Isaiah Berlin
Nearly sixty years ago, some 250,000 people took part in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I am confident that the 28th of August in 2023 will be marked by an equally huge demonstration commemorating this event, in Washington and elsewhere. The purpose of the 1963 march was to push for legislation to establish the civil and economic rights of African Americans. Even a university student in England was glued to the television late at night watching what was happening. Towards the end of the day, Martin Luther King Jr, the final speaker, delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Following the speeches, a delegation met with President Kennedy, who regarded the huge but peaceful protest as an immensely helpful step in getting legislation in place. Kennedy was to be assassinated in November of that year, but when President Johnson took over, he oversaw the enactment of both the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Naturally enough, the March wasn’t uncontroversial, before or after. As the first event of its size dominated by African Americans, anticipation of what might happen ranged from pride, to concern, all the way through to dread, not just among observers and commentators, but also among many of the participants who were worried as to how they would be treated in Washington. In the event, some 2,000 buses, 21 chartered trains, 10 chartered passenger aircraft and innumerable private vehicles converged on the city, all these in addition to the normally scheduled transport options. For many people, it was scary. As for aspects of the aftermath, subsequent criticisms pointed to the lack of women speakers, the predominantly white singers providing entertainment, as well as the choice of those who did speak. Despite all this, the March was an extraordinary, well-managed and moving event. It is still accessible through brief videos on YouTube and thousands of photographs.
Freedom, freedom of choice, has a long and central place in the USA, a country born out of asserting freedom from being part of the British Empire. However, it is hard not to be amused that one of the most famous expressions of this right comes from John Stuart Mill, a 19th Century English philosopher and sometime parliamentarian, undoubtedly influenced by American independence. In the first chapter of his book, On Liberty, he observes:
“The object of this essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self‑protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of anyone for which he is amenable to society is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”
Great stuff – that man could write! Mill went on to explain that this included “the liberty of expressing and publishing opinions … [the] liberty of tastes and pursuits, of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character, of doing as we like … [and] freedom to unite for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age and not forced or deceived”. Just in case we missed his point, he added, “No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified”. Clear. Well, fairly clear, and I have taken part in many discussions pulling apart the challenges this raises over issues ranging from wearing seat belts to publishing guides on making weapons.
Freedom, liberty, the right to making your own choice, has been a hot issue in the last couple of years as the COVID-19 pandemic has swirled around the globe. Towards the end of 2021 thousands have flocked to anti-vaccine-mandate protests which have drawn large crowds across Australia, Europe and the USA, with scenes of tens of thousands marching through city streets, all claiming to be part of a global ‘freedom movement’. The demonstrators loosely comprise groups who oppose the use of COVID-19 vaccines, vaccine mandates and pandemic laws. Most have been reasonably orderly, although some have seen scenes of violence, and in several cases there has been evidence of infiltration by far-right extremist groups with a much wider and more disruptive agenda.
In the US, sixty years ago the marches were about freedom from discrimination; today, many of the protests are also about freedom, freedom from mandates but also freedom to make you own choices, freedom for the individual. This was a difference that Isaiah Berlin had addressed in 1958, in a paper on Two Concepts of Liberty. He distinguished between positive liberty, which he defined as “the answer to the question ‘What, or who, is the source of control or interference that can determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that?’” Freedom from. This was counterposed to negative liberty, where “liberty in the negative sense involves an answer to the question: ‘What is the area within which the subject—a person or group of persons—is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?’” Freedom to.
Isaiah Berlin was born in 1909 in Riga, now the capital of Latvia, but back then was part of the Russian Empire (to which I’m sure Putin would like it to return). Six years later the family moved to Petrograd, and then in 1921, when he was 12 years old, they moved to the UK. Often described as a Russian-British philosopher and historian, he would always make it clear “I am a Russian Jew from Riga, and all my years in England cannot change this. I love England, I have been well treated here, and I cherish many things about English life, but I am a Russian Jew; that is how I was born and that is who I will be to the end of my life.”
He was an unusual writer in that he seldom wrote. He enjoyed lecturing, or, when he had to, he would dictate his thoughts and have them typed up. I think that approach is evident when you read his collected papers. One volume, Four Essays On Liberty, could have been an audiobook, and if it had been you would quickly realise Berlin enjoying wandering off down various by-ways as he was addressing a topic. The result can be both very enjoyable, a rich body of thinking with many complex and intertwined ideas developed as he explores one thought then another, and very frustrating as you try to remember what it was you had read or heard two minutes earlier and how it all connects together. It is within these two conflicting aspects of his work, rich yet confusing, that his analysis of liberty is so important. It’s also the case his analysis is greatly improved by adding in some observations from his other work.
Negative liberty Berlin initially defined as freedom from, that is, the absence of constraints on an individual imposed by other people or government. For Berlin, negative liberty has two elements. One is the freedom from constraint and from totalitarianism (especially important in his thinking in the years after the Second World War). However, the other version of negative liberty might be called ‘hands off’ liberty, or as he explains it, “maximising the degree of non-interference in a person’s activities, within some minimum set of demands for a feasible social life”. He suggested this negative liberty could only be restricted by a few reasonable demands – perhaps driving on the left side of the road in Australia, and English as its lingua franca. It is, of course, exactly this perspective on freedom that has animated so many in Australia and the USA, wanting to keep the government out of their lives. But isn’t that the same as having freedom to?
