Free Doom, Freedom

Choose Your Words Wisely, for They Have Meaning, and There is Power in Meaning

“…the difference between a child and an adult is not years, rather it’s a willingness to accept responsibility, to be responsible for one’s own actions.” ― Flint* by Louis L’Amour

The previous post on Captain America: Civil War gave me cause to think on how freedom is misunderstood these days. A big part of this is that the word “freedom” has been used to repackage a word people with strong moral centers have known for centuries that they need to avoid: License. License has several definitions, among them “freedom of action or permission to act” (per Wordnik). This is where driver’s licenses and permits come in, as they give the person holding them permission to act within a certain area for a specific reason.

But there is another meaning for license which gets repurposed and folded in with “freedom,” allowing those who seek the power of enslavement to lure people into their grasp. This is the definition of license that is typically skimmed over in modern times: “An excuse or justification to do something wrong.” Wordnik helpfully expands upon that definition thusly: “Unrestrained freedom of thought and action, especially the abuse of such freedom; excess of liberty; undue freedom; freedom misused in contempt of law and decorum; rejection of legal and moral control; libertinism.” (Emphasis mine)

It goes on to further that point with the definition here: “Excess of liberty; freedom abused, or used in contempt of law or decorum; disregard of law or propriety.” Once again, the bold is my emphasis. This is license, which leads to licentious behavior and licentiousness, and to paraphrase a famous Captain, “That’s not freedom.”

What is freedom? First and foremost, it is a natural human right. We are all born with it, and if you believe in God, you believe this most of all. G.K. Chesterton alluded to this inherent freedom in his The Ballad of the White Horse*:

“When God put man in a garden

He girt him with a sword,

And sent him forth a free knight

That might betray his lord.”

Even if you do not believe in God, the freedom of the individual is impossible to ignore. A passage in The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot by Jonathan Witt and Jay W. Richards* emphasizes this fact. This particular passage is from Chapter 5: The Free Peoples of Middle-earth. In that chapter, among other things, the authors discuss the root of the modern English word “freedom.” It is a combination of two older words: Free and Doom.

According to Etymology Online, the root of the word “free” has these specific meanings: “exempt from; not in bondage, acting of one's own will” and “noble; joyful” along with “beloved; not in bondage - dear, beloved, to love.” (Emphasis mine) The site posits the idea that the evolution of the meaning from “love” to “free” as we understand the words now comes from the fact that then only free men were able to choose whom they loved and with whom they would associate.

Throughout millennia of human history across all six inhabited continents, slaves were not free to marry whomever they loved or to choose those with whom they spent their time. This is because they were the property of their owners, no different than horses or cattle. Horses and cattle can be bred as their owners see fit, and because they own them, the owners can do this to slaves as well. Those who are free, however, choose whom they love and how.

The word “Doom” has many negative connotations these days but, as Etymology Online shows, it’s original meaning was not necessarily pessimistic: Originally doom meant “a law, statute, decree; administration of justice, judgment; justice, equity, righteousness; judgment, decree,” and most importantly “a decision determining fate or fortune, irrevocable destiny.” (Emphasis mine.) The “domesday” or “doomsday” book of old, which allowed William the Conqueror to assert his rights to the throne of England, wasn’t a book talking about the end of the world or the apocalypse. It was a legal tome that contained all the taxes or “dooms” established by the king for his people, written in one abbreviated collection so they (and those who practiced law at the time) could refer back to it easily.

Essentially, a doom was a law, tax, or a decree handed down by someone in a position of authority. You can thank old German and old English for this term, something the Etymology Online link goes into with more detail. I think it is conceivable that this definition would apply to rules set down by a father in a family as much as anyone in any other position of authority in wider society, but that might be a guess more than a fact. In either case “doom” didn’t necessarily mean the end of the world or even the end of a life. Rather it meant that a judgement, law, or decision had been made and must therefore be respected by everyone to whom it applied.

Put the two words together and you have our modern word freedom, which means one is “free to choose his doom.” Following the logic of “a decision determining fate or fortune, irrevocable destiny,” freedom means the ability to choose one’s fate without being compelled to do so or assigned another destiny he does not wish to pursue. Remember all those stories about the son who does not want to follow in his father’s footsteps? In societies throughout history, a man was compelled by law to remain in the trade his father had. This is true in any caste-based society and particularly the case for slaves who, being property, have no choice as to what they can or cannot do, whom they can or will not associate with, or any other aspect of their lives.

Not everyone likes working with horses, for instance, but if you lived in the past and your father bred and broke horses, then unless you were fortunate you were going to follow in his footsteps whether you liked it or not. If you were the child of a man who worked with horses, you would take over that job because the society of the time relied on cottage industries to produce necessities. If your master in the guild or the lord who owned the land to which you were bound cared about you less than his cattle, gold, library, etc., you were stuck. Horse breeding and breaking would be your job from dawn to dusk until you died.

Thus, freedom means one is his own master insofar as he can choose his profession. If he feels called to be a mechanic despite the fact that he is the scion of a line of undertakers, he need not be confined to his forefathers’ profession. The son of a horse breeder is not required to stay on at his father’s occupation if he finds he has a talent for painting, nor is he required to paint only horses for the rest of his life. The second son of a wealthy family need not go into the church, either, as you see in Jane Austen’s works and others of the time. He can choose his profession, his destiny, his doom, if you will, without fear of repercussions legal or otherwise.

Witt and Richards state that the ability to choose at all is something Professor Tolkien insisted was imperative for true freedom to exist. If you can only choose what you are told to choose, then you are not free. “Freedom is more than doing what we want to do,” the authors write. “After all, if you have been determined by either physics, your upbringing, or an evil scientist to desire cleaning army latrines twelve hours a day, it’s hardly a consolation that you’re doing what you want to do. You’re clearly not free.”

One could say that, too, of the idea that “if we all did X, then everything would be perfect.” What if not everyone wants to do X or, just as likely, what if everyone doing X won’t make an iota’s worth of difference? No one stops to ask these questions because the unspoken answer to the first is a bloody crusade against those who refuse “progress” and the answer to the second is that the “problem” may be outside not only man’s control but entirely beyond his purview.

The authors also cite Matthew Dickerson’s reading of Tolkien, noting that if we didn’t face constant decisions and judgements every day “it’s not even clear that we could even be self-aware.” Translation: as long as you can choose your own course toward either good or evil, you prove your existence as a sovereign individual to yourself and the universe at large. This is something that changes when one continually gives in to evil or license, which the writers point out is an abdication and an addiction.

A license to eat chocolate every day, for example, means that eventually the chocolate decides when you eat, what you eat, and how you eat. This in turn determines the routine of your daily life. This goes for any addiction or license, up to and including a desire for self-inflicted pain, abusive behaviors toward others, inflated egos, and the like.

This is where elevating “freedom” to an ideal pseudo-religious cult leaves too much room for license in a society. “You’re free to do whatever you want to do” offers no structure, and humans need organization in their lives, preferably the self-imposed type. Self-imposed order is what occurs when one chooses a course of action or “destiny” – such as a job they like – and stays with it, either for a lifetime or until a preferable alternative appears. Rather than say “you’re free to do whatever you want,” it would be better to say, “You are free to choose among these options: which one appeals to you most?”

Likewise, of course, you are free to choose the opposite. You can become a slacker who never does any work at all; one who bums money, housing, et cetera from others through a variety of ways. You can become an addict of one kind or another. Con men, grifters, and politicians all have this in common to a degree. They promise one thing and often either supply nothing or an inferior product compared to what they pledged to deliver.

Blaming the excesses of modern society on “freedom” is an error as well; the problem isn’t freedom, it is license. Freedom understood properly is, as Mr. Witt and Mr. Richards stated, the ability to choose one’s doom or destiny. As long as the freedom to choose one’s destiny and the responsibilities attendant thereto remains in an individual’s power, that person is free.

Moreover, when anyone – government or individual – seeks to remove that decision from the hands of the individual, then that person is in grave jeopardy. Witt and Richards use the moment Frodo is torn between the wills of Sauron and a mysterious Voice to illustrate this fact; in this scene, Frodo is literally being fought over within his own mind by the Dark Lord and the Voice. The Dark Lord, through the addictive temptation of the One Ring, seeks to dominate the Hobbit and force him to become visible to the master of Barad-dûr.

On the other hand, the Voice fights Sauron to prevent his will from overwhelming Frodo’s. Caught between these two forces Frodo feels as if he is about to be torn apart – until, for a single moment, the Voice and Sauron both retreat. In that space of time Frodo is completely aware of himself as Frodo Baggins, Ringbearer from the Shire. He has that much time to take a breath and choose. Once that moment is gone, he will be back to being a chew toy for the two powers struggling over and through him.

He chooses to take off the Ring, saving his life, his sanity, and all of Middle-earth.

Examine your words closely, readers. Make certain you understand what you yourself are saying. Then apply that comprehension to what others tell you. Words are the ultimate chains which can bind or release in that once you understand them, it becomes a choice for you, the sovereign individual. With that knowledge you gain power, as you can discern the intentions of those who speak the words you hear. A smart slave master can and will make his desire to own another human being sound like freedom when in fact it is the opposite. Captain America: Civil War did this well with Thunderbolt Ross. It goes without saying that Sauron was a champion at this type of manipulation.

Your life is your freedom to choose. Don’t give it away or allow others to decide it for you. Cherish your freedom to choose as you would your ability to breathe and the ultimate fate of your immortal soul, because guess what…

…that is exactly what is at stake when the subject of your freedom is under discussion.

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