All men are guided by self interest. Any choice you make is your choice. You can only choose what you want to choose. People choose to do a variety of things, but arguably the ultimate of life's pursuits is happiness. Happiness takes on many forms for different people. For some it is knowledge. For others it is physical pleasure, while for others it is adherence to a set of moral rules. Whatever the definition, it seems the universal objective remains a subjective happiness.
In the pursuit of individual happiness, humans became social creatures. We built communities to maximize our happiness. By working together, we were able to accomplish more collectively than we could by ourselves, and thus made life better for most participants. Naturally, some members chose to pursue happiness at the expense of others. Out of fear, people voluntarily gave up a few of their freedoms to guard the rest. They didn't plan on using the sacrificed freedoms in the pursuit of happiness, so it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. People agreed not to pursue happiness through murder, and could thus expect relative safety from being murdered. Only the murderers objected, and since they were a minority they were overruled by the rest of society. We agreed not to rape out of fear of being raped. Only the rapists objected, but they were silenced as well.
To make sure everyone followed the agreements, we granted certain people the right to break our rules so they could enforce them on others. We gave people the right to murder murderers, and steal from thieves. We called these people government, and we made up a variety of ways to choose these people.
Naturally, the men in government took advantage of their position, using it to pursue their own happiness at the expense of the governed. We created numerous systems designed to prevent the government from misusing their power, yet most have failed. Governments learned to rely on the fearful majority to take away their people's rights, all in the pursuit of happiness.
As governments grew in size, so did the number of mutual agreements people made. Soon people were promising each other not to drive too fast, out of fear of being crashed into. We agreed not to consume certain substances because others might harm us while consuming those substances. The few that consumed the illegal substance were silenced by the fearful majority. The government prodded us along. "Let us listen to your phone calls to prevent terrorism." "Well terrorism is bad, and I don't mind be listened to, so here, have my right to privacy. I wasn't using it to pursue happiness anyways." The few who cared about privacy were silenced by the fearful majority. "Let us search your houses, monitor your internet use, censor your media, track your money". "I don't have anything to hide, and it will help keep me safe. Take all the freedoms I have, just please don't let me get hurt." A few objected, but were once again overruled by the mass panic.
It seems the natural route for government and laws to move from more free to more protective. It's easy for people to get scared and seek protection by giving up rights, and it's very difficult to get back a freedom once it has been given away. It's interesting that the original reason for our government has become lost, and in its place is a purpose guided more by the preservation of life than liberty. For some reason, people no longer feel the way Henry felt when he exclaimed "Give me liberty, or give me death."
You could argue that we made the right decision, that life is more important than liberty. Freedom is meaningless to a corpse, but I believe life is meaningless to a slave. It seems societies are in a constant struggle between those who seek only to preserve life, and those that wish to live it. Those that wish to preserve life govern by taking away freedom, while those that wish to live life govern by protecting freedom. I believe the latter are more suited to govern since they allow the timid to live in their shells if they please, while the former would force the adventurous to adopt their own fearful lifestyle.
No comments:
Post a Comment