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Title: Freedom
Author: Dora Marsden
Date: 1914
Language: en
Topics: egoism, freedom, The Egoist
Source: Retrieved on 09/26/2021 from https://modjourn.org/issue/bdr521198/
Notes: Originally published in The Egoist Volume I Number 22 (November 16, 1914). Title is unofficial and derived from the text.

Dora Marsden

Freedom

Now that one may hear "freedom" applauded loudly in high places, one may

speak a few words in mild reason about it and its friends—those

loquacious "wee frees." The world is composed of these, plus the freedom

resisters: The difference by which one may know them is that while both

may shout "Freedom" on the ecstatic note, the resister will say

"'Freedom'! And we are it," while the friends of freedom can merely say

"Freedom! Ah, would that it were ours." Resisters keep their references

to freedom for rare occasions when stirred to emotion by their own

greatness, goodness and general self-satisfaction—as now. The friends of

freedom, however, never cease from their crying: the wail after that

freedom which is not theirs, is their meat by day and night: if one may

be generous and call a smell of a roast—meat. Did one not know the

sickening effects of satisfactions deferred, one could humorously jeer

at these ineffectual desirers, who have come to regard the attitude of

supplicants as a credit and an ornament. Instead of jeers, therefore,

one accords them pity: whereon their pride is in being pitiful. Their

relation to "Freedom" is like that of some humble admirer who adores

from afar, endowing the unfamiliar one with all the charms of the

unknown, though wholly unconscious of their character: even of the

qualities which make their charm for those familiar with their ways.

---

It would not seem that the foregathering of supplicants would be able to

offer many very great attractions: yet, oddly enough, the "cause of

freedom" wins much capable youth to its flag. Misunderstanding must

exist somewhere: a clamour which is the adult equivalent of the

infantile howl, requiring no ability beyond lung-power and pertinacity,

is not attractive in itself, yet "freedom" attracts, and nothing will

suffice to shatter its attraction, until one can stand outside the

"Cause" and weigh up its meaning. That alone, damages the veil.

Strictly, "I am free to" means "My power is able to," and this meaning,

in accuracy, is pertinent to every phase of "free" activity, whether of

acquisition, domination, suppression or abandonment. "Being free" is a

matter of possession of power, therefore: why then has the "cause of

freedom" resolved itself into an onslaught—into endlessly reproachful

tirades—against the iniquities of the possessors of power? A most

wasteful expenditure of energy on fruitless means? For at what do they

aim? They want power, and instead of husbanding carefully what they

have, while it grows from little to more, they spend their all in a

reproachful demand for the favours of those already in power: in making

claims for favours which they call "Rights."

Hear one of their most spirited on the subject "All men are entitled to

that equality of opportunity, which enables them to be masters of their

own lives, and free from rule by others...all men are called on to

resist invasion of their equal rights...," and this, if duly carried

out, we are told, "will kill monopoly." Doubtless! Here then is to be

found the basis of reproach. Freedom lovers—those desiring a power, not

theirs, believe they are "entitled" to the same. Probably the five

virgins, whose lamps had no oil, thought they were entitled to the oil

in their companions'. This matter of entitlement is the subtlest

delusion ever conceived for the confusion of ineffectuais. What can

entitle save power—competence? A n d what can others do to one's

competence save ratify its relative effects by their acquiescence? The

reproach of the advocates of freedom is that the powerful do not confer

on them their power or use it in their interests. This, they believe

themselves entitled to demand, and are injured when they are not

gratified—these imaginary rights. Looking about for something to base

them on, they have hit upon: Consensus of opinion, the opinion of the

mob: that multitude of units with powers similar to their own. Consensus

of opinion is a very useful thing: a good bludgeon in the hands of the

simple, and an easy subject to exploit under the manipulation of the

powerful. It frightens the already frightened: the frightful—those whom

the freedom-lovers hope to scare oft by it—know the very narrow limits

of its horrific powers, since they are constantly making use of them for

themselves. Consensus of opinion is not going to be of much service to

the seekers after grounds of entitlement. On what then do they fall

back? They fall back on bluster and the sentimental.

An infant tries to get what it wants by howling vociferously for it. The

fuss and inconvenience which it is thus able to make constitute its

power. This power is competent, however, only on account of a prior

competence: its hold on the affections of its guardians. Howling would

receive very short shrift without that: a howling dog would very soon be

put out of the way. Now the friends of freedom make bold to raise their

clamour, almost wholly on the strength of its inconvenience, unbacked by

a corresponding hold on the affections of those who have to put up with

it, and under these circumstances the lot of the emancipators,

so-called, speaks volumes for the patience and forbearance of the

empowered. Perhaps there is a modicum of caution in this too—a faint

apprehension that in spite of the evidence to the contrary, the clamour

may not limit itself merely to the aggravation of sound: the wailers may

have a more adequate competence in process of evolving. Certain it is,

however, that the latter have been permitted to clamour for so long,

unmolested, that the recognition of their "right" to do so has become

one of the main planks of their platform. Any infringement of the

"rights" of "free speech," or free assembly is now regarded as sacrilege

against freedom. At any attempt to interfere with them there is no end

of bluster; yet it is obvious that the bluster must be patently empty. A

man stands on a stump on a public place, anathematises the State, in so

doing possibly rousing the wrath of most of his audience, as well as the

suspicion of the officials of the State. Now his claim for "free" speech

is this: the officials of the State against which he is haranguing,

shall in the first place protect him from the anger of the populace, and

in the second, shall refrain both from preventing him continuing his

harangue, and from retaliating with any form of punishment on the count

of its own vilification. It is, of course obvious bluster, though, if

one carries it off with an air, as one usually can in these word-sodden

days, who shall say a word against it? Not we at any rate. Merely, to

youths who are interesting and earnest, one would point out that to rely

on power of this sort is to rely on the fifth-rate variety, which will

let them in at one point or another. Based on a clever word-trick it

will succeed here and there, and particularly so when nothing of

importance depends on it: but when anything really vital is at stake,

the swagger will crumble out and it will shrink to its accurate

dimensions. It will then reveal how illusory its former triumphs were.

