On a business trip this week, I started reading Bill Bryson’s fantastic book, A Short History of Nearly Everything. The book is a series of short accounts of key scientific discoveries that begins, literally, with the formation of the universe. In a later chapter, Bryson spends more than a few pages with Sir Isaac Newton, he of Newton’s laws, gravity and all that fun physics stuff. For this post, I’m specifically interested in his third law of motion. Here’s a nice summary:
All forces in the universe occur in equal but oppositely directed pairs. There are no isolated forces; for every external force that acts on an object there is a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction which acts back on the object which exerted that external force.
In fifth grade science, you probably learned Newton’s third law of motion this way: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Remember now? Excellent. Hold on to it. We’ll get back to Newton in a moment.
Yesterday, in the airport on the way home from my business trip, I stood in a book shop while a colleague bought a magazine. A television attracted my attention. There on the screen, a newscaster was discussing the health of Fidel Castro with an expert commentator. Castro, of course, led the socialist revolution in Cuba in 1959. Over the next thirty years, the world came to understand that communism and socialism were just alternative forms of totalitarianism that failed to deliver on their promises of peace, equality and freedom and instead, rendered only hardship and oppression. Happily, freedom prevailed, the wall came down, and communism in Europe was overthrown. As a result, Castro became a living fossil — a breathing museum exhibit of a time past and a political philosophy that had utterly failed. The expert on the screen speculated that Castro might soon breathe his last.
Once the discussion of Castro was over, the coverage shifted to the current fighting in southern Lebanon between Israel and the terrorist organization, Hezbollah. It got me thinking about terrorism (just about anything does these days), and a question popped into my head.
Does Newton’s Third Law apply to politics?
I don’t mean literally, of course. Newton wrote his law to help explain the dynamics of the motion of objects. Obviously, that isn’t what we’re talking about here.
But in a figurative sense, will freedom always have some force in opposition?
Consider history for a moment. (I’m going to focus on European and American because it’s what I know, but I have no doubt that the same sorts of events happened, or are happening, elsewhere.)
For centuries, monarchies and religious totalitarianism dominated Europe. Only after the enlightenment did the idea emerge that men ought to be free — that governments ought to be empowered by inherently free people; not kings by God. But it took two revolutions — one in America and one in France — to really get the ball rolling. And the one in France wound up not going so well. Slowly, however, freedom spread. Thank the British parliament and the Royal Navy for that. Until 1938, when freedom came head to head with totalitarianism once more. Another war.
Then a confrontation with communism. And another war — this one lasting more than forty years — before freedom prevailed. (If blogs had footnotes, I’d insert one here and write something witty about how I’m not a dolt — I realize that China is still practicing its form of socialism. I would probably write something about how China seems to be retreating from socialism and transforming itself slowly, the same way Great Britain moved from monarchy to a parliamentary system. But (a) I don’t really believe that and (b) China is still a totalitarian state. So I recognize that my line of historical argument is imperfect. Nevertheless, the China exception doesn’t really impact the question I’m trying to pose.)
Now, we’re fighting a new war. This one against terrorism, which is just another form of religious totalitarianism.
So, will freedom ever prevail? Or, when freedom overcomes each new opposing force, will some new force emerge?
Newton’s Third Law posits a balance of forces. But the laws of motion don’t apply to politics. Is it possible that freedom’s unstoppable march might be turned back?
I don’t think for a second I know the answer. I do know that I’m an optimist. And I would like to believe that left to their own devices, every human being would prefer to be free than not.
Yet there is considerable evidence to the contrary. My friend Jeff Harrell argues that the absence of popular revolution in totalitarian states is among that evidence. I disagree with him, but it’s a compelling argument. So is the argument that a billion people, willingly surrendering themselves to a religion that encourages violence and glorifies murder and death, demonstrates that not everyone wants to be free.
I hope someone smarter than me will contemplate the question. Because the answer is important. If you believe that freedom’s march is inexorable and that every human being is born with the inherent right and, critically, desire to be free, then there is real merit to the argument that as free people, we have a responsibility to help others become free. If, however, you believe that there will always be a force to oppose freedom, it’s harder to make the argument that we have any such responsibility.
Jim: A great post, Marshall. I’ve been asking similar questions myself.
If you had asked me the same questions a year ago, or two years ago, I probably would have given a different answer. But now I increasingly suspect that the Bush administration’s overall foreign policy vision is based on a flawed assumption – that all human beings, no matter their race, culture, or nation, yearn to live in freedom.
I’m sure that many human beings want to be free. The problem is, human beings have other desires. And sometimes people want other things more than they want to be free.
