American Manifesto - Virtue

Aristotle (384–322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, student of Plato, and teacher to Alexander the Great.  In the Lyceum, which was a location where great thinkers of ancient Greece gathered to debate a plethora of ideas, Aristotle founded the Peripatetic philosophical school which taught the philosophies of Aristotle.  The various philosophies and teachings of Aristotle included, but were not limited to, his refined ideas on economics, science, political theory, mathematics, and ethics.  As far as Aristotle’s teachings on ethics, his most important contribution to ethics and his seminal work in the field is his book, Nicomachean Ethics (“Ethics”).   In what seems to be the world’s first “self-help” book, Aristotle’s Ethics delves into his ideas and conclusions on how to live a good, fulfilling, happy, and virtuous life and, to this day, influences our ever-evolving philosophical thought.

In Ethics, Aristotle posits that each persons’ main desire is happiness.  In the ancient Greek, the word happiness does not mean a simple joy or spontaneous bliss but being blessed and living a good life.  It is through this definition, eudaimonia in ancient Greek, Aristotle explains the nature of living a good life.  Through rational and conscious action and thought, Aristotle teaches that, by constantly and deliberately living a virtuous life, individuals can achieve this eudaimonia.  The key words in Aristotle’s conclusion are “consciously” and “deliberately.”  It is not enough to be virtuous by happenstance or only when it is convenient.  Aristotle’s ethical philosophy demands that individuals deeply and rationally and habitually contemplate each of their actions in order to assure that such action is virtuous thus leading to goodness and do so willingly.

These virtues, as outlined in Ethics are as follows:  courage, temperance, moderation, generosity, ambition, patience, courtesy, honesty, humor, modesty, and justice.  The common theme in all of Aristotle’s virtues is balance.  Aristotle posits that each of these virtues is the middle ground between two extremes.  For example, the virtue of courage is the mean between careless, thoughtless behavior and timidity.  A soldier who blindly runs into battle without conscious and deliberate contemplation is rash while the soldier who cowers in inaction is a coward.  Between the rash man and the coward is the brave man who is consciously aware of the consequences of his actions and rationally, voluntarily, and willingly accepts the risks thereof.  Likewise, the virtue of moderation is the average between over-indulgence and extreme thrift, and the virtue of courtesy is the norm between argumentative rudeness and obedient servility.  Aristotle argues that man is free, but at the same time, true liberty of man is defined as the ability of man to act freely but through virtuous self-restraint. 

American Manifesto - Freedom and Liberty

Like many people in the United States and over the past decade or so, I have been continually asking myself what in the world is happening to our country.  I could go into great detail on a vast number of topics including, but not limited to, crime, bathrooms, public schools, the American debt, the American deficit, elections, race, law enforcement, COVID...and the list goes on and on and on.  For a thinking people, the question then becomes why.  Why is virtually everything constantly on fire?  Instead of picking anyone of these above-mentioned problematic topics and elaborating in detail, it is important to stop and take a step back to a vastly wider perspective in order to understand the bigger picture.

As a country and an American people and as much as it pains me to say, we have lost our way.  We have detoured from our path of freedom and liberty which was bequeathed to us by our American forefathers' forefathers.  Our way is a path beginning in the dark ages of England, and a path which leads to the greatness of all of us regardless of race, color, or creed.  Our way is our collective journey towards true liberty which will lead to the freedom and liberty of all the people in the world.  It is the story of the continual evolution over time from authoritarianism towards freedom and liberty.  It is also an evolution of ideas including Judeo-Christian values, democracy, the rights of man, republicanism, the rejection of authoritarianism, and natural law.  The relevance of our way, the American way, is found in these very ideas.  The ideas of freedom and liberty have transformed the world from the authoritarianism of ancient times toward forms of the self-government of man.  Such transformation is ongoing and not without errors and mistakes, and as such, the study of the evolution of the American way, including both the good and the bad, is relevant in that we can discover the truth over time.

The question then becomes what do the words freedom and liberty really mean.

First, we should make a distinction for all points forward that the words freedom and liberty have different meanings.  Most Americans make really no distinction between the meanings of these two words, but in fact, entire books have been written on this very subject.  The word freedom is derived from proto-German a couple thousand years ago making its way to the British Isles during the Norse invasions prior to the 10th century.  In fact, and despite British Isles being separated from northern Europe by large bodies of water, many northern European languages have very similar variations of English words, but truth be told, we inherited word freedom from these northern European languages thousands of years ago as a result of invasions of the British Isles from the east and southeast.  In Dutch, the word freedom is vrijdom.  In German, it is vrituom.  There are also similar variations in Scandinavian languages. Similar to Slavic languages in which the word freedom has a completely different root and in French, the word freedom is translated as liberte which is a more ancient Latin base.  In conclusion and being that the words freedom and liberty have origins, they also have slightly different meanings.

A thorough study of the etymology of each word could be very interesting for another time, but suffice it to say, the slight difference in the meanings between freedom and liberty is found in their perspective.  The word freedom is an internal construct, while the word liberty is an external construct.  Freedom is internal to you and in your mind.  Freedom is your personal right to do as you choose without and any restraint at all.  Koos J. Malan states in his article, “The Foundational Tenets of Johannes Althusius’ Constitutionalism,” that a free individual is “perceived to be capable and at liberty to make free choices on her own personal identity and lifestyle.”  This idea of freedom is the concept of “so-called negative freedom, that is, freedom or immunity from intervention or prescription by the state.”  This definition can be enlarged to include intervention by individuals as well.  An example of negative freedoms is the Bill of Rights - freedoms which the government is forbidden from restraining.