For instance, when a State does allow the "right" of the various

"frees," it is for reasons of interest—its own. Perhaps it realises that

discontent, like a rash, is better out than in. It reveals its nature

all the better. So, moreover, discontent is given the chance to run

itself off in talk. And the stronger the State the more "liberty" it can

allow: it need not shatter the first tiny little fist that shakes itself

against it. To appear generous tactfully veils the fact how "just" it

can be: and when a great State is just to its enemies they realise their

lives are not their own: how little then their liberties. It would,

therefore, ill accord with a body whose power is so overwhelming to be

fussily sensitive in regard to the indiscretions of its wilder members.

Free speech forsooth: allowed speech, and allowed on the balance of

considerations which have nothing whatever to do with the fanciful

"rights" of the permitted one. The only speech which could be "free," in

the accurate sense, is that of the all-powerful ones: Napoleon might

have spoken freely—but he had too much sense. The Kaiser might have

accepted a tip in this direction with advantage. And any man who

invested his entire interests in the "cause" could be quite "free" in

one speech before he died—in his last. In brief speech, press, assembly,

love, are all "free" when they have power enough behind them to foot the

bill, when the consequences fall due.

Apart, however, from the deluding assumptions based on the word "free"

in the popular instance cited in the foregoing, it remains to be pointed

out that the word is one of which the actual meaning forbids its being

allowed to roam at large. It is meaningless unless limited by a

qualification. It is worth while detailing the main features existent in

the attitude of mind which makes use of the word "free." Rhetoric apart,

when it is used spontaneously, it is always in relation to certain

specific spheres of activity in which one considers oneself "free." One

is not "free" as regards the "universe," but free in relation to this

and that: where this and that represent specific circumstances which can

be regarded as potential obstacles. The notion of an obstacle is a

salient feature in the state of mind which makes use of the term "free."

In the second place, but constituting a still more salient feature, is

the notion of possession of power in a degree competent to make the

obstacle of non-effect. And in the third there is the element of

comparison between the present actual condition where power more than

equates obstructions and another condition remembered or imagined in

which the powers possessed were not adequate to the effective degree.

Now it is because of the fact that anyone of these features can be

emphasised to the exclusion of the rest which explains the otherwise

puzzling phenomenon which the presence of persons of spirit and

intelligence in hopeless entanglement with one or other of the "Freedom"

propagandas offers. It explains, moreover, the genesis of these highly

differing propagandas. By the features which they chose to ignore or

emphasise their relative spiritedness may be gauged. It is, for

instance, by a rigorous ignoring of the first feature, i.e., the

particularity of application requisite to the meaning of "free," that

the numerically strongest battalions of freedom-lovers are recruited.

For, by ignoring it, they are enabled to make the meaningless

abstraction of which the result is the concept "freedom" itself. They

have poured out the precise meaning, and are left with any empty vessel

constructed out of the mere label-Freedom: which, like Mesopotamia is a

word of good sound.

The sentimental, the gushers, the rhetoricians, orators of all sorts,

hypocrites, hangers-on, every brand of human, provided they run easily

to slop, rally to augment this goodly lot.

By ignoring the second feature—the actual possession of power as the

condition of the "free"—those who are rallied to freedom's cause by the

aggrandisement of the "whine" are roped in. They are won by the prospect

of apotheosizing "talky-talky": by the big sound of Inherent Rights. The

democrats, socialists, humanitarians, anarchists—embargoists of all

sorts—row in this galley. This ignoring of the second feature leads

naturally to a special emphasising of the third: the emphasis on

"conditions." Thus, the particularised character of obstacles which the

first variety of freedom-lovers find it attractive to ignore, receives

from this last class their entire attention.

A parentally-anxious removal of obstacles becomes the ideal of the

modern saviours of society: in fact, the only articulate theory of

modern social and political activity works out at just this. What are

"democratic" leaders, the "emancipators," concerned with but with their

lists of "obstacles to be removed," and the successful invoking of the

assistance and assent of the more powerful in the job, for which the

power of the masses is inadequate? The essential thing—power in oneself—

is waved aside as tainted with the soulless harshness of feelingless

drivers. These indulgent, freedom-loving, social grandmothers have not

been satisfied with a mere sparing of the rod: they have persuaded the

children that it is inhuman to use rods or harbour them. When, for

instance, an effective rod appears—as now—in powerful hands, a

mellow-tongued friend of freedom—that popular leader of popular causes,

emancipator of the people, what not: Mr. Lloyd George tells the people

how he has military authority for it that such a rod could only appear

in the hands of one possessing the "Soul of the Devil" : the retort to

which is, of course, "Mind of a Midge!"—argument of kind with kind.

D. M.