The Spread of Freedom

A sense of global disorder is growing stronger, and it is above all because humanity as a whole is facing a serious crisis of values. This crisis has affected all spheres of life and divided people into groups who don’t only misunderstand each other, but seem unable to find any compromise at all. Of course, this has happened before, but an important feature of the current situation is that the boundaries of these groups are quite difficult to determine.

There are attempts to present the case as a conflict between countries. On the one hand, it is said there are countries and regions that seem to be democracies, such as the United States or Western Europe; and on the other hand, there are countries which are not free, such as China or Iran. It is clear that this is a weak distinction. Where does one put Turkey, Hungary or Poland, not to mention many other similar countries in Africa or Latin America?

But the issue is neither complicated or simple. The main problem, in my opinion, is that today’s lines of confrontation do not run along geographically defined borders. Thanks to modern and astounding means of communication, conflicting groups have crossed borders. One saw something like this during the Crusades, when the world’s religions, Islam and Christianity, clashed on the battlefield and created supranational communities. Even more revealing was the first half of the 20th century, when the communist idea explicitly stated that all former states should die out and that the conflict between nations is secondary to class struggle. Meanwhile, despite its expression of nationalism, fascism also overtook the borders of countries and created fifth columns even where it seemed impossible because of racial prejudice.

However, due to the incredible power of modern communication, what is happening today is more acute by orders of magnitude. Modern communication can create the illusion of a new kind of human interaction, and create ideas about the exclusivity of emerging online communities.

Today, people have the opportunity to feel like members of a Masonic lodge: the chosen among the other chosen ones. It does not matter that the number of these favored people can reach hundreds of millions, if not billions. The power of the social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that have enslaved a significant part of the population of the United States, and, alas, the whole world, is such that the owners of these networks have the idea (whether true or not) that they can manipulate everyone and create a governing elite. That’s ok, they say openly, as they claim that consolidation of millions of the most successful and active users of social networks will give rise to a new global system of governance. This is nothing new; the age-old dream of uniting the best of men to rule all others, including the worst, has always existed. By the way, to consider it completely wrong is a mistake. Mankind’s mistake is, without a doubt, primarily the result of the efforts of a few people. The question is, as always, one of balance and sense of proportion, since the line between an embittered sect and a “gathering of the chosen” is extremely thin.

The events in the United States illustrate this quite vividly. Ironically, the elite itself is confused about where and between whom borders exist there, constantly stirring external forces into internal conflicts. It may be amusing how this is done by elderly Democrats and under-educated leftists from American universities, but it is terribly dangerous at the same time. Actually, the events in the United States reflect global fault lines, a global crisis of values and how to understand the kind of future people want.

It is possible to interpret the nature of the clashes in the United States and, accordingly, the causes of discord in the world, in different ways. But in my opinion, the main problem today for both the United States and the world has become the problem of understanding and interpreting freedom.

Freedom is one of humanity’s most important concepts. One fights and even dies for it. But the concept of freedom changes over time. Therefore, in addition to the actual struggle for freedom, there is a struggle to understand it, its boundaries and applications. It is impossible to completely distinguish these forms of struggle.

The United States has always been considered a fairly free country. The cost is the right to bear arms — a universal limitation of someone else’s freedom in order to protect your own. But how do hundreds of millions of Americans get along with each other? It is obvious that freedom cannot stand without a mutual deterrent and sobering kind of fear, and this is largely the meaning of the Second Amendment.* If everyone has the right to bear arms (and at the same time to revolt), then every person, even the powerful, will ask if the risk is justified.

There is clearly little fear. Freedom requires consent, an inner acceptance of an order in which everyone has a space that is consistent with certain conditions. We all (before COVID-19) had the right to, for a price, fly where we want. Almost all agreed that one’s financial resources allowed one to fly business class and second (and third, and so on), or only economy. But imagine that this consent has disappeared. Then, and almost immediately, the air travel system collapses, at least in its current form. By the way, we have repeatedly seen firsthand what a riot of everyone against everything looks like at airfields and train stations.

Something similar happened in the United States. It turned out that different groups of Americans see justice and, accordingly, their freedom and rights so differently that each group has formed its own elite. And these elites have entered into a seemingly irreconcilable conflict. We don’t know how deep it is yet, while Methuselahs like Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi struggle to deal with it on the surface. But who is propping them up from below? The devil is not as terrible as are his little devils.

American political scientist Samuel Huntington once wrote about the multiplicity of civilizations and the conflicts among them. In general, there is no significant doubt as to the correctness of his approach. But it seems that civilizations have infiltrated and enriched each other in many ways, and at the same time have produced something like mutual intoxication. Along with the beautiful and exciting sense of human and cultural diversity, they have reinforced types of mutual intolerance that, until recently, were considered an exception. At one time, the concept of genocide reflected a terrible hatred, primarily on ethnic grounds. But today we need to think about how we should understand genocide in a modern, multicultural society.

Along with the repeated mantra of tolerance, the most genuine kind of hatred is kindled between different social, cultural, religious and ethnic groups. The United States is a perfect example of the aggravation of all the types of conflicts that we are witnessing, and the degree of intolerance is not far from the kind of intensity inherent in genocide.

In general, it turns out that the growing sense of individuality and independence of billions of people is accompanied by an increase in the rejection of otherness and the inability to accept the existence of differences. For example, supporters of Black Lives Matter and left-wing Democrats do not allow for the idea that their right-wing Republican opponents have their own reasons, and that compromise is worthwhile. In general, the rising global political left wave completely denies any other worldview, just as it did 100 years ago. Even more troubling, it intersects with other lines of conflict: in the United States, for example, with ethnic and religious conflicts; in Europe, to a greater extent, with religious and migration conflicts. And no part of the world or country is free from these problems.

In general, the coming decade will not be easy, and this is an understatement. The main questions for the immediate future are how we can all coexist, and how we can achieve or at least approach agreement by meeting each other halfway on the most difficult issues.

Social networks give us a vivid example of what is happening around the world. They are already a form of communication for most of humanity. But the more we dive into it, the more clearly we understand that this beautiful tool meant to enhance the freedom of communication — the joy of communication — can turn into a means of manipulation, suppression of dissent and exacerbation of simmering passions and the fragmentation of humanity. Of course, these networks were the creation of individual entrepreneurs. But too much of life has become dependent on these networks; therefore, regulation is needed. Without it, the beauty of free communication will turn into its opposite.

To reiterate, this is just one of the areas of human life that needs radical rethinking. There are many others: climate, biotechnology, weaponry, etc., etc.

Thus, the world’s civilization — at least for its survival, not to mention its development — must answer the intellectual and moral questions about formulating rules for living together. And this answer is needed immediately.

*Editor’s note: The Second Amendment provides: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”