The Chains of our Freedom

We have two terms and two concepts. The first is that of "chains." The concept of chains is specifically that we have a social responsibility, and individuality cannot be permitted to run wild. We must each make concessions if we are to live in peace. Behind the kind of xenophobia that I have described is the demon of pride. It postulates a superiority that inhibits almost all social relationships. In any of the areas which I have described as being fertile in terms of this attitude, the basic and underlying force is that in some way, whatever it is I have inherited or have developed is better than that inherited or developed by someone else. My colour is better, my language is better, my religion is better. In some subtle way this gives me the right to impose my views or at least my superiority upon others. And usually this is masqueraded in terms of the good of others. We are such masters of self-deceit that we can always find excuses for our oppression or our hostility, or even our hatred.

I find it at least faintly amusing that I am addressing the "Empire" Club because I must confess that, like most of you, I am not much of an imperialist. Perhaps the most benign regime in the history of empires was the British but it was not devoid of the kind of attitude to which I refer. The British Raj was an expert at presenting himself as a boon to all of the people whom he conquered. The expression "the white man's burden" is about as close to this type of arrogant assumption of superiority as one can imagine. And all of Kipling's "You're a better man than I am Gunga Din" doesn't change much. Better man or not, I am sure that Gunga Din was not often invited to have gin and tonic with the colonel and his lady.

Now please do not assume that because I postulate restriction upon individuality that I support some sort of naive proposition that everyone is equal. I would have to examine that kind of statement. I believe profoundly in a basic equality before God. This is the only really important equality and it will be worked out in a time and place that is beyond our ken. I believe that in human affairs this must be reflected in equality before the law. But it is naive to arrive at the conclusion that for this reason everyone is equal in talent or ability, or that we should enter into some sort of communist state that claims to establish such equality regardless of merit, talent or initiative. Individuality properly understood is equally precious and the equality to which I refer is of a different and more basic nature.

Strangely enough, the very freedom we seek cannot be attained until we chain some of our exaggerated individuality. Freedom is one of the most abused words of our times. Practically every evil which has been perpetrated upon mankind has, one way or another, been disguised under that covering. It was a favourite word of both Hitler and Stalin. It is presently being used extensively in Iran to justify the denial of freedom to hostages. Our civilization swears by it. But what does it mean? Does it mean that I, an individual, can impose my will on the community, say by driving my car at any speed I choose, or by deciding that I have claim over other people's possessions or lives? Obviously not. The limitations I have already suggested indicate that society requires that my unbridled lust for power or possession must be chained.

The problem is to discover how these two concepts, chains and freedom, coalesce and may, actually, get along. My freedom is my dearest possession. Men rightly die for it. But the question seldom asked is i freedom to do what? At what point does my freedom transgress on yours, because fatally it must sooner or later.

I do not propose to solve this dilemma but only to present it for your consideration. It has its immediate application in things like censorship. None of us likes that word and its connotation. Since God Himself gave us the freedom, if you can call it that, to destroy ourselves, I, for one, don't like to tell grown people what they can do and what they can't. But we must think of the implications. What about the area of exploitation? When pornography, for example, takes helpless children as its victims, can we say that the exploiters should remain immune in the name of freedom?

I am hesitant to bring up the question of the exploitation of women because this matter is now such a convenient catch-all for every two-bit reformer. That is until I hear about "snuff " films. Is there anyone here who feels we should give the freedom of the marketplace to films in which the victim of the plot, usually a girl, is murdered, not only in pretense but in reality? Pornography exploits the young, the helpless, the drug addicts. Does freedom mean we must tolerate and even aid and abet this exploitation? I ask the question. But this must remain an illustration in a larger picture.

To put it another way, there are two manners in which we can approach the human condition. The first is to place the emphasis upon our differences. But I believe that this is the wrong road, the road of racism, the road of xenophobia. I believe it will foster dissent and turmoil and have no positive results even in those who use it to their own advantage and advancement.

The other road is the road of what we have in common. And I am convinced that what we have in common is far superior, far more fundamental than that which divides us. I rejoice that a person like Mother Teresa could be given the Nobel Prize. Here is a woman who can find our common humanity in conditions in which you and I would find nothing but a revolting situation of desperate alienation. Nor do I postulate that we all must have the heroism of Mother Teresa. The specimens of humanity to which she has dedicated her life lie on the fringe of human existence, and most of us could not face them for long. But it is assuredly a lesson to all of us that we can and should recognize our common humanity wherever it exists.

The "chains," therefore, are those which postulate that we must make sacrifices in order to achieve a common brotherhood or sisterhood. I have been working on paradoxes all through these remarks and once again I find myself in that position. The kind of "chains" I am postulating are not really limiting chains but freeing chains. The scene that comes most vividly to mind is that in which Paul stands before King Agrippa, at the court in Caesarea. The king says, after a vibrant plea by Paul, "Paul, in a little time you would convince me to be a Christian?" And Paul says to him, holding forth his manacled hands, "Would to God that you were as I am in all things, save these chains." (Acts 26:29) But the very chains that Paul wore were not symbols of enslavement but symbols of freedom. He was in chains because he would not give up his freedom to express the truth as he saw it. This is the freedom of the human spirit and it is in that context that I speak of the "chains of our freedom."

