The meaning of freedom

And why this has become one of the most crucial issues of today

Not since the Civil War has America been more divided politically. The Civil War was fought over the question of what freedom in America was to be. The issue was in the open for all to see: human slavery, the bluntest effrontery to the idea of freedom.

The Culture War today is once more about the question of what freedom is to be in America. But it is subtler. No slaves. Instead, “detainees” in Guantanamo, held without due process; more than a million young African-Americans in US prisons, many held for nonviolent or victimless crimes; torture in Abu Ghraib and at secret destinations in Egypt and Syria; government spying on ordinary citizens. No slaves. Instead, illegal immigrants who want to come here to do back-breaking work for low pay and few rights. Remarkably, all this is in the name of “freedom.”…

For more than two centuries, Americans demanded successive expansions of freedom — progressive freedom. Expansions of voting rights, civil rights, education, public health, scientific knowledge, and protections from fear and want: These all made us freer to follow our dreams. These were the ideals of freedom that I grew up with.

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They are now all under threat, not by guns or bombs, but an under-the-radar redefinition of freedom and liberty to suit right-wing ideology. And it is taking place under our noses, with the complicity of the media, where there has been little noticeable questioning of the president’s use of “freedom” and “liberty.” The mechanism of redefinition is cognitive. It is in our brains. We can’t see it. Freedom is what cognitive scientists call an “essentially contested concept,” which means there will always be distinct and disputed versions of freedom that are inconsistent with each other. There is no single, universal, and objectively “correct” meaning of freedom. There is a single, uncontested, but limited, core meaning of freedom that we all agree on. But that is the limit of consensus. Progressives and conservatives have different value systems that extend the uncontested core in opposite directions…

Progressives must reclaim not merely the words “freedom” and “liberty,” but the ideas that made this a free country. To lose freedom is awful; to lose the idea of freedom would be worse.

Excerpted from a comment by George Lakoff in the ‘Boston Globe’, July 4

SP leader Azam Khan walks out of jail after 23 months, hundreds of supporters welcome him

Cities2 hr ago

Senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, who is facing multiple cases, walked out of the Sitapur jail today after 23 months. He was scheduled to be released early Tuesday morning, but it was delayed due to impending court proceedings. Hundreds of supporters gathered outside the Sitapur jail, waiting for the SP leader to walk out of prison.

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