tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post1306403810305715377..comments2023-10-24T17:21:16.565+02:00Comments on Sounds in the Hickory Wind: On Freedom Again (Part 1)The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-39070804005869436022012-12-09T13:34:05.997+01:002012-12-09T13:34:05.997+01:00Of course I wouldn't argue that if we all reco...Of course I wouldn't argue that if we all recognised and lived by a shared code of decency England and the world would be better places than the are. It is something to aspire to in ourselves, and to attempt to inculcate in others. We should all have a duty to ourselves and to the world we live in to be better than we are, and to help others understand this.<br /><br />However, I have no idea how this might be achieved. We can work towards it, in tiny stages, with those we meet every day, but a broader plan with some chance of success I really can't devise.<br /><br />Freedom is something different. The reason I bang on about freedom is that it needs to be kept in the minds of the powerful. Decency is a personal thing, which we choose to have or have not, but freedom can easily be taken away from us by others. They need to know why they shouldn't. And there is a kind of formula for it. It needs to be rationalised, expressible in words that make sense, and constantly repeated. 'We' need to show that we understand it and value it.<br /><br />The audience for our requests for decency are those around us. The audience for our demands for freedom are those who have the power to take it away. That is, I think, the difference.<br /><br />Of course, if everyone were decent, we wouldn't have to worry about how people used their freedom, so if we could have both freedom and general decency we would be living in a world that, probably, and sadly, has never existed.The Hickory Windhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-39565521991259044082012-12-09T11:40:46.770+01:002012-12-09T11:40:46.770+01:00I'm going to respond to this in a very old-fas...I'm going to respond to this in a very old-fashioned Englishman's terms, which would not be out of place from the lips of the foppish Sir Percy Blakeney, alias the steely & efficient Scarlet Pimpernel.<br /><br />I would say you cannot make the world a better place by fiddling with the idea of freedom. The most important thing is a general shared sense of decency. When that becomes too weak, we can't plug the breaches with more laws, or more freedoms.<br /><br />The sense of decency is a kind of flower of civilization. It cannot be reduced to a formula.<br /><br />Perhaps what I've said above would fall apart in debate, but it's something to live and die for, all the same.<br /><br />(Meanwhile, the Scarlet Pimpernel continues his anonymous vocation of saving more French aristocrats from the guillotine, and whatever other good works he performs - can't remember 'cause it's sixty years since I read anything by the Baroness Orczy.)Vincenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com