Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité: Part 1

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

These 3 words can be found plastered all over La Belle France. It seems to be the motto of the French. Where I'm staying, in a little town near Laon, it's on top of the Mayor's office and it can be seen on the Euro. It's quite catchy, but it also epitomises 3 values core to the French. There have been other mottos but this is the one that's survived. Why should this be so? What makes them any more special than the other mottos? Are they applicable to other nations? I therefore present to you, Part 1 of the LEF series:

Liberté

Liberté translates as freedom. (I don't know of any discrepancies in translation; I believe it means pretty much the same as in English.) What are they so keen to be free from? Oppression! This motto supposedly has its origins in the French revolution, which would make sense. Since then the French have been very keen to keep freedom as one of their core values.

It's also in the American Pledge of Allegiance. It seems to me to be pretty universal, as we in the UK also expect freedom of speech, amongst other things. It's something that many people have aspired to. JSM2's On Liberty describes how he believes we should be able to be free in all respects, up until we limit the other people's freedom. In these Western nations, I think freedom is expected like this.

But what about China? They don't seem so free. Some people would say that the one child policy stops the people from being free, but I don't think that's the case. They are still allowed to have more than one child, they just won't be paid child support for it. This means they are still free to have a second child. It's all about choices. Sartre would be screaming mauvaise foi if he heard that people were saying this policy rendered them not free. They are still able to choose; just because they don't like either of the choices presented to them doesn't mean they aren't free.

What about, then, the internet restrictions? Does this make people not free? (What is the opposite of freedom? Repressed? Oppressed?) They aren't free to access the information they might want to, which I would say makes them oppressed.

Sartre: But Alex, they are still free. People are always free, remember? They could move to a different country, if they don't like the rules of China.

Alex: Some of them don't have that option. Some of them might not even know there are more countries out there! Or they may not have the finances to move, as a lot of Chinese are very poor.

[The problem with having a mock dialogue with Mr S is that I have no idea how the Chinese can be considered free in this context. They are pretty much stuck.]

And blimey, what about Nick Griffin? Should we allow everyone to be free, regardless of what they might do? Well, no, because we do lock prisoners up. They still have some rights, but freedom isn't one of them. But this is because they might be a danger to others. This is coming back to JSM2's ideas about liberty. (I maybe ought to get into the habit of explaining these ideas more, but I know what I mean.) We have restricted their freedom in a relatively minor way so that they don't go on to restrict other people's freedom. They have, in a way, forfeited their human right to freedom of certain kinds.

I saw a film once which was about restricting freedom based on future events. (I'm reminded by my brother it was called 'Minority Report'.) Here the crime fighting system is so advanced that they have started to predict who will commit crimes about 36 hours before they happen. In this way, the police can catch the criminals before they commit the crime and imprison them so that they do not happen. (The point of the film was that a man was accused of a murder that he didn't think he was going to do.)

Eventually, in the film the system was discontinued as they found that it was flawed. But is this system 'liberté'? They were accusing people of doing something that they hadn't done yet and restricting their freedom for it, which sounds bad. But they were also saving lives. So is someone's freedom worth more than a life? And in the majority of cases, the prediction was completely accurate. I would say that it's a good system, if you can be completely sure. (Maybe one day we will be completely sure about something!)