Food for Thought

Liberty is not a modern “invention”. In terms of the history of humanity it was born when we became aware of the possibility of saying “no” to someone who makes a demand we do not wish to fulfil. Personal liberty is therefore closely related to creative dissidence and respect for minorities, and the decisive minority is the individual, as Ayn Rand has already told us.

The Old Testament puts this “no” to regulations at the very beginning of human history, when Eve broke the ban on eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. Remarkably, the discovery of liberty, which implies that we are able to distinguish between “good” and “evil”, is linked in the biblical account of creation to an act of dissidence by a woman: Eve as the origin of liberty. The literal meaning of “Eve” is, quite simply, “life”. Another impressive symbol of the deep roots of our desire for liberty is the tale of the Exodus of the people of Israel from their Egyptian bondage to the “Promised Land”, and later their deep-seated yearning to return from exile in “Babylonian captivity”. In Greek mythology it is a man, Prometheus, who defies Zeus and gives humans the gift of fire, which is at once useful and dangerous. Here, too, resistance comes into play. Another example of creative dissidence in Greek culture is embodied by a woman, Antigone, for whom the dictates of custom are more important than laws that rest solely on the raison d’état. The feeling of liberty arises through resistance to heteronomy, to obligations, regulations and demands that we accept neither internally nor externally. Liberty is an exodus from bondage, a refusal to be dependenttwinned with the willingness to bear the consequences.

The right to resist and group autonomy

Yet liberty can endure only if it is based on mutual respect for the liberty of others, on a general recognition of human dignity. Resistance alone is not enough to protect freedom and human dignity at the same time. This is especially apparent in the myth surrounding the foundation of Switzerland. This year, which marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Friedrich von Schiller, it is worth recalling once again that in penning William Tell the German poet gave Switzerland an extraordinarily sustainable ‘state myth’, a myth many mistakenly wish to discard simply because they do not understand its relevance today. This play demonstrates the close relationship between resistance and community. Tell shoots the tyrant Gessler and becomes the epitome of the justified tyrant killer. The birth of liberty has often been equated with the killing of a tyrant and the right to resist. Here, too, the references to Eve, Moses, Prometheus and Antigone sharply underscore the significance of dissidence and of saying “no”. This, however, is only one half of political liberation. Once liberty from the tyrant is gained, the problem arises of finding mutual solutions to mutual problems, flexibly and, if possible, at local level. Rights, including human rights, must be protected not only against the threat posed by tyrants, but also, as the duty of the community, against the threat posed by majority decisions, as a “tyranny of the majority” can, of course, become established at any time. A minimum amount of coercive political structures have to be created to guarantee order, safeguard the collective defence of this order, and, at the same time, protect the civil liberties and the autonomy of minorities and the individual — who is ultimately the most important minority of all. Limitations must also be placed on the government structures within this internal order. All this was resolved, sworn and chartered by the Swiss confederates who gathered at the “Rütli” meadow — a historical fact, not just a myth. This yields a possible definition of liberty which takes up just three words, but which cannot be understood without an awareness of the myth and the history of the founding of Switzerland. Liberty is “Tell plus Rütli”, that is, resistance against external authorities and powers, together with a willingness to fit into a free community.

Tell symbolises the concept of negative freedom, while the confederates at Rütli symbolise the need to adopt a common, positive manifesto, the shorter the better — the Swiss Federal Charter of 1291 found space on a single sheet of parchment. Unfortunately, the Maastricht Treaty and the EU Constitution are rather more voluminous. There is no doubt that the formulation of a positive concept which leads people to freedom and gives them the capacity for it is very important. But it is extremely difficult to arrive at a sustainable consensus of opinion on this question. After all, who really knows – with a claim to universality – what constitutes a politically mature person? There should be competition in this respect, too, rather like the competition between companies. We need competition between various conceptions of order, right down to the very smallest of groups.

But why take the time to look at the mythical and historical past? Wouldn’t it be better to look to the future? It is because it is easier to agree on what we do not want collectively than on positive aspects of individual, economic, cultural and political objectives, which tend to change according to the place and the time. Precisely because so much is in a state of flux these days, political conceptions which are adaptable to the place and the time and set only a minimum number of mutual goals – negative freedom, freedom from coercion, arbitrariness and paternalism – are gaining in significance. A civil society based on a network of individual contracts that can be amended by mutual consent is more immune, more creative and more adaptable than a society which adopts a closed canon of prevailing coercive norms, even if it corresponds to the latest advances in sociological error. The future belongs to the network of private autonomy, not the hierarchy of national and international, or even worse, global, normative systems. This network is full of minor errors, but it does avoid the major collective and potentially fatal error, perpetrated “with the best of intentions”.

On the value of non-centralised experiments

The view that basic values such as liberty, law and community, in a world that is constantly changing, have to be continuously redefined collectively and with universal validity is, in my opinion, erroneous. We are neither at the “beginning” nor the “end”, but if we consider the challenges faced by a society of free and politically mature individuals, then the notion that we are currently at an early stage of a civil society founded on private autonomy holds more promise for the future than the mood of decline that is repeatedly invoked, coupled with pessimistic predictions concerning the inevitable downfall ofWestern civilisation. In the years and decades to come, the store of human historical experience will continue to be the basis of principled political debate. Today, we have to differentiate between conservative in terms of “values” and conservative in terms of “structure”. Value conservatives do not want to conserve everything, only that which is essential. Existing structures and institutions must be adapted to the requirements of the times. This should not be done on the basis of objective findings, but on the basis of a variety of peacefully competing experiments, where the successful ones are copied and the unsuccessful ones serve as negative examples to be avoided. We have a basic stock of experience to build upon. We should stop focusing on the political-moral question of “social justice” (“is it just?”), and instead concentrate on the question of whether something will “function in the long term” (“does it work?”). What does not work cannot be useful or good, and therefore cannot be just either. To find out what works, however, we need the courage to experiment.

These experiments should not be too large, because then the risk increases, but not too small either, because then the cost of failure will be borne by all too few. The idea of noncentralisation, of a large number of experiments that differ according to the place and the time, is gaining in importance. So does this mean that everyone should perform their own little experiments according to the motto “every man for himself and God for all”? No! The sharing of opinions and experience gained in experiments is precisely what makes them so interesting. We should stop trying to constantly reach agreement on all issues and all manifestos across borders and around the globe. Liberty is endangered in different ways all over the world according to the time and the place and the issues concerned, but it is always the same liberty. What is important is to share ideas and experiences by operating a network in which all those involved can learn a great deal from the differences and similarities between them. We all have different ideas as to what is useful and
important, but the collective and necessary prerequisite for us to be able to recognise and take advantage of this fact is openness, diversity and voluntariness.

Liberty, human dignity and voluntarily practiced morals are of lasting significance in a world whose economic and social structures are subject to stark transformation. They are the needle on the compass indicating the general direction, without presuming to provide universally valid answers to all our specific questions.