Birthday of Frederick Douglass

English enjoys an abundance of language for many things, largely the result of our inheritance from both Latin and Germanic languages.  Thus, we can speak of both justice and righteousness.  Sometimes proponents exhort us to use words from one source or the other – see for example George Orwell “Politics and the English Language” (1946).  I prefer to relish the diversity and depth of English.  What a joy that we can choose between melancholy and ennui and ponder, preferably in a café on a rainy day, the similarities and nuances between such words.

And so it is with freedom and liberty: freedom dates back to Old English and is cognate with Old Frisian frīdōm (German Freiheit), and liberty derives from Latin libertas.  I do not wish to go into their Indo-European origins and meanings, which are largely disputed and unclear, yet once they get into English and Latin they express relatively similar ideas – the status of not being a slave, i.e. being free of a master. 

In common speech we often use the two interchangeably, while recognizing idiomatic usage.  “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” rolls of the American tongue in a way that “life, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness does not.”  In addition, we speak and write of “freedom of speech” not “liberty of speech.”  Yet it is probably all the same to talk of the “struggle for freedom” or the “struggle for liberty.”  I wonder if liberty sounds loftier and is used more by conservatives and if freedom is grittier and used more by progressives.  I hope not; I would like for everyone to be able to claim and use these words. 

Nonetheless, I would like to introduce a distinction, at least for my own usage, that is to say, I am not looking to prove a distinction has historically existed as much as creating a distinction for my own purposes here.  Since we have these two words, I think it is helpful to put them to use.  All things being equal, I understand freedom to pertain to the individual and liberty to pertain to the individual in the political community or to the political community itself.  I do not want to distinguish between the basic meaning of liberty and freedom that they share.  I simply wish to use them in different arenas – the personal and the public.  We should also note the liberty lacks an adjectival form in English, whereas freedom gives us “free.”  So we will need to use “free” whether we are talking of interior freedom or political liberty. 

In my blog post “Liberation Now,” I write that Dr. King and Socrates are free although they are held in jail.  Here I would clarify that Dr. King and Socrates are free but not at liberty.  They cannot go down the street and order lunch; they cannot visit a friend or travel to another land.  They, and others in their situation, do not enjoy liberty.  Yet as I wrote then and assert now, Dr. King and Socrates are certainly free.  From all appearances, they do not live in fear; they are not restrained psychologically or emotionally in any way.  In fact, they seem to have a profound mastery of their thoughts and emotions and are quite eloquent in expressing them.  They are free, at least so far as it seems possible for people to be. 

We can turn it around too.  I may not be in a jail cell; I may be able to vote in an upcoming election, to buy and sell property, and so on.  I possess liberty, but I may not possess interior freedom.  If I do not possess any interior freedom, I may waste my liberty in doing simply what others tell me to do.  Or I may use my liberty wisely, but I may still be wracked with fear and anxiety.  So let freedom indicate interior freedom and liberty indicate political liberty. 

I do not doubt that there are gray areas that could readily come to mind.  What about the person who possesses political liberty but reasonably or unreasonably feels constrained by what we might consider real political forces?  For example, someone who wants to sell their house and move to find a better job, but can’t because housing prices have dropped and there is no value to selling their house or they are unable to do so.  Is such a person free or are they bound by fear and misunderstanding?  Do they possess liberty or are there societal forces that have mastery over them?  Needless to say, we could multiply examples like this, and we would probably need more information to understand the situation fully. 

Nonetheless, I still want to maintain my general distinction, for I believe it is helpful for several reasons.  The distinction allows us to clarify the different spheres in which they function.  We can contemplate how an imprisoned person can be free.  We can think about freedom as a virtue that we can cultivate.  We can consider what characterizes a society whose citizens possess political liberty. 

Here is an act of liberation: Frederick Douglass, aside from choosing his name, also chose his birthday – February 14^th.  In his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written By Himself, he wrote, “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.”

Resources

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” Horizon 13.76 (1946): 252–265 (originally), see now The Orwell Reader, New York: Harcourt, 1984.  Orwell writes of the “pretentious Latinized style” used by many writers of his time.  This is a very thought provoking essay and is well deserving of close reading.

For those who want a defense of the use of Latin roots, here is a fun exercise.  Take the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution and cross out all the words that do not come from Latin or Greek.  See what you are left with!

For more on the usage of freedom and liberty, see

Hanna Pitkin. “Are Freedom and Liberty Twins?” Political Theory 16.4 (1988): 523–52.

Isaiah Berlin. “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Four Essays on Liberty.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969.

Hannah Arendt. On Revolution.  New York: Viking Press, 1965.

Emile Benveniste, Indo-European Language and Society, trans. by Elizabeth Palmer.  Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1973.