On Liberty and Equality
On Liberty and Equality
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,’ so wrote Thomas Jefferson in the 1776 Declaration of Independence of the American colonies of Britain. Twenty-three years later ‘Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite’ was the shout as French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille prison and began the overthrow of the French monarchy. Republicanism was much in the air in the late eighteenth century and Liberty and Equality were the rallying cries of the radicals. We live still today in the political and cultural slipstream of those times. But what is self-evident of the truth that all men are created equal? Men (and women) are born with different abilities, different backgrounds, different opportunities. It would seem self-evident today that all men are created unequal. It would also seem self-evident that those countries which two hundred or more years ago were proclaiming Equality have manifestly failed to deliver it. The deliberate omission of emancipation for black African slaves toiling in the cotton and tobacco plantations, made for the sake of unity among the rebel states, was noted by a number of radical thinkers of the time and was a contradiction that erupted into civil war less than a century later. It dogs American society to this day. The USA today is riven by racial divide, financial divide and political divide and Equality, though aspired to in their founding document is far from achieved. In France the determined pursuit of Equality has created a government and legal system so ethnically colour-blind that it is scarcely able to acknowledge, let alone address, the fact that their immigrant communities are left far behind, outside the French system and largely confined to metropolitan suburbs that are smouldering tinder pots of discontent. The two nations, founded on the same principles have both failed to deliver; France has become a hide-bound, law-ridden, centrist state in its search for equality, while the USA has all but abandoned equality in the pursuit of liberty. Where did these two ideals come from and are they even worth pursuing?
Both nations are founded on Enlightenment ideals, the Age of Reason, when European thinkers were struggling to apply rationalism to matters of faith, philosophy, politics and society. The creeds of the church and historic Christian institutions were deemed to be wanting and no longer fit for purpose, even as on both sides of the Atlantic the series of evangelical Christian revivals known as The Great Awakening were re-energising the faithful. In America many of the founding fathers were Deists, having retreated from doctrinal beliefs they still adhered to belief in a supernatural God - though making sure to divorce religion from politics . In France the anti-religious and atheist element was far more aggressive with churches being closed, priests, monks and nuns murdered and a vicious civil war fought to suppress a monarchist/Catholic insurrection in the Vendee. However, to whatever degree the two revolutions sought to diverge formally from religion, they could not escape that their thinking had been nurtured in the moral seedbed of Christianity; Equality and Liberty are both Christian ideals. Thomas Paine, one of the leading radical thinkers, whose books ‘Rights of Man’ and ‘The Age of Reason’ set the tone of political thought for the next century, was born an Englishman before taking both American and French citizenship at various times. Despite rejecting Christianity in any form and espousing Deism, in regard to these two foundational ideals he never escaped the faith of his Quaker father and Anglican mother. He was typical of his time.
We can see from the examples of France and the USA that there is an incompatibility between Liberty and Equality. Where Liberty is unfettered the inequalities of man run rampant, some rise to the top, others sink to the bottom and, when circumstances or systems that allow for social mobility calcify, oppression becomes entrenched. Liberty for some comes at the price of subjection for others. On the other hand, when Equality is prioritised there is no way to achieve it other than at the cost of Liberty, personal freedoms are diminished in pursuit of a collective outcome. To overcome the inequalities of human existence the blunt force of the law is employed to promote some and restrict others. Equality enforced by the law creates a lowest common denominator of existence. At its best it becomes a rigid bureaucratic system which stifles innovation, life and development, becoming a breeding ground of nepotism, favouritism and corruption in the hands of the politically adept. A different form of inequality is created. At its worst it becomes an excuse for the mass murder of opponents, as evidenced by the 1793 – 1794 Terror in France, which saw 17,000 executed, or the twentieth century Communist purges of Stalin and Mao, where tens of millions went to their deaths, at the hands of the authorities, in pursuit of an egalitarian dream. For the godless man the ends justify the means, however brutal the means might be. Consider these chilling words of French revolutionary Maximilian Robespierre as he uses ‘reason’ to twist sense and make Terror the servant of virtue:
‘If the basis for popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror…Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice: it is thus an emanation of virtue…’
To re-cast Terror as an emanation of virtue requires a man who is hardened by ideas, skilled with words and devoid of compassion. It is fitting that he became a victim of the Terror he advocated.
To balance, or rather to bring fulfilment, to the dreams of both Liberty and Equality, one needs to disavow secular and atheist political ideologies and embrace the divine way. Modern secular, Liberty and Equality emphasise the individual above all, the Way of Christ creates Liberty and Equality within community. Liberty and Equality are not values to be found or enforced by social systems and laws but realised through human relationships nurtured with love and grace. The Kingdom of God offers both unlimited liberty and absolute equality in a way which no human system can. The gospel offers one free and equal route of access into the Kingdom, the way of faith in Christ; anyone can enter, whatever their status. Here is equality. Within the Kingdom of God there is hierarchy but it is a hierarchy of service, where those who would be great become servants of all. A liberty where those rich in talents, character and energy can reap reward but can gain no greater status than that of the lowest – a child of God. A liberty that acknowledges a co-dependence on all others for ultimate fulfilment and knows that one’s achievements and rewards are primarily for the benefit of others. Liberty is achieved by laying aside all those things that are unnecessary and pressing forward to become the person you were created to be, yet valuing the contributions of others, knowing that they too are for your good. True christian liberty creates equality. Within the Kingdom of God the structure of government is of less importance than the relationships of the people. Fraternity is the missing piece of the jigsaw, the last ideal of the French revolutionary slogan but one that has been overlooked, honoured only in the breach. Since the day when Cain killed Abel the propensity for man to inflict violence on man has blighted the search for Liberty and Equality, for they are not to be found in systems and laws but in relationships oiled by love and grace. Where there is grace there is understanding that the role of the senior is to develop, build up and lift up the junior, that those who are weaker should receive the greater honour. In this way a culture of continuous development, continuous honouring, continuous increase, is built into society. Liberty and Equality are subsumed into Love.
Not all of the American founding fathers were Deists, many retained a strong Christian faith. Noah Webster, whose revolutionary zeal was evidenced by the random extraction of vowels from words and the enshrining of new spellings in that lexicological slaughterhouse known as Webster’s Dictionary, had a strong understanding of the role of religion in government, so fittingly, I shall leave the last words to him, a man of many words:
‘The Christian religion, in its purity, is the basis, or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government…and I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence.’
#liberteegalitefraternite
ps. If you have ever wondered what the answer to Cain’s dismissive response to God, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ is, the answer is ‘yes.’
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