Imagine Scared

Dear Kate,

If what I have spoken to you so far about freedom (or more like liberty, a political construct to allow the enjoyment of freedom inherent to humans)—both negative and positive—isn't keeping you up at night, you are probably not paying attention yet, proper attention that is, a robust imagination absent.

Let me recap the ideas of negative and positive freedom.  Simplistically and crudely put, the former is to understand freedom as the absence of interference (e.g. freedom to read, to write, to speak), and the latter as a person possessing the capacity or power to actually carry out what she wants to freely do.

Example.  To not have your reading material censored is an exercise of your negative freedom; to be empowered, as an ESL and once literal illiterate in the Canadian society, to read and write in English so to flourish in this new world, is a positive freedom endowed me by the Canadian education system, moneyed by public funds, envisioned and enforced by fathers and mothers of this strong land, kept by God, glorious and free.

A vision of positive liberty is positively scary, can you smell it?  No?  I suggested it already, with the choice verb "enforce."

Let's continue with the example above: Do you know, except for a few very well defined situations, here all children between 5 and 16 must go to public school every day?  It is their legal right, but also an obligation, enforced by adults.

Now what if a child is to question the idea of "going to school" and see it as an interference with his otherwise carefree, awesome life?  The simplest answer the adults would kindly suggest is probably that education is essential to human development.  But what if the child doesn't agree?  Can't there be a different vision of positive liberty, human flourishing?  Can't I just run around all day and live a better life than, honestly, yours, sitting behind desk, hiding from beauties, worrying about UV and carrying around LV?

You think religion, or generally any God talk, is scary, because it would necessarily infringe upon your freedom to do what you want to do?  It is not half as scary as when there is a vision of positive liberty, sanctioned by a transcending authority, enforced with impunity via human agents, to carry out a universal vision of cosmic flourishing.

I will close with a question that we are living through, right now, and let you fill in the rest with your imagination.  What is more scary: to fight for the "rights" to not be vaccinated, to not wear a mask, to be free from the interference of government? or to impose a vision of flourishing "together" by enforcing Covid mandates, marginalizing, even demonizing dissent?

I am speaking as person who is triple-shot and has been enforcing hygiene mandates in my household since I was first entrusted with this position of authority—as a father.  You know me.  So please don't throw me under the truck for asking the genuine question above.  For the record I out-environmental self-proclaimed environmentalists I know and, with blood sweat and tears, cultivated a very health vision of flourishing together in my family.  God knows how many times and how many ways I've been wronged for trying to keep this house's temperature to a sustainable degree and the car in the garage.  I am not here to fund the "Freedom Convoy" with the virtual currency of my words.

I am scarier than that.

Yours, Alex