They are limitations that we put, not upon the soaring aspirations of all that is noble within us but rather on all that is petty and small within us. Man is a very complicated being. He is capable of the utmost heroism and nobility and at the same time he is capable of the lowest forms of desperate evil. The dark part of myself must be curbed in order that the other may be let loose. The chains I am speaking of are chains that limit us and hold us back or hold us down. To use another metaphor, they are the links that hold the hawk to the wrist of the falconer so that he may be ready for his flight at the supreme moment. At that moment, the bird leaps into the air. In a close simile, Gerard Manley Hopkins describes the situation beautifully: "And the spirit broods over the bent world with, ah, bright wings." The bent world is the dark side of us, but the spirit is always there and soars over that bent world once we let it loose.

It is not an exaggeration to say that this limitation of freedom is a necessity. Strangely enough, the manner in which we approach the necessity may well determine whether the chains or the freedom predominate in our lives.

We can look at this necessity to work one for the other and one with the other in a totally selfish way. This is frequently misrepresented as "the golden rule." People say that the "golden rule" is "not to do to others what you would not want done to yourself." This can be a very small view. I think it is best summed up in the adage which often appeared on billboards a few years ago, "The life you save may be your own." I am not averse to saving my life, but I hate to think that the only reason why we should drive or live soberly or carefully is that we might save our own lives. I would like to think that we are not devoid of sensitivity to the point where we might also like to save the lives of others.

I do not feel that human rights and human civilization will be advanced simply by the egotistical position that we must do something to avoid racial tension, to avoid xenophobia, because we ourselves are involved, and what we do to others may someday be inflicted upon us. Even in the economic order, I must reject this line of argument, although it has its cogency. It is perfectly true to say that unless we do something to redistribute the wealth of this world, we will lose the very wealth that we have. But I would hate to think that this is the only argument. I feel that our self-discipline can lead us to a far nobler achievement.

In conclusion, I am convinced that we can achieve a true sense of dedication one to the other because we can understand the worth that exists in persons other than ourselves. One of the most cogent books that I have ever read in my life, and that has ever since illuminated my thinking, is called The Heart and Mind of Love by Martin D'Arcy. It is a treatise on what he calls "Eros and Agape." To make it short, "eros" is the self-satisfying aspect of love. It is not evil. It is not illegitimate. It is a very important part of man's fulfilment. But it is not the totality of that fulfilment. "Agape" is the other aspect, one in which we seek not our own good but the good of the beloved. It is the outgoing manifestation of love. It is the principle by which I do not think of others in terms of what I can get out of them or much less what sort of threat they represent. Rather I think of them in terms of the good that lies within them and the good that I would like to see fulfilled. Agape is masterfully defined by Paul when he says that "Love does not seek its own." Herein lies our own fulfilment as well because "It is in giving that we receive." The chains have done their work and the dark spirit of egotism has been curbed to allow our true freedom to express itself in light and love.

My friends, I know that I am speaking in idealistic terms but I do believe this is an objective that we can achieve and that we must achieve. It is negative in one sense, which is the sense of the chains that I have spoken of. It is negative in the sense that it is a denial of violence and hostility, as so masterfully described by Pope John Paul II at Drogheda on the confines of Northern Ireland; as illustrated by Gandhi and Martin Luther King; as achieved by Jesus when he told Peter to put his sword back in its scabbard and added, "No man takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself."

This is the full meaning of freedom, the freedom to be myself to the fullest point of my capacity that involves, above all, the capacity to give. We are still shot through with the concept that those who have succeeded are those who have received the most. We are a long way from the philosophy that those who have succeeded are those who have given the most. But I am convinced that we are slowly and painfully on our way in that direction. It is the way that I would like to point out today. Our freedom to love one another, to respect one another lies ahead.

Also in that direction lies the true development of humanity. Four years ago, Bernard Lonegan, S.J., one of the truly great thinkers of our time gave a lecture in Montreal entitled "Healing and Creating in History." The healing of which he spoke is not far removed from the thesis I have expounded before you today. Among other things he says this, "Where hatred reinforces bias, love dissolves it, whether it be the bias of unconscious motivation, the bias of individual or group egoism, or the bias of omnicompetent, short-sighted common sense. Where hatred plods around in ever narrower vicious circles, love breaks the bonds of psychological and social determinism with the conviction of faith and the power of hope."

It is from that point that true creativity can spring. And only from there. We will therefore never solve the problems before us except in that positive context which is the context of agape.

Let me conclude by a quotation, not from Sacred Scripture, not from the Talmud, not from the Koran, but from a Persian proverb:

The Lover goes to the desert to purify himself before he seeks the hand of his Beloved. After many months of prayer and fasting and self-discipline he approaches the abode of his Beloved. He knocks upon the door and a voice comes to him from within: "Who seeks entrance?" He replies, "It is I," and the door remains closed to him.

Sadly he returns to his desert habitation and again pursues his course of meditation and prayer and penance in search of the mystery.

At last he again rises and seeks out the abode of the Beloved. As before he knocks and as before the voice comes to him, "Who seeks entrance?"

He replies, "It is Thyself," and the door opens unto him.

The thanks of the club were expressed to Cardinal Carter by Reginald Stackhouse, a Director of The Empire Club of Canada.