They want to be safe. They want order. That was the sales pitch for the Taliban – after years of civil war, many Afghans were willing to give the long-bearded guys in black a chance to keep order. Apparently the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia is making a similar pledge to the war-exhausted residents of Mogadishu.
People want justice. The sales pitch of Islamists in many countries – Egypt, Iraq and Turkey among them – is that such devout and religious men will not be corrupt, and will not abuse their authority to line their pockets and live well at the people’s expense.
Sometimes people want to kill their neighbors over injustices and crimes that occurred generations ago. Look at the Balkans, or the divide between Shia and Sunni.
I know a lovely old woman who was a young woman in the Soviet Union in the 1950s. She cried when Stalin died, like everyone else around her. They saw the legendarily cruel tyrant as the great father of the country; “who will take care of us now?” was the cry among the people.
Today, in the Ukraine, the Orange Revolution has been nearly overturned because so many Ukrainians look back fondly on Communism. They miss the security of lifetime employment. A capitalist economy frightens them.
And why does anyone commit a crime, an action which risks their freedom? Because they seek the upside of that action – money, a thrill, a sense of power – more than they fear the loss of their freedom.
Living overseas has illustrated to me that there are certain traits among Americans that are unique. The American concept of freedom, in all its various forms, is really, quite rare in the community of nations. Even among the political democracies of Europe, there are some traits that are alien to America – a level of government regulation of the economy that comes much closer to socialism, and a faith, and demand, that the government will take care of everyone with social welfare benefits that are unimaginably generous by American standards. Similarly, when you look closely at European political elites, you see something akin to the old aristocracy. All of their political, media, and business elites have been chummy since prep school. Americans would chafe at this, seeing it as elitism, snobbery, an insulated ruling class. To a lot of Europeans, it’s standard operating procedure and a long-tested and trusted way to insulate the system from the tyranny and the passions of the majority.
I’ve also seen that other nations can come up with systems of government that while seeming alien and strange to us, work for them. Turkey has a messy, argumentative secular democracy (where the military periodically steps in to ensure the rule of constitutional law). Jordan’s monarch probably does more to ensure the well-being of its subjects than any elected leader would. Singapore has restrictions on personal freedoms that Americans find hard to imagine – I’m sure you remember the kid who got caned for graffiti, or the punishments for littering – but it works for them.
It is foolish to look at a system like the Taliban and say, “who are we to judge?”; but it is equally foolish to look at different systems of government, societies that have even dramatically different ideas of individual rights and freedom and to conclude that our mission in life is to change them to be more like us.
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August 6, 2006 - 3:43 pm
I agree that I think any reasonable person, given the facts necessary to make up his mind, would choose freedom over tyranny.
Trouble is, freedom is a fuzzy word. We Americans use it to wrap up a whole family of values and ethics, like civil rights and elected leaders and privacy and guarantees of governmental non-interference in our affairs.
An alternate interpretation of freedom is the notion of being free from want. That’s where the socialists really have a field day proclaiming that the totalitarian states of the dark years of the mid-20th Century were more free than the west because everybody was guaranteed a job and a place to live.
Our counter-argument, of course, is that although it provided everybody with the minimum, that system deprived them of the freedom to go out and obtain more for themselves.
Whatever. Point is, sometimes “free” can be a point of debate all by itself.
Everybody wants to be free. Not everybody agrees on what “free” means.
Here’s what sometimes keeps me up at night: To what extent are some of the folks out there beyond our borders just plain WRONG about their notion of “freedom” — yes, hello, Taliban, I’m talking about you — and to what extent are they just adopting a viewpoint that, while it differs from our own, is fundamentally pretty valid?
I know that there are both kinds of people out there in the great wide world. I’m not sure in what proportions they exist.
This matters to me because I want to be sure we’re waging war against the right ones.
August 6, 2006 - 5:12 pm
Swaddling clothes are “an age-old practice of wrapping infants snugly in swaddling cloths, blankets or similar cloth so that movement of the limbs is tightly restricted.”
To me, swaddling has always been antithetical to freedom, but boundaries and structure seem to be things many people crave.
Israel never negotiates with terrorists and is willing to suffer great losses in order not to set a precedent that would ultimately erode Israel’s chances of survival in the middle east against already overwhelming odds.
Israel has always been willing to suffer great sacrifice and greater cost to preserve her always tenuous sovereignty, in case anyone chooses to remember. The former Soviet Union was this way too, back in the day. Now we are, or aren’t we? What are we willing to suffer and what costs are we willing to shoulder?
Life is regimented in Israel and there is mandatory service, though I believe that Israelis have a definite sense of freedom, of liberty.
Mind you, I believe in absolute sovereignty. I believe it was wrong for us to invade Iraq, a sovereign nation. I also believe that sovereignty may be absolutely protected, as in the case of Israel’s committed response to Hezbollah and its host country, Jordan.
