Freedom/Responsibility; R. Bearce

I .. I ROBERT G. BEARCE So blood flowed in rivers down the gutters of the Place de la Concorde from la Guillotine. Liberte ... Egalite ... Fraternite ... Ah, but in the end, murder, drunken mobs with heads on pikes, lawlessness, frenzied promiscuity, anarchy turned out to be not freedom - but chaos.! BUCHENWALD . . . the Place de la Concorde ... Auschwitz ... Si berian labor camps. The mention of such names and places causes indignation from free and civilized men. The tragic irony, however, is that both the guillotine of the French Revolution and the com munist labor camp of today were erected ostensibly "for the good of humanity" or the "general good." Robespierre and Marat were will ing to sacrifice fellow Frenchmen on the guillotine in order to create a society of "liberty, equality, and fraternity." Hitler would purify the human race by genocide, while the Marxist theoretician liquidates in the name of an ideal, classless society.

Individuals who value their freedom ought to apply some in depth, radical thought to the Mr. Bearce is a freelance writer in Houston, Texas. causes of tyranny. Simply associ ating authoritarianism with "evil" and "wicked" dictators is a super ficial. analysis. We must first com prehend what motivates the twist ed idealism; secondly, we should recognize this mentality before it degenerates into the pseudo-right eousness responsible for the mod ern Buchenwald or communist la bor camp. The cause of regimentation and dictatorships can be traced to one of two outlooks on man's inherent nature. Men are motivated by their fundamental belief as to what governs man's essential char acter and behavior. Depending upon what they believe in this matter, men create (or impose) their social, political, and econom ic institutions. These institutions 1 Dr. Peter Marshall in John Doe, Disciple (McGraw Hill: 1963).

685 686 THE FREEMAN November are correspondingly tyrannical or free. Victims of Outside forces The first viewpoint on human nature assumes that mankind is the victim of outside forces. Sup posedly, man is inherently virtu ous; he is capable of perfection. He is a creature - righteous at the core - but corrupted by external forces. The cause of his envy, jealousy, and bad behavior, then, is attributed not to the individual but to faulty political, social, and economic structures around him. Correct or abolish these and man kind will evolve into the perfect being he was meant to be. Many of the philosophical un dertones of the French Revolution reflect this belief that man by na ture is good - an outlook early propounded by the French philos opher, Rousseau. 2 The politician or philosopher motivated by this tangent of rea soning demonstrates a vibrant but deceptive humanitarianism. His outlook appears benevolent and righteous. His rhetoric - if not his reasoning - rings with a true compassion for humanity. His views are well received . . . under standably so.

2 Aspects of the French Revolution by Alfred Cobban, page 163. (Alfred Cob ban: 1968), published by George Bra ziller, Inc.: New York. Man has the tendency to over look his faults, even to excuse and deny them. When individuals are convinced through paternalistic sophistry that they are not re sponsible for their own welfare ... their failures ... their own mis deeds, they willingly accept both false diagnoses and false cure,s for the world's ills. These cure-alls prescribed by the theoretically minded are collectivist/statist tyrannical by their very nature. Since the individual is suppos edly nothing really more than a helpless, innocent victim of ad verse conditions, he must only sub mit to the wiser men who pro ceed to design and reorder his life for him. The result is inevitable coercion . . . regimentation . . . and tyranny. Writing during the mid-nineteenth century, Frederic Bastiat aptly described the threat to individual freedom and dignity: It must be admitted that the tend ency of the human race toward lib erty is largely thwarte.d, especially in France. This is greatly due to a fatal desire - learned from the teachings of antiquity that our writers on public affairs have in common: they desire to set themselves above mankind in order to arrange, organize, and regu late it according to their fancy. While society is struggling toward liberty, these famous men who put themselves at its head are filled with the spirit of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen1973 FREEDOM/RESPONSIBILITY - THE QUEST FOR INDIVIDUAL DIGNITY 687 turies. They think only of subje'cting mankind to the philanthropic tyranny of their own social inventions. s Few men, though, like Bastiat detect this deceptive humanitar ian mentality which cements the stepping stones toward absolut ism. One zealous proponent of the "human-molding" philosophy was considered by some of his con temporaries of being so virtuous that he was called Incorruptible.

