Freedom = Responsibility

My daughter, a young teacher, called me the other day upset because some of the students in her school had misbehaved on a field trip. It was a trip that involved the whole school, and the students’ behavior was an embarrassment to everyone involved. She had been instrumental in setting up the trip. She had helped convince the PTA to pay for it. She had looked forward giving the students this experience, but their behavior during lunch had disappointed and angered her. She was also a bit upset because other adults on the trip had given the students in their groups too much freedom. As a young teacher, she didn’t think she needed to tell veteran teachers not to let the students out of their sight in a strip mall. She called me for some motherly empathy and for some advice on what to say to the students the next day.

I told her to trot out my old “Freedom = Responsibility Lecture”. She had certainly heard it often enough during her childhood. It was one of my favorite parental lectures for my own children and for students that I taught. As a society, I think we need to talk more often about this equation. My lecture goes something like this.

Everyone loves freedom, but there can be no freedom unless everyone takes responsibility for maintaining it. The amount of freedom an individual gets is usually proportionate to the amount of responsibility she or he can handle. If someone shows that they cannot handle the responsibility to use their freedom wisely, someone else will step in and take that freedom away. It doesn’t happen only to children; it happens all the time in the adult world. Your freedom ends when you deprive someone else of their freedom or harm others by your behavior. In the case of students, it also ends when you bring harm to yourself because adults have a duty to protect you from making a mess out of your life before it gets started.

This was the first part of the lecture. Then I usually asked some questions about freedoms and responsibilities. What freedoms do you have? What responsibility did you take on when you got that freedom? For young children it might be “The freedom to walk to school by myself. I took on the responsibility to watch for cars, and to get there on time.” For older children, it might be “The freedom to spend time with a friend downtown without an adult. I took on the responsibility to behave appropriately in public so we didn’t deprive others of their freedom to shop in peace and safety. I obey the laws, so the police don’t arrest me for taking some else’s property or vandalism.” My lecture usually ended with depriving the child or students of rights until they could show that they were more responsible. The amount of freedom you have depends your willingness and ability to be responsible.

For adults it is no different. We have the freedom to drive and the responsibility to do so safely. If we fail to be a safe driver, the state (our fellow citizens) will take away our freedom to drive. A free society depends upon responsible people. As people take on more responsibility, there is less need for restrictive laws that spell out unacceptable behavior and punishments that restrict freedoms. I think that previous generations of Americans put more emphasis on responsibility than we do today. The adults of my childhood talked often about my responsibility and very little about my rights and freedoms. They often encouraged me to put myself in someone else's place to determine the effects of my behavior on others. That was my responsibility, to think about how my behavior would affect others. When I talk to students who are misbehaving today, they often demand their rights and freedoms, but are loath to accept the responsibility that goes along with those rights and freedoms. I see that in the adults I talk with as well. The imbalance in this equation seemed to take place somewhere in the late '60's, perhaps an outgrowth of the protests during the civil rights and Vietnam era. Conservative Christians suggest that the change in our culture is the result of taking prayer and Bible reading out of the public school, but I view the change as a result of placing too much emphasis on rights and freedoms and too little on responsibility, not only in our schools, but in society as a whole.

We each need to take responsibility for protecting the rights and freedoms of others along with our own. That is the foundation of a free society.

Some examples:

Parental rights come with the responsibility to care for the physical, educational and socialization needs of the child.

Property rights come with the responsibility to maintain and care for property so that it isn’t a health hazard and an eyesore for others who want to enjoy the property nearby.

Freedom of speech comes with the responsibility to speak the truth, not to endanger the community by inducing panic, and to use one’s speech for good, not for exploiting others.

Free enterprise comes with the responsibility to be fair in trading with others. It comes with the responsibility to maintain the community that supports it and provides the labor and raw materials for business.

Freedom to vote comes with the responsibility to carefully examine the issues and the candidates before voting.

A free society demands that each individual takes responsibility for creating the community and maintaining it. Today we are increasingly shifting the responsibility to “government”. There are many examples of people doing whatever they can get by with until stopped by law enforcement. Certainly laws can be made by “government” to regulate the behavior of people in any society, but by demanding laws to protect us instead of expecting responsible behavior from ourselves and our fellow citizens we are giving up our freedom, and we will cease to be a free society.