Freedom and its counterfeit

The new issue of Imprimis features the commencement address of Princeton Professor Robert George to the graduating class of Hillsdale College. As a refresher course in the forgotten philosophy of the American founding, it is more timely than anything in the news today:
“True freedom consists in the liberation of the human person from the shackles of ignorance, oppression and vice…True freedom, the freedom that liberates, is grounded in truth and ordered to truth and, therefore, to virtue. A free person is enslaved neither to the sheer will of another nor to his own appetites and passions. A free person lives uprightly, fulfilling his obligations to family, community, nation and God. By contrast, a person given over to his appetites and passions, a person who scoffs at truth and chooses to live, whether openly or secretly, in defiance of the moral law is not free. He is simply a different kind of slave.
“The counterfeit of freedom consists in the idea of personal and communal liberation from morality, responsibility and truth. It is what our nation

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses