Freedom in One Lesson

93.

Advancing Freedom in Freedom

If you were determined to get the word out about a product or an idea, how would you go about it?

There are many options if you’re not constrained by reality, honesty, or logic. You could, for instance, follow the pattern of most recent presidential campaigns. But if you want to communicate the truth, your options are more limited. Going after misrepresentations tooth and nail is one way, but what if you want to advance liberty?

It is not enough to analyze how liberty is infringed and violated. Most people will not forgo coercion, even out of self-interest, without truly believing in liberty. But getting to that point is an individual endeavor and requires living life in a truly noncoercive way lest hypocrisy should overwhelm insight. In this way, commitment to liberty is like ethics, which is demonstrated more than taught. In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words, “what you are speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.”

Leonard Read discusses which tactics best “infect” others with belief in liberty in “Await Discovery,” from his 1974 book Having My Way (Read 1974). His unique take is food for thought.

We need . . . a radical change in tactics; that is, a viable methodology for advancing freedom in harmony with the philosophy itself.

. . . What, then, is right method? It is concentration on the improvement of self as distinguished from efforts to set others straight. Clearly, were all people devoted to self-improvement, confining their efforts to such exemplary behavior, there would not be a meddler in society; and without meddlers there could be no socialism, communism, state interventionism or welfarism, call authoritarianism what you will. So, first, last, and always, look to the method.

Impatience is a tendency of human nature which frustrates our efforts to advance freedom, causing us to act in ways which repel potential colleagues. If others cannot see what is so clear to us, make them see: attack, fight, flaunt our superiority—for time is of the essence! This is the activist approach. How do potential converts react? They run in the other direction. . . . Why? A person uncommitted to a philosophy cannot appreciate its being shouted at him from the housetops. If that’s an example of freedom, heaven forbid; I want none of it!

. . . No one, however skilled, can insinuate or ram an idea into the consciousness of another. . . . Each admits only what he chooses, and no more. . . . Each man is in charge of his own inner sanctum. . . . All attempts to bring others to our point of view by pressure tactics, no matter how well intentioned, are destined to fail; they do not good but harm!

. . . Do absolutely nothing beyond the improvement of self, that is, the building and stocking of one’s own store-house!

. . . If you or I have anything another believes to be worth taking, he will find us out by himself, knock at our doors, and ask our counsel. . . . Look to history for confirmation. . . .

At work here is a universal law—the Law of Attraction. Excellence exerts an invisible magnetic force upon those who seek it. . . .

There remains, however, the most compelling reason why no one of us should parade his “wisdom,” but rather await discovery. It is only when a person has discovered a bit of enlightenment for himself that he really possesses it. . . . “Seek and ye shall find” has a logical extension: What ye find shall be thine. . . .

When we hurl or shout our know-it-all-ness at others, the impact sends them away from, not toward, the free society. The “wisdom” bounces back in the direction from whence it came and is never possessed by the persons at whom we aimed it. All loss and no gain! . . .

. . . What is my role? Who, among all the world’s people, is my major concern? Myself ! Not you, and not anyone else, simply because others are beyond my powers to correct. Nor must my motivation . . . be as a means toward your improvement or anyone else’s—only my own. To the extent that I succeed, to that extent may some of my enlightenment be discovered. But that is up to others, not me. . . .

Await discovery! Simply make certain that, if and when another seeks your light, it is as bright as it can be.

Read offers a unique approach to “educating” others about liberty. The first step addresses not others but ourselves. We must attend to our own enlightenment before we have anything to offer others. We shouldn’t impose our views on others, which would violate their liberty, but this won’t be necessary with those who are receptive if we really have pursued the best in ourselves. We have only to “await discovery.”

This does not describe most advocacy on the part of liberty, which has largely conformed to the patterns used in political advocacy for innumerable forms of coercion. Such efforts on behalf of liberty have not been very successful. So perhaps it is worth reconsidering Read’s approach and start by fixing ourselves rather than others.