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The Responsibility Of Freedom
BY KELLY HERTZ
kelly.hertz@yankton.net
The Fourth of July is upon us again — a holiday that arrives too soon in a season that always feels too short. It’s our midsummer opportunity to enjoy an outburst of celebrations, reunions, fireworks and fun.
One thing a lot of us won’t do is celebrate the freedoms we have, which is actually what this holiday is all about. It’s like celebrating Christmas without giving much thought to the birth of Jesus, a transgression too many of us are guilty of anyway, so we do have practice in such lapses.
But freedom is a wonderful word that harbors a dark underbelly.
For proof, go online and find the video image of a young Iranian woman named Neda Soltan being gunned down in the streets of Tehran during the protesting over last month’s election. The video cuts in with the woman slowly slumping to the street in the arms of terrified friends. Lying in her own blood, the woman’s face is ashen, and her silvery eyes seem to stare off at something that isn’t there. Gradually, blood streams across her face — death comes — and Neda’s friends scream over her shattered corpse. A martyr for a Internet age is born.
While seeing this unnerving and unforgettable image on a couple of Web sites recently, I began looking at some of the reader comments on this tragedy. And one person — whose same comment I found haunting a few other sites showing the video — offered this witty observation: “B---- deserved it.”
And that is freedom.
No, it’s not the heroic kind of freedom that stirs a person to criticize oppression or to defend a cause. Nor is it Mel Gibson’s William Wallace defiantly screaming “Freedom!” before he is drawn and quartered in “Braveheart.”
Instead, it’s the freedom to throw stones from the weeds of cyberspace — the freedom to say something utterly stupid behind a cloak of anonymity that is almost epidemic in many Internet exchanges. In this case, I doubt this person truly meant it but was intent instead on getting a rise out of people — which the remark certainly did, judging by the ferociousness of the replies. Nevertheless, that’s how this troll chose to exercise his/her/its freedom.
It’s the freedom to go to Wikipedia and add something stupid and embarrassing to an entry, then see how long it lasts before it is purged.
In America, it’s the freedom NOT to vote, even though our government is based on direct participation by citizens like you and me. But it’s not required, and too many of us sometimes don’t bother to exercise this muscle that people in other countries — people like Neda, for example — literally die for.
Or, it’s the freedom to burn a U.S. flag in protest, an act that has always struck me as a monumental paradox. Although it rarely happens, people are free to burn flags, much to the ire of many people who believe there should be a law against such expression. The irony is, banning flag burning undercuts the very thing the flag represents. An idea without a flag is still an idea that is as sturdy and as practical as the people make it, but a flag without an idea attached to it might as well be a dish towel, for it means nothing. Thus, we defend the rights of people to burn the flag, which is a symbol of the very freedom that allows them to burn the flag in the first place. In that sense, it’s a symbol of their silliness.
That’s the wonderful and sometimes perplexingly frustrating thing about freedom. America’s freedom is incredibly sturdy — enough people have tried to compromise it either through deceit or indifference — and yet seemingly so fragile. Our freedoms have been eroded in recent years in the name of freedom (another paradox?); there is still a need to fight for our freedoms — even to die for them.
And of course, we have the freedom to take it all for granted, which many of us so skillfully do. We do this even though our freedom really is something we should never take for granted. Just ask those protesting in the streets of Tehran. Just ask Neda’s friends, since we cannot ask Neda herself anymore.
In fact, freedom brings with it the need for responsibility in exercising them. We have freedom of speech, for instance, but can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. There are boundaries that, short of blatantly breaking the law, should be observed.
But, we also have the freedom to be irresponsible, because we can.
Still, responsibility should be part of the gift of freedom — or the price of it, which is something else we ought to think about this Independence Day weekend.
Or we can blow it off, because we are free to do so, after all.
One thing a lot of us won’t do is celebrate the freedoms we have, which is actually what this holiday is all about. It’s like celebrating Christmas without giving much thought to the birth of Jesus, a transgression too many of us are guilty of anyway, so we do have practice in such lapses.
But freedom is a wonderful word that harbors a dark underbelly.
For proof, go online and find the video image of a young Iranian woman named Neda Soltan being gunned down in the streets of Tehran during the protesting over last month’s election. The video cuts in with the woman slowly slumping to the street in the arms of terrified friends. Lying in her own blood, the woman’s face is ashen, and her silvery eyes seem to stare off at something that isn’t there. Gradually, blood streams across her face — death comes — and Neda’s friends scream over her shattered corpse. A martyr for a Internet age is born.
While seeing this unnerving and unforgettable image on a couple of Web sites recently, I began looking at some of the reader comments on this tragedy. And one person — whose same comment I found haunting a few other sites showing the video — offered this witty observation: “B---- deserved it.”
And that is freedom.
No, it’s not the heroic kind of freedom that stirs a person to criticize oppression or to defend a cause. Nor is it Mel Gibson’s William Wallace defiantly screaming “Freedom!” before he is drawn and quartered in “Braveheart.”
Instead, it’s the freedom to throw stones from the weeds of cyberspace — the freedom to say something utterly stupid behind a cloak of anonymity that is almost epidemic in many Internet exchanges. In this case, I doubt this person truly meant it but was intent instead on getting a rise out of people — which the remark certainly did, judging by the ferociousness of the replies. Nevertheless, that’s how this troll chose to exercise his/her/its freedom.
It’s the freedom to go to Wikipedia and add something stupid and embarrassing to an entry, then see how long it lasts before it is purged.
In America, it’s the freedom NOT to vote, even though our government is based on direct participation by citizens like you and me. But it’s not required, and too many of us sometimes don’t bother to exercise this muscle that people in other countries — people like Neda, for example — literally die for.
Or, it’s the freedom to burn a U.S. flag in protest, an act that has always struck me as a monumental paradox. Although it rarely happens, people are free to burn flags, much to the ire of many people who believe there should be a law against such expression. The irony is, banning flag burning undercuts the very thing the flag represents. An idea without a flag is still an idea that is as sturdy and as practical as the people make it, but a flag without an idea attached to it might as well be a dish towel, for it means nothing. Thus, we defend the rights of people to burn the flag, which is a symbol of the very freedom that allows them to burn the flag in the first place. In that sense, it’s a symbol of their silliness.
That’s the wonderful and sometimes perplexingly frustrating thing about freedom. America’s freedom is incredibly sturdy — enough people have tried to compromise it either through deceit or indifference — and yet seemingly so fragile. Our freedoms have been eroded in recent years in the name of freedom (another paradox?); there is still a need to fight for our freedoms — even to die for them.
And of course, we have the freedom to take it all for granted, which many of us so skillfully do. We do this even though our freedom really is something we should never take for granted. Just ask those protesting in the streets of Tehran. Just ask Neda’s friends, since we cannot ask Neda herself anymore.
In fact, freedom brings with it the need for responsibility in exercising them. We have freedom of speech, for instance, but can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. There are boundaries that, short of blatantly breaking the law, should be observed.
But, we also have the freedom to be irresponsible, because we can.
Still, responsibility should be part of the gift of freedom — or the price of it, which is something else we ought to think about this Independence Day weekend.
Or we can blow it off, because we are free to do so, after all.
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| A New Push For Independence |
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