Why Isn’t This Stuff Obvious?
#FreedomShorts: ‘The Philosophy of Liberty’
I didn’t attend Freedom Fest this year, and so I missed one of my favorite parts: the short films of the Anthem Film Festival. Fortunately, through the magic of the internet, we can still see some of them. And I just watched a good one.
Here is their description:
“The Philosophy of Liberty” is an animated short film by Liberty International and Live and Let Live Movement. The film is based on the essay by Ken Schoolland which explores how the absence of violence and free and voluntary cooperation between individuals, or groups of individuals, are the key ingredients for a truly prosperous society. The film makes the abstract concrete by portraying these principles in action, using the aesthetics of the classic frontier town from the old American West to strip society back to its bare essentials. The visuals hearken back to a genre that’s been part of our collective imagination for generations. The role of authority in relation to the individual is portrayed here with a clarity that reveals how easily power can go astray when unchecked or unquestioned.
It is just five minutes long. Different people will feel differently about the animation (I think it’s okay, but not amazing), but the message is spot on.
In fact, it is so spot on that I have little to add (and nothing to correct), but I do have a question: why don’t more people just know this? Why didn’t I, once upon a time?
We go through life acting according to these principles. We defend our property and our lives. We feel the moral indignation when someone encroaches upon our person, property, or liberty without our consent. We know it’s wrong, deep down in our bones.
Why don’t we know it explicitly? Why can’t we recite these things from memory? It should have been a catechism taught to us from the time we could talk!
In fact … I am going to write such a catechism. (I’ll have to add it to my already insanely long list of things to do!)
Our schools, our culture, our parents have failed us by not making these lessons the most important thing we are ever taught. Just as we have failed our children. Maybe we can correct that in the generations to come.
This stuff is core knowledge, and ought to be treated as such.
Why the heck do we need a philosophy about liberty? The government has no right to restrict my liberty. In fact, government has no special right to even exist.
My parents did. We lived in a very small community in Belgium at the time, about 4000 and we knew our mayor, our financial person for the community, and the policeman. I am not sure there were more than 3 people in all. then in the 1970s it was considered that big was better, and the national govt fused 8 communities. The ruling went to the biggest one of course - we still knew our mayor since he had been in another post before. But barely any of the rest. And last year it was considered this was still not enough and 3 of these already fused ones were put together again. The people were not asked it they wanted this, not with the first, not now. Big is Bad. We can see it everywhere. When in that small community, we could call on the mayor and we could raise our voice when things went wrong. We knew him personally - he was a farmer in our village. The secretary was a man from our village. Where are we going to shout now? They won't even notice.