of social freedom ”

“ But when men living in society once become aware that their welfare depends upon, two opposing tendencies of equal importance—the one restraining, the other encouraging, individual freedom—the question "What are the functions of Government?" is translated into another—namely, What ought we men, in our corporate capacity, to do, not only in the way of restraining that free individuality which is inconsistent with the existence of society, but in encouraging that free individuality which is essential to the evolution of the social organization? ”

“ Freedom is, of course, a direct and integral element in any worthy human ideal, for it is an indispensable condition for individual development, but here it comes into consideration as an equally indispensable condition of social progress. ”

“ Give them thus a sense of being something in the great social order, a direct palpable interest in the honor and prosperity of the community. There will then be a dignified sense of independence; the generous, liberalizing, ennobling sentiments of freedom; the self-respect and conscious responsibility of men in the full exercise of their rights; the manly disdain of what is base ”

“ Likewise, the freedom of the mind and freedom in governmental action furnish great opportunities for progress, but the final result will be determined by use of such opportunities in the creation of a higher type of mind characterized by a well-balanced social attitude. ”

“ Some of them might have passed through life fairly well in a more primitive stage of social development, as, for example, in the days of slavery or serfdom, but they are manifestly out of place in an age of unrestricted freedom, when a man may work or remain idle just as he chooses. A society based upon the principle of individual liberty is a society of which the members are supposed to be gifted with the virtues of prudence, industry, and self-control ”

“ We hear, indeed, some wild talk about the establishment of a social order, or disorder, without government and without laws and courts of justice, in which everybody can do what he or she pleases, and that when everybody can do what he or she pleases, everybody will do right, and have enough of the good things of the world, and be happy. ”

“ Look at the next safeguard of society. Setting aside the institution of Slavery, and the statutes relating thereto, I think we have the most righteous establishments in the world. By no means perfect, they produce the greatest variety of action in the individuals, the greatest unity of action in society, and afford an opportunity to achieve the purpose of social and individual life. ”

“ The highest stage of society towards which we are moving he calls liberty—that is, the synthesis of the thesis, community, and the antithesis, property—but “liberty is equality, because liberty exists only in the social state, and outside of equality there is no society.” ”

“ And from this philosophical origin he traced society in the historical formation of an actual polity, describing how the social contract, while subordinating individual liberty to the collective will of a society, recompensed men by investing them with rights of civilization. ”

“ Thus association in equality is the law of progress. Association frees mental power for expenditure in improvement, and equality, or justice, or freedom—for the terms here signify the same thing, the recognition of the moral law—prevents the dissipation of this power in fruitless struggles. ”

“ It impedes my right to free moral and intellectual development, by surrounding my path with dangers, and by weakening and demoralizing society, from which I have a right to claim mutual aid and intercourse.' A theory of 'social rights,' the like of which probably never before found its way into distinct language: being nothing short of this—that it is the absolute social right of every individual, that every other individual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought ”

“ If we trace out the laws that govern human life in society, we find that in the largest as in the smallest community they are the same. We find that what seem at first sight like divergences and exceptions are but manifestations of the same principles. And we find that everywhere we can trace the social law, it runs into and conforms with the moral law; that in the life of a community, justice infallibly brings its reward and injustice its punishment. ”

“ The law of human progress, what is it but the moral law? Just as social adjustments promote justice, just as they acknowledge the equality of right between man and man, just as they insure to each the perfect liberty which is bounded only by the equal liberty of every other, must civilization advance. Just as they fail in this, must advancing civilization come to a halt and recede. ”

“ We will transmit to them liberty and equal rights, secured by laws respectable and respected; we will transmit to them a social organization in which every human being can enjoy the fruits of his labor with dignity and independence; we will transmit to them a full abundance of the means which promote the untramelled development of the moral and ideal element in human nature. ”

“ Imagine, after an age of drowsy clockwork existence, one of these philosophers starting the idea of a free society, of a social organization based upon individual rights and individual effort—where property should not only be possessed, but really enjoyed—where men should for the first time stretch their limbs, and strain their faculties, and strive, and emulate, and endure, and encounter difficulties, and have friendships. ”

“ The Liberal who no longer feels at the bottom of his heart a sympathy with the rebel who chafes against the institutions of society, whether religious, political, social or economic, is well on the road to the other camp. But the dynamic force of Liberty, that great motive power of progress, though a good servant, may be a bad master; and the perennial problem of society is to harmonise its aims with those of the common good. ”

“ From history and philosophy and custom, we pass, therefore, to the force which in our day and generation is becoming the greatest of them all, the power of social justice which finds its outlet and expression in the method of sociology.... ”

