October 23, 2020
Dear Henry,
Today is the last day of the 10-day quarantine I have been on since I was diagnosed with COVID 19. Upfront I want to be very clear that I was far luckier than some who have gotten the virus and for me, it was little more than a bad Flu. I was further lucky because you and your mother were out of town before I got sick and was able to pass it to you, so my time spent recovering was spent without worrying about infecting you or your mom. That said, this virus has caused millions of people to look inside and assess what fear means to them. That was the topic of my last letter. Today, I wish to take that subject, and discuss it, not from the perspective of the individual, but rather for society.
On a societal level, one could say that the “go-to” remedy for fear is safety. This is a claim that has a myriad of philosophical holes in which I don’t wish to get bogged down, but where I wish to focus is that safety may be the remedy for fear, but it is not the only one, and it is not necessarily desired. Every society, therefore, must decide how it chooses to deal with fear. Safety and security is one option, but at the opposite side of the scale, almost universally, is freedom. Therefore, every successful society has to choose where on the scale between freedom and safety, does it want to be.
It can be easy to instinctually choose, but before we allow feelings to make our decision, let us try to investigate the freedom vs. safety dichotomy rationally, starting at the extremes and working our way inwards. A society that is 100% freedom cannot operate. Any social contract, any law, any agreement or cooperation involves some limit on freedom. One may desire to steal. I may want what someone else has. In a world where there are no rules or laws, then I can freely attempt to take it, and the only consequences would be those that my victim can mete out.
In such a world, might makes right and the strongest or the smartest get to decide what’s best. The only way to stop this from being true is that the slightly weaker have to band together to outnumber and outmaneuver the strong. But again, “banding together” implies cooperation which inherently involves some limit on freedom. It may be slight, but any act of solidarity involves an increase in safety, at the cost of some freedom. In a world with no safety, no limit on freedom, can have “no culture of the earth, no navigation, nor use of commodities…no knowledge…no arts, no letter, no society… and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”[1]
As disastrous as a world that is utterly “free” would be, a perfectly safe world (or the attempt at reaching one as it is an impossibility) would be a dystopia. How you may ask, can a world in which we try to remove all danger be a bad thing? Well at the risk of sounding cliché, the first reason is that anything worth having requires some risk. In fact, I would go so far as to say that anything in life involves the risk of being hurt, emotionally, or physically. Is there a job you want? Well if it’s competitive, you will have to risk losing the position to get it. Do you enjoy playing basketball? I have sprained my ankle many times and still loved the sport. Is there a woman (or man, both are fine for your mother and me) you like romantically? Asking them out will risk them rejecting you, and forming a relationship risks them hurting you in the future. These are all small things, but they are all well worth the risks. In I would with complete safety, you would not be allowed to do any of those things, because all of them might involve pain.
The answer then is to find balance in your life and to do your best to help your community find the balance that works for it. You don’t want a city with no traffic lights (too much freedom) but you also would not want to live in a place that only lets you drive at 10 mph (too much safety). So once we are clear that we want to find a balance, the question becomes how? And make no mistake, this is a fundamental question of nations, states, and societies worldwide. What works for your community may not work elsewhere.
I tend to ere on the side of more freedom. Let me make decisions for myself and my family and only regulate my life in such a way as to protect me from those things too big or dangerous for me to handle. There is a lot to unpack there, and perhaps I will do so in another letter, but the point is what I believe in is more freedom, less safety.
I think it is important to define those freedoms which I hold dearest. I am not going to do that here perhaps that too will be the topic of a future letter) but we will most certainly talk about it. When we do, you may disagree on which freedoms are the most important and which freedoms you wish to prioritize, and that is fine. But what you must do is go through the process and reflect on what freedoms you hold sacred. That way, when discussions about where your community or country should fall on the sliding scale, you have already chosen where you draw the limits.
I said that I ere on the side of more freedom, but that is not the right answer for everyone, and the example I often give is the country of Rwanda. In 1994, Rwanda experienced one of the worst genocides and civil wars in history over 800,000 people were killed in the span of 100 days and Rwandan society would be destroyed for years to come. In the aftermath, when the dust had settled, Rwandans chose almost unanimously to give up some of their freedoms and the price for the government’s promise that 1994 would never happen again. Freedoms that I and many others hold sacred were willingly sacrificed, for the promise of security and a return to some semblance of society. One can argue if this was wise, but today, 25 years later, Rwanda is incredibly safe, stable, and economically on the rise. Such a sacrifice might not have been acceptable to me or you, but the truth is I have not lived through what those people did. I can’t fathom the pain and the desperation felt by that nation after the events of 1994 and so I can’t say for sure what I would have been willing to give up ensuring it never happened again.
Again, the most important thing to understand is that one can’t have only freedom or only safety. Instead, you must find a balance for you, your family, and your society. Most importantly, you must establish now which freedoms are non-negotiable, so that when harder times come, you know where your limits lie and for what freedoms you are willing to fight. I hope it never comes to that, but only a fool remains unprepared.
I love you
Ryan
[1] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan: Volume One, 2011. P 77
What a well thought out and cogent letter and a great legacy to leave your son.