The Fight for Personal Freedom in the New World

Some people think there is too much freedom in the world today

That can't be helped.

Partly, this is because a modern economy uses people as individuals, moving them around as they are needed rather than leaving them in stable social settings such as communities or families. So people become less dependent on the groups which, in another time, made and enforced demands on their behavior. Today, if you don't like your circle of friends, you can just find another.

But mostly, it is because of the great spread of information.
We are coming to a time when no idea can be withheld from anyone. No religious or political authority figure -- ultimately, not even parents -- can control what those lower in the social order see and hear. There was a time when all the authority figures in society -- parents, teachers, clergy, law enforcement, and what media there were -- presented an unbroken front. Young people growing up learned that they had no choice but to accept what they were told or be crushed. Needless to say, that time is no more. And it will not come again.

So all those who, in another time, would hear only that it was right that others should be over them now also hear that they are as good as anyone else and that there is no good reason for them to obey their "superiors." Which message do you think they will believe?

At the same time, it will be hard -- and ultimately impossible -- for any belief system to lay effective claim to an absolute truth. All beliefs, all values, all claims of authority will be under constant and unremitting challenge. Without the ability to exclude alternatives, all demands for unquestioning adherence and obedience lose their credibility.

So what do we do with this?

Well, there are no easy answers. But any successful new society must start by accepting that people will demand unprecedented freedom in their choice of lifestyle -- and that those demands will succeed.

We must also understand that the new order will involve a certain loss of freedom to those who used to be authority figures. Employers will not be "free" to deal as they wish with their employees, nor husbands with their wives, nor parents with their children. Members of majority religious communities will no longer be "free" to impose their beliefs on others. Too bad.

Social control will be increasing based on persuasion, rather than coercion. Free people will have to be convinced to go along with social processes -- and they are likely to demand to be consulted about what is happening. Society will have to be run more democratically.

At the same time, social services will have to be built around the assumption that people are living in all sorts of family relationships -- and sometimes no family at all. And together with full-employment policies, they will also have to provide support for women and children who want to walk away from oppressive relationships.

Even so, holding the community together will not be easy. As we said, there are no simple answers. But increased equality and individual freedom are coming. Holding them back is not an option.

So we had better get used to the idea.

So how does this relate?

If the coming society cannot sustain itself -- if it wrecks the environment in which it must function -- then it will not survive. The trick is to reconcile individual freedom with environmental sustainability. So we have a page on Sustainability Issues.

Most serious abridgements of personal freedom are part of a larger pattern of inequality -- men dominating women, adults dominating children, and so forth. So we have a page on Equality Issues.

Of course, the most fundamental of freedoms is the right to choose one's own cultural tradition and to pursue as much (or as little) of it as one wishes -- subject to the right of others to choose their own traditions. So we have a page on Multicuturalism Issues.

In a society in which authority figures cannot claim unquestioning obedience any more, there has to be a new basis for the legitimacy of social rules. Rules will have to come from the will of the people who will be called upon to obey them. So we have a page on Participation Issues.

We have pages on Human Rights issues around the world, as well as resources oriented more directly toward the Civil Liberties situation in the United States.

We also have pages on Women's Rights, Gay Rights, and Youth Issues.

Eventually, we hope to have resources on fighting censorship -- something the internet was just made for -- and other specific issues. So check back.

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