Yes, I am committed to Cuba’s sovereignty, too. None of our business.
I do not support the export of “democracy” and “freedom” (meaning Capitalism) to sovereign nations that don’t ask, especially if the majority of folks embrace it.
If they don’t ask, we Americans need to solve poverty, crime, sickness, classism, racism, illiteracy, and sexism first, before we export freedom, wealth and equality.
Heaven forbid we Americans come across as hypocritical.
I don’t believe in Crusades, invasion, or insurgency - I don’t believe they work in the middle or long term. Only cultural intervention works over time. Bay Watch and Madonna, for example. I believe that protecting the freedom of sovereign nations is job one.
The rest is surely none of our business.
August 6, 2006 - 6:50 pm
Not everyone can visualize in his/her minds eye what real freedom could mean to them personally, and, or whether it would be a risk worth taking. Freedom is a risk. Freedom requires personal responsibility and acceptance of the consequences of poor performance or decision making. I believe it is fruitless to talk American principles of freedom to people from other lands where their lives are mostly controlled by intimidation, fear and educational propagandizing. They have a hard time understanding the benefits the Western world hold dearly for our freedoms for self determination. The indian tribes living in the jungles of the Amazon rainforest have no other concept. They are happy. They are content. We in the “civilized” world do not understand why they would continue in their ancient ways in which the tribal leader holds control. Do any of their young visualize the dream of going to Boston University to get a degree in medicine in order to return to help their own? No, there is a lack of looking outside the box. We humans are comfortable within the box. It is only when the box is shaken form the outside that possibly will awaken that spirit within to do what is necessary to protect the terrority and return the box to a stable and safe condition again. Our American box has been shaken. The Israel box has been shaken. The Islamic box has been shaken. Each of us is responding, and each desire to live in peace in their own terrority. The problem is a dispute over terrority, past, present and future.
August 6, 2006 - 7:10 pm
I think “sovereign” is another one of those fuzzy words. The American political philosophy holds that the citizens themselves are sovereign, and that the government exists only by their consent. In fact, our country was founded on the premise that the people have the right, when the government neglects their liberties, to remove that government and replace it with another one.
Was Iraq sovereign? The recognized government there came to power through a series of military coups and had no respect whatsoever for the people’s franchise. (Sham elections are worse than none, because they contribute to an illusion of legitimacy where none exists.)
As for the rest, I think the old saying is “the perfect is the enemy of the good.”
August 6, 2006 - 10:52 pm
“They are happy. They are content. We in the ‘civilized’ world do not understand why they would continue in their ancient ways in which the tribal leader holds control. Do any of their young visualize the dream of going to Boston University to get a degree in medicine in order to return to help their own?”
This could well be said about Americans, too. Dig these numbers, Arnold:
15.5% had earned a bachelor’s degree but no higher, compared with 13.1% in 1990.
8.9% earned graduate or professional degrees, compared with 7.2% earlier.
That is to say that it never occurs to over 90% of of all Americans to “dream of going to Boston University to get a degree in medicine in order to return to help their own.”
Source: Report: Greater percentage of Americans educated
August 6, 2006 - 11:43 pm
Marshall, I do hesitate to say it, but Jim is right again. That is, that humans desire freedom, but there are other needs that have to be fulfilled first.
Remember Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs that proposes that humans have to have certain needs fulfilled before going on to the higher ones? They are: Physiological, Safety, Love/belonging, Status, Self-Actualization. In Iraq, for instance, it’s my opinion that we had a great shot at introducing freedom to an educated people who were ready to take it. However, we failed to get the water and electricity turned on in order to fulfill basic biological (physiological) needs, and later, we failed to provide for a sense of safety in Baghdad, the heart of the country. Tempers flared among the people, and now they will look to corrupt officials who can funnel services to them, and militias who can protect them. Freedom is the least thing on their minds when their survival is in question. In the meantime, just like in the former USSR, memories of living under totalitarianism fade while the struggles of the present override everything else.
This morning, our pastor preached an anti-war message. I’m still trying to get my rebuttal together…however, part of what I was going to say was that it takes more than being anti-war to bring about peace. Hizb’alla, al Qaeda, Hamas, Stalin, Castro, even Al Capone, all figured out that hungry people will ignore your foibles if you throw a sandwich (or appropriate substitute) at them. So, if we want to stop the fighting, we need to take away the attractiveness of men who will trade food, water, electricity, and some semblance of security for a spot to launch rockets.
For the anti-war crowd, it’s a lot easier to simply throw verbal jabs at the Administration and the military than it is to figure out how to help in fulfilling those needs that “the enemy” has so successfully exploited.