Berlin defined positive liberty as the ability (not just the opportunity) to pursue and achieve personal goals and aspirations. However, to confuse the issue, he also added a second aspect of positive liberty, and that was autonomy or self-rule, as opposed to dependence on others. It is confusing, as this is quite different from the idea of personal liberty. Critics have suggested that his ideas about positive liberty can be traced back to earlier theories that focus on the importance of personal choice. This is generally seen to be a consequence of what he saw as dangerous in Rousseau’s theory of liberty. For Berlin, Rousseau equated freedom with self-rule, and self-rule with obedience to the so-called ‘general will’ or public interest, in other words what is best for all citizens rather than the selfish wills of individuals. For Berlin, this was a short step away from the ideologies of the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century, Communism and Fascism/Nazism, both of which he saw as claiming to liberate people by subjecting them to ruling groups or principles. Clearly, the experience of the Second World War and of Stalin’s rule of Russia weighed heavily in Berlin’s mind.
As protesters march on government offices today, is Berlin’s analysis helpful? By chance, I was walking near Australia’s Parliament House recently when several thousand protesters were converging from across the country for The Convoy to Canberra rally in trucks, vans and cars, some travelling thousands of kilometres from interstate to join the march. It was a sunny day, and it would have been easy to have mistaken what was happening as nothing more than a huge picnic, were it not for the banners and noise! The majority in the Convoy comprised groups protesting about mandatory vaccination. However, as I watched, I realised this was a very diverse collection, only loosely united by various ideas about ‘freedom’.
One group comprised people who identified themselves as ‘Sovereign Citizens’. They claimed the government of Australia is illegitimate, together with all the laws passed by Parliament. Sovereign citizens claim the right to opt-out of the law by using certain phrases, ranging from “I don’t consent” to referencing sources like the Magna Carta. Drawing on similar movements in the USA and Canada, members claim the Australian government, courts and law enforcement are all corporations, stating it’s “unlawful to pay taxes, fines or fees while under a treasonous regime … Sovereignty is what gives the people the power. We are self-governing. Parliament is treasonously trying to claim sovereignty.”
How did the Magna Carta get into this? Back in 1215, it included clause 61 which granted powers to “assail” the monarch and “seek redress” to 25 barons, powers to ensure the enforcement of the provisions of the Magna Carta. However, these powers were for 25 barons, and weren’t granted to the population at large. Moreover, within a year the clause was removed from subsequent versions of Magna Carta and was never incorporated into English statutory law. So, reference to the Magna Carta might be drawing a long bow! More extreme were some protesters claiming birth certificates registered humans as corporations, with birth bonds “traded on the stock market”. The day I saw the protest, some marchers were waving red ensign flags upside down, a practice generally regarded as a signal of distress; some were holding signs ‘Make Australia Great Again’ (sounds familiar?); and a few were calling for an end to human trafficking. Apparently one woman held up a sign in front of the police blockade reading “Reveal the paedophiles. All 28 ‘VIPs’”.
It is easy to make fun of protests like these based on the more extreme placards. However, marches like this one have seen infiltration by extremist groups, whose agenda is often far from funny: some of them are pursuing anarchy. In the case of most of the people I was watching, the calls were for ‘freedom from’, from government controls and mandates. Despite this, as I watched and read, I began to wonder how far the distinction between two types of liberty was of any real use. If Isaiah Berlin had been standing beside me as I watched the protesters going to Parliament House, we would have agreed most sought negative liberty – freedom to have a vaccination or not, freedom from workplace mandates in relation to COVID-19, and so on. Some, however, were clearly concerned to advocate for freedom to live their lives as they saw best, with the concept of ‘sovereignty’ at the core.
How can we balance between these various aims? I found Berlin’s analysis more helpful when he decided to explore the idea of pluralism, or what he sometimes referred to as value pluralism. Pluralism holds that the values we subscribe to, the ends we pursue, the aims we endorse are plural, both multiple and distinct, and cannot be interpreted as different manifestations of some single super-objective such as utility or happiness. Sometimes different ends conflict with one another: they can be incompatible, or even incommensurable. Values can’t be measured against one another on a common scale to determine priority among them. When they clash, are we to prefer freedom or equality? Happiness or knowledge? Spontaneity or organization? Justice or mercy? As I watched the protesters, it was clear there can be conflict, even confusion, between positive and negative liberties.
In Berlin’s view, the main connection between pluralism and liberalism is the centrality of choice to both. He argues that conflicts between values and ways of life that that constitute value pluralism require people to make choices. These choices involve the most basic and essential questions about being human, about what one is to be and do. We care about these choices, and we want to be the ones to make them: that is what it means to be a thinking and independent moral person. Furthermore, Berlin argues pluralism holds that, where there are conflicts between genuine values, there may be no single right choice. More than one alternative may equally serve genuine human values and interests, even if they involve the sacrifice or limitation of other values or interests that are neither more nor less true and important. In other words, this is about Socrates’ question: how shall I live? The answer is there is no single ideal life, no single model of how to think or behave or be. For Berlin, what is crucial in this is that people should not be made to conform to one view, although he admits there are options that are beyond the pale from any humane viewpoint, like slavery, which may reasonably be blocked off. This all puts the emphasis on the importance and value of being able to make choices freely, embracing both of those two types of liberty.
This was the idea that animated Australia’s multiculturalism policy, the freedom to pursue different choices. How did Australia believe it could support diverse values and preferences? It felt it could be achieved within an overall system comprising a few absolute requirements: including one democratic political system, one legal system, one national language. Within this framework a policy of multiculturalism or value pluralism could support a better, diverse and free society. However, watching the marchers, I saw citizens seeking greater freedoms finding themselves opposed to a government seeking increased restrictions – for their benefit! To date, experience suggests freedom’s liberties can lead to division and dissension.
