Rant: Liberty, Freedom, and Hearing Different Voices
I wasn't around when the gags started coming off. I wasn't around when men allowed the heretics to start speaking in the hopes that we might learn, that in giving liberty to those previously imprisoned freedom and learning themselves might be re-invigorated. I have always thought they had noble intentions. In the name of truth, of peace, of love, or whatever, they, whoever they are, did what they did.
But I look at where I am today, and I wonder what really happened. The actions of one day are built on the philosophy's of the last, and yet we are a world that will praise a man for his philosophys and imprison him when he carries them out. Perhaps a more apt analogy is this: We saw that several voices were locked in a high tower, unable to escape, the only windows were the arrow slits in the lower portion of the tower. Upon seeing this, or moral disgust rose, and we proclaimed that we must all be free, they too must speak. Acting on these convictions we boldly strode up to the tower, opened the door and walked in. We then proceeded to lock the door and throw the key out one of those arrow slits. "There, now we are all free." Perhaps all those in the tower were so self-centred as to desire this, so narrow minded that all they could think of as they looked on the outside world was that everyone else should be stuck in the same tower as them, but I doubt it. Now, however, that the rest of us have joined them in the tower in such a manner, is it any wonder that all of those voices we sought to free for the sake of truth have turned on us and all we stand for?
(Inspired by G.K. Chesterton's "Heretics". Which is to say, I was reading it, and some of this comes from him, and some of it I thought as I read.)
I wasn't around when the gags started coming off. I wasn't around when men allowed the heretics to start speaking in the hopes that we might learn, that in giving liberty to those previously imprisoned freedom and learning themselves might be re-invigorated. I have always thought they had noble intentions. In the name of truth, of peace, of love, or whatever, they, whoever they are, did what they did.
But I look at where I am today, and I wonder what really happened. The actions of one day are built on the philosophy's of the last, and yet we are a world that will praise a man for his philosophys and imprison him when he carries them out. Perhaps a more apt analogy is this: We saw that several voices were locked in a high tower, unable to escape, the only windows were the arrow slits in the lower portion of the tower. Upon seeing this, or moral disgust rose, and we proclaimed that we must all be free, they too must speak. Acting on these convictions we boldly strode up to the tower, opened the door and walked in. We then proceeded to lock the door and throw the key out one of those arrow slits. "There, now we are all free." Perhaps all those in the tower were so self-centred as to desire this, so narrow minded that all they could think of as they looked on the outside world was that everyone else should be stuck in the same tower as them, but I doubt it. Now, however, that the rest of us have joined them in the tower in such a manner, is it any wonder that all of those voices we sought to free for the sake of truth have turned on us and all we stand for?
(Inspired by G.K. Chesterton's "Heretics". Which is to say, I was reading it, and some of this comes from him, and some of it I thought as I read.)
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