Recently, the internet was delighted by a gem from a certain person (so they say, a programmer). This person said the following: “I don’t need freedom. I need education, work, family, and grub. And I don’t give a damn whether they govern me or not, the main thing is that I don’t know about it.” These thoughts, it seems to me, are quite widespread in our society. And this circumstance is very sad indeed, for ideas precede actions. If our compatriots have such chaos in their heads, then they act chaotically, which is precisely what we observe.
In fact, as I will try to show, the author of this statement was thinking about anything but freedom. Something tells me that he would hardly agree with his own words, which we will slightly modernize as if they actually were directed against freedom in its original sense, and demonstrate at the end of this note.
However, first let us note that one can speak of freedom only in relation to society. This obvious, at first glance, statement is not as obvious as it seems. Many people believe that freedom is “do what I want.” In their opinion, a person on a deserted island is free. In reality, however, a person on a deserted island is generally outside of such considerations as freedom, since he lives there alone. It makes sense to speak of freedom only where there are other people—that is, where there is society.
If we recognize this fact, then understanding freedom as “I do what I want” becomes somewhat strange, because it is obvious that in society there are other people, and “what I want” will sooner or later encounter their polite incomprehension. And those who assert that “if everyone does what they want, then chaos will begin!” are absolutely right. Indeed, in that case there would be no society left. However, this has nothing to do with freedom.
In reality, freedom is a social rule—that is, a notion about how people should behave toward each other (for the benefit of all). And the foundation of this rule is the inviolability of each of us. Inviolability of each person, and thus of the property of each, and thus of the contracts of each. Accordingly, whoever violates the inviolability of another is an aggressor, and may meet with lawful resistance and be subjected to sanctions. A free person chooses goals and means, and his freedom of choice is limited by the freedom of others. A non-free person—one who cannot defend his boundaries—has a narrow choice of goals and means, or almost none at all.
As we said, freedom is a rule. This means that freedom cannot be “introduced,” “established,” or “instituted.” A society is more free the greater the number of people who follow the rule of freedom. Of course, one can in practice follow the rule of freedom without paying attention to various sophistries and clever ideas. The trouble is that in our world there are still plenty of situations in which people make decisions based on reasoning and clever ideas whose correctness they have simply not considered. That is, a person who in practice follows the principles of freedom votes for God-knows-what in elections, precisely because it does not even occur to him to compare his practice with what he hears during elections, whereas he does compare those words with all sorts of clever ideas read on walls.
So it would be very good if everyone made an effort to compare the practice we profess with the clever ideas we proclaim. I am now making one such effort. So, as promised, I will modernize the thesis with which we began this note. If the person who proclaimed it were truly an opponent of freedom, then his statement should have sounded like this: “I don’t need freedom. I need education, what they give me, work, what they give me, family, what they give me, and grub, what they give me. And I don’t give a damn whether they govern me or not, the main thing is that I don’t know about it.” This and nothing else means “I don’t need freedom.” But it seems that hardly many people would sign up for this.