“ From this high state of morals there results a very high degree of social order, which, in its result, again, gives large social and individual liberty. Nowhere will there be found a freer people, and yet one more observant of law. ”

“ The development of individual liberty, and its reconciliation with social order, is one of the grandest of those developments of original antagonism into the ultimate harmony which go to make up civilization. ”

“ If it were felt that the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being; that it is not only a co-ordinate element with all that is designated [Pg 106] by the terms civilisation, instruction, education, culture, but is itself a necessary part and condition of all those things; there would be no danger that liberty should be under-valued, and the adjustment of the boundaries between it and social control would present no extraordinary difficulty. ”

“ A Free Society is made up of almost innumerable institutions through which views and opinions are expressed, opinion is mobilized, and social, economic, religious, educational, and political programs are formulated. ”

“ Consider first, then, in any given case, “Are those in the minority seeking to keep or filch liberty from you, or only to obtain such liberty as is already yours? Are they seeking to set up equality of condition or inequality? ”

“ It is not the citizen, or a taxpayer, or voter, or office-holder, but the cultivated, free individual who is the true aim of all social progress. ”

“ Or if the moral and political sphere were selected as that in which the onward march of man as a social being, made to live in a community, could best be studied, the idea of liberty might be made a pivot of the scheme ”

“ Your workman or your bourgeois who has risen, and who interests himself in social or political questions, is always thinking, “Why shouldn’t I have as many rights and privileges as these other people have?” The aristocrat who descends is always thinking, “Why shouldn’t these other people have as many rights and privileges as I have?” ”

“ Unless opinions favourable to democracy and to aristocracy, to property and to equality, to co-operation and to competition, to luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and individuality, to liberty and discipline, and all the other standing antagonisms of practical life, are expressed with equal freedom, and enforced and defended with equal talent and energy, there is no chance of both elements obtaining their due ”

“ The ancient ideas founded right upon force, the régime of the social bodies was that of privilege, and individual efforts were tied by bonds imposed in the name of the authorities. The modern ideas, such as the United States proclaim, found all right upon justice, and the social régime upon liberty and equality. The human being is not an instrument for the display of arbitrary power, but is the whole object of social life, the mission of which is the development of its energies, its moral conscience, the improvement and welfare of individuals and of nations. ”

“ The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognised as the vital question of the future. ”

“ The kind of society which encourages creative self-expression, independent judgment and a living expanding fellowship must necessarily be conceived and created in freedom. For to these essential human impulses, freedom is the very breath of life. ”

“ The other is the profound need of justice, the presentiment of, and the demand for, a social order which would be harmonious and truly human, from which the present reality is still far off, but which is bound to realize itself. ”

“ When he entered a societal group, controls were necessarily imposed. But our society--unlike most in the world--presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas. ”

“ Never was there a more perfect social compact heard of. Here, for the first time in the world, everybody beholds a veritable legitimate society, for it is founded on free pledges, on solemn stipulations, and on actual consent. ”

“ The other aims decreed in the fundamental law like the development of personal and collective discipline, civic conscience, vocational skill and social efficiency, should be subordinated to the cultivation of moral character as the handmaiden of an intransigent nationalism. ”

“ Here, then, lie the first Foundations of civil Liberty: In forming the Habits of the youthful Heart, to a Coincidence with the general Welfare: In checking every rising Appetite that is contrary to This, and in forwarding every Passion that may promote the Happiness of the Community: In implanting and improving Benevolence, Self-Controul, Humility, Integrity, and Truth ”

“ He then develops what this idea consists of—the right of all men to education, proper housing, and sufficient food, in short, the right to live as human beings—and asserts that it has become the most important of the social truths. ”

“ It meant that the interest of the many instead of the few, the welfare of the whole instead of that of a part, were henceforth to be the paramount purpose of the social order and the goal of its evolution. ”

“ For first observe, that, besides the desire, which all men have naturally, of supporting the honor of their own government, that sense of dignity, and that security of property, which ever attends freedom, has a tendency to increase the stock of the free community. ”

“ Above all, This will give Stability to civil Liberty, if the social Passions of Individuals can be so far extended, as to include the Welfare of the whole Community, as their chief and primary Object. This Affection is distinguished by the Name of public Spirit, or the Love of our Country; the highest Passion that can sway the human Heart, considered as a permanent Foundation of true Liberty. ”

“ Most of our common opinions as to social morality, are adapted to a society in which every citizen is contributing active service. The most ancient and universal judgments of mankind as to the virtues of industry, of honesty, of loyalty and forbearance between man and man, of temperance, fortitude and just dealing, point to the elementary conditions [106] necessary for the survival and strengthening of societies of equal and free individuals dependent for their subsistence upon the exercise of each one’s abilities, and upon his fitness for co-operation with his fellows. ”