Consider the following sincere confession from this man: There exists a deep feeling, tender, compelling, irresistible, the torment and delight of generous hearts, a pro found hatred of tyranny, a compas sionate concern for the oppressed, a sacred love of one's country, a more sublime and sacred love for human ity, without which a great revolution is no more than a sudden crime that destroys another crime; there exists this selfless ambition to found the first republic in the world; this ego ism of men uplifted who find a di vine pleasure in the peace of a clear conscience and in the enchanting spectacle of happiness of all. You feel this in that moment which burns in your souls; I feel it in mine. 4 3 The Law by Frederic Basti,at, pages 51-52. Translated by Dean Russell. 4 From Six Summers in Paris by John Fisher, page 162. (Harper and Row: 1966). Humanitarian with Guillotine Maximilien Robespierre, the In..

corruptible, spoke the above in a speech before the National Con vention in July, 1794, at the height of the Reign of Terror under the French Revolution. To be sure, Robespierre decried tyranny, ex pressed his love for humanity, and cherished a fervent patriotism for France, yet this same virtuous hu manitarian represented an author itarian government that witnessed perhaps as many as 2,800 victims for the guillotine in Paris alone. Secret police and "vigilance" committees terrorized the French populace - this while Robespierre envisioned a perfected, blissful France and while he experienced that "egoism of men uplifted who find a divine pleasure in the peace of a clear conscience and in the enchanting spectacle of happiness of all!" Today there are men within relatively free nations who would legislate and eventually enslave for the "good of society." The paradox is that the mentality which clamors most ardently for humanity, "the disadvantaged,"

and the "common man" is the men tality which ultimately degrades the individual mind, body, and spirit. Rebuking the social re former of his own day, Frederic Bastiat pleaded for the integrity of the individual: 688 THE FREEMAN November Please remember sometimes that this· clay, this sand, and this manure which you so arbitrarily dispose of, are men! They are your equals! They are intelligent and free human beings like yourselves! As you have, they too have received from God the faculty to observe, to plan ahead, to think, and to judge for themselves. 5 Individuals not only have the faculty to think and act for them selves, they have the responsibil ity to do so. When they abandon that responsibility or when they are deprived of it by paternalism, they eventually learn that "the good of society" is personal en slavement.The extreme vision aries of the French Revolution used the power of the State to bring their notions of "the good of society" into reality - a reality of reigning terror.

Few men having democratic and humanitarian beliefs in our pres ent age feel any kinship with hu manitarians in the past who have prepared the ground for authori tarian governments. Parallels, however, exist between events of the French Revolution and the temperament of our own day. Power such as that held by the French Revolutionary regimes is the power presumedly to legislate away social and economic ills via 5 The Law, page 48. government spending. Such finan cial muscle .in the arm of a pater nalistic government deteriorates into deficit spending and inflation. Planned Chaos Price-fixing depreciation of the currency food shortages ... rationing hoarding ... control of foreign trade - to what period or nation do these economic phenomena apply? Revolutionary France? 6 Twentieth-century America? They apply to that stage of any country's life when govern ment irresponsibility and regi mentation destroy the free inter course of voluntary action.

As the political leaders of Rev olutionary France contemplated their self-inflicted problems of food shortages and inflation, they prescribed successively greater doses of coercion in order to save their new society of "liberty, equality, and fraternity." The Law of the Maximum carried with it the penalty of death for those citizens who ignored the divinely inspired features of the legisla tion. No such drastic measure as the Law of the Maximum now con fronts the individual. Still, his 6 See Fiat Money Inflation in France by Andrew Dickson White for an excel lent analysis of the economic aspect of the French Revolution. (Foundation For Economic Education: 1965).

