NEWS
Freedom in Servitude, and Servitude in Freedom - Thoughts on Human Values in Our Times
by HaRav Yosef Dovid Epstein zt"l
A hesped for HaRav Epstein zt"l is available here.
This article was originally published 30 years ago, in 1991.
What is the issue that causes conflict in our time? What is it that is the root cause of tension between states and classes nowadays?
There are no longer any conflicts over matters of faith: neither the truth of a faith nor its honor. Neither philosophy nor art is a cause of tension. Religion no longer demands physical sacrifice. Modern philosophy places no practical demands on its followers.
The struggles of our generation are all inspired by pragmatic issues: the individual, his rights to life and dignity, and, economic status.
The recent past has seen considerable achievement in bettering the lot of individuals. The common citizen has benefited from social legislation and improvements in the work place that have bettered his lot immensely. Improved health care, higher wages, and a social security system have left most people with a decent life.
If so, from whence the cloud that hangs over our modern society? Why the insecurity, both political and social, that afflicts our modern world?
The whole world yearns for peace, and has worked hard for it, from the League of Nations after the first World War through the United Nations of today. All this effort for peace, but with no success.
Is it possible that all these lofty ideals, these plans to improve man's lot, have only affected international relations - the communications and relations between states and powers and corporations - but have not touched the morals of individuals, which is the real basis of the future of humanity?
There are two grand, historic disappointments, each in one of the major world powers: socialism and democracy.
The original promise of socialism was to bring salvation to the world, removing class barriers in society, bringing equality to build a new, creative society with brotherhood and partnership as its basis. What happened along the way as it degenerated into tyranny, cruelty, and unparalleled destruction?
Democracy, from its modern roots in the Renaissance and developed via the French and American Revolutions, to its modern form in the Western world, with its eye-popping cultural achievements, including the "material Paradise" found in the rich countries - especially the United States - with immense personal freedom and unlimited possibilities. Why has all this collapsed into permissiveness and moral anarchy?
It is no exaggeration to say that in America a judge fears the accused, the policeman fears the criminal, and the teacher in the schