How Important Is Freedom?
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)
Man of Steel is supposed to be a story about the origin of Superman. It’s really a story about the importance of freedom.
On Krypton, Superman’s home planet, everyone is created for a specific purpose. They have no choice about the path their life will take. Superman’s parents dream of a free Krypton, so they conceive and give birth to him naturally. In doing so, they give him back the freedom of choice for what kind of man he wants to be.
And growing up as Clark Kent on Earth, Superman struggles with this. His earthly father encourages him to hide who he is at all costs, but Superman chooses to help others even if it puts him in danger of exposing who he is.
When General Zod of Krypton appears, Superman realizes why his birth parents made the choices they did. He chooses again to allow Krypton to go extinct rather than allowing Zod to commit genocide on the human race.
“I exist only to protect Krypton,” Zod says. “That is the sole purpose for which I was born. And every action I take, no matter how violent or how cruel, is for the greater good of my people. And now, I have no people. My soul—that is what you have taken from me!”
When he lost his freedom to choose to be something different, Zod lost other qualities as well, like compassion, hope, and morals. With Krypton and its people gone for good, Zod has no reason to live.
Few of us who live in free countries would argue that freedom isn’t important.
Its innate value is why many science fiction and fantasy books and movies explore it—and what could happen if it was taken away.
Battlestar Galactica took a look at freedom from the opposite side as Man of Steel. The Twelve Colonies were free. They had a president and elected representatives. People chose their careers and could change their lot in life through hard work. Then the cylons attacked, wiping out all but around 50,000 humans.
Running for their lives and looking for a new home, the remaining humans were forced to live on a small fleet of ships. This meant that people were pressed into jobs based on the needs of the fleet, such as working the fuel processing ship. They couldn’t change their job, and worse, their children were being trained up in the same job without any chance to be anything else.
But what other choice did they have? If the fleet had any hope of survival, they needed fuel processing, and waste processing, and all the other jobs done. They suspended freedom. They felt it was for the greater good.
In the episode “Dirty Hands,” after a labor strike that almost devolves into mutiny, the government of the fleet decides freedom is important enough that they have to protect it along with their survival. They institute training programs and a work rotation.
But it raised an interesting question, one our own society is facing today, about whether there’s ever a time when certain freedoms should be suspended. Or is freedom of such a high value that it shouldn’t be violated in any circumstance, no matter the cost?
What do you think? Is there ever a time when freedom should be sacrificed for the greater good, or is freedom something that should never be violated?
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Jul 08, 2013 @ 15:17:07
An interesting question and a difficult one since there is no universal concept of what constitutes “freedom.” For example, after we went into Iraq, I saw an interview with a Shi’ite imam who said, “Now we are free! We can make the women cover up. We are free to ban music. We are free to ban TV.” I realized then that freedom is what we decide it is. It has no objective meaning.
I look at my own concept of freedom as a child of the 60s. Back then, the idea of a government that spied on its own citizens was completely abhorrent to Americans. That was something Communists did, and that contributed heavily to the Soviet downfall and reorganization into the modern spookocracy that is Russia today.
As an American from that time, I mourn deeply that children born in this decade will never know a time when their government doesn’t record, store, and analyze every electronic transaction they make, along with all of their school and health records.–Yes, that’s all 100% true, and I don’t get my news from either CNN or FOX. And yet it seems the majority of Americans are so naive as to believe our own leaders would never be as self-serving or corrupt as those of other countries. “It’s okay if it keeps us safe. I mean, it doesn’t affect ME.”
Should rights ever be abridged for the sake of civil order and safety? In the case of an HONEST emergency, yes. The norm since 9/11, however, has been to yell “terrorists” and have everyone quiver and give DHS unlimited powers in spite of the fact that terrorist deaths of Americans have been minuscule in the big scheme. In the name of “safety from terrorists” we have recklessly sacrificed the requirements of probable cause and warrants for searches of our persons, our cars, and our homes. Now, we have even sacrificed our right to privacy in our phone communications, banking transactions, and medical records without so much as a believable whimper (PRISM). We are fast becoming everything Holmes and his compatriots dedicated their lives to preventing in the Cold War–everything our country despised such a short time ago–and people are eating it up and saying thank you. Apparently, the new American concept of “Freedom” is whatever keeps us physically safe from cradle to grave at any price. And yet, those same people will still proclaim we are the leaders of the “Free World.”
For me, TEMPORARILY sacrificing my own concept of freedom is only acceptable in the event of an ACTUAL emergency, such as a ground attack on our country by another country. But ONLY when it is recognized as an extreme measure and not some kind of new norm in which limitless powers of search and seizure are granted to the NSA and DHS–which is the practical application of current “law” on the matter. My own concept of freedom, born of the Cold War Era, is living on a game preserve, not living in a kennel.
Jul 08, 2013 @ 19:09:04
Freedom? What’s that?
We are free to go to work, pay our taxes, obey the law, save for old age, send our children to school, be normal, follow fashion, watch t.v., believe the media, pay for food, pay for utilities, drive on the right side of the road and generally conform to society’s norm.
We’re free to believe things a little common sense tells us is nonsense. You have a 1 in 9 million chance of being killed by a terrorist but a 1 in 17,600 chance of being killed in a car – lets spend billions on homeland security rather than car safety
Jul 09, 2013 @ 10:03:51
That is a good question, and I think Piper is right, that it comes down to our own definitions of freedom. I think my own personal freedom is important. I was raised in a family that accepted all of us we are and I was encouraged to find out who I am and what I want to be. And having lived in a third world country, I have definitely come to appreciate the freedoms we have to speak what we believe, even if it is against the government. Now I feel like I’m beginning to talk in circles. Maybe there is no “answer” to the question…
Jul 09, 2013 @ 13:04:25
I’m pretty sure there isn’t a hard answer to this one 🙂 As you mentioned, I believe strongly in the importance of the freedom to speak what you believe, and in fact, the freedom to believe it without fear of punishment (no the case in all countries). And yet I sometimes think the press takes it too far. They place the ultimate value on the freedom of speech and the freedom of information without considering the bigger consequences. I’m sure there’s a balance there somewhere, but I’m not sure what exactly it is!
Jul 10, 2013 @ 21:33:17
Well Marcy, you are a deep thinker girl. If we get down to the crust of what Freedom means, it denotes a sense of independence and choice. I use the word sense because our freedom is relative in that it is God given and thus it is subjective to his laws. Although many today do not recognize this. It is the reason why we see so many problems concerning freedom across the globe. It makes you wonder if we were meant to govern over ourselves at all. Yet, we were given the gift of free will. And it is up to us as to how we will use it, whether it be for the better good of others or for selfish reasons, which shows us that there is responsibility that goes along with this privilege. So Freedom is a very serious matter, isn’t it? 🙂