1973 FREEDOM/RESPONSIBILITY - THE QUEST FOR INDIVIDUAL DIGNITY 689 freedom to arrange his economic life as he pleases is deteriorating, as various "New Shakes" . . . "New Deals" ... "New Horizons" . . . "New Frontiers" . . . and "New Promises" gradually pave the way toward a totally regi mented society. Modern Manifestations The spirit of altruism and hu manitarianism that proclaimed freedom, brotherhood, and pros perity during the French Revolu tion can be felt to a certain degree even today. Only When A Man Has Freedom From Hunger Can He Hunger For Freedom could easily have been one of the more sophisticated slogans of the Pari sian mobs marching on the Bas tille or King Louis' palace at Ver sailles. That bold declaration, how ever, was used recently by young people on a cross-country march demonstrating their concern for hunger in present-day America. Certainly no justice is done equating the demagoguery of French Revolutionary mobs with the simplistic sloganing of modern young folk. However, the assertion Only When A Man Has Freedom From Hunger Can He Hunger For Freedom does reflect a hazy, naive idealism - an idealism that fos ters the growth of government philanthropy.

Such a slogan reflects a shortsighted humanitarianism that gradually corrupts a nation's tem perament, conscience, and institu tions. It is this subtle and gradual erosion that individuals in a free society fail to comprehend. They fail to see the correlation between the social reformer's distorted con ception of human nature and his political! economic manipula tions which lead to tyranny and the guillotine. Freedom and Responsibility Only as individuals accept in dividual freedom and personal ac countability for their lives will they withstand the meddling of the social theorist. Man is an ac countable, self-determining being. He has within him the potential for self-improvement. Any striv ing toward perfection, though, should be left to the initiative and energy of the individual ... not to the work of self~appointed plan ners. Only by accepting self -responsi bility can the individual learn by his mistakes and shortcomings. He is capable of deliberate, willful mis behavior just as he is capable of striving for all that is just, right eous, and honorable. When the in dividual begins the road of self betterment he is rewarded with personal confidence and dignity.

Man realizes his potential for integrity when he lives within an 690 THE FREEMAN November atmosphere of freedom. If he is deprived of the right to make choices ... of ordering his life as he pleases within the confines of other men's rights ... he is robbed of his chances for achieving in dividual dignity. W. A. Paton has wisely observed in this respect that "every man deserves the pre cious opportunity to assume re sponsibility for his own course, whether he is swimming coura geously upstream or paddling laz ily, with plenty of company, in the other direction."7 This is the tolerance required of the individual if he is to be free. This freedom, though, car ries with it an aspect of risk. When freedom and responsibility are rejected by too many individ uals, those paddling downstream become a massive onslaught, not only obstructing the few coura geous upstreamers, but actually forcing the upstreamers down stream amid the onslaught. The anarchy, human degradation, and 4 eventual tyranny of the French Revolution will then be repeated.

t) 7 Paton, W. A., "Let's First Mend Tommy's Trousers," Essays on Liberty, Foundation for Economic Education, 12 :426-427, 1965. IDEAS ON LIBERTY Intelligence and Character THE PATTERN of a man's life is determined by his intelligence, and by the motives, impulses and disciplines which, taken together, we call character. Both intelligence and character are educable. The difference between educated and uneducated character is as great as between educated and uneducated intelligence. A person may be highly educated in intelligence and yet be con trolled by gross motives and impulses. For an educational pro gram to concern itself solely or chiefly with training the intelli gence will result in distorted and inadequate personality. Knowledge is powerless by itself. Unless driven by nlotive it is inert. It is the part of intelligence to inform and guide n10tives, incentive, and conviction, while it is the function of these qualities, to which we give the name character, to give life and power to intelligence. Only in the union and nlutual developnlent of intelli gence and character can the possibilities of life be realized.

ARTHUR E. MORGAN, Antioch Review, March 15, 1945 THOMAS FREDERICK O'CONNELL ~lThe Cry for Freedom ~fhes Isere Otnofty. OfUre FROM HELPLESSNESS in infancy, man works toward intellectual ful fillment and 'personal freedom, finds himself confused as he pur sues his dreams, and in his emo tional confusion he questions his own reasoning capacity, his will, and even life itself. Going full cycle, he arrives at an adult stage when he feels as powerless as an infant. Seeking truth, man finds false hood. Seeking goodness he finds evil. Seeking beauty he finds ugli ness. Seeking contentment he finds frustration. Seeking peace he finds war. Seeking love he finds hate. Seeking friends he finds enemies. Expecting the best he finds the Mr. O'Connell, experienced in public relations and trade association activities, refers to him self as a "compulsive writer." worst. Yet when he expects the worst he frequently comes face to face with the best. In search of answers he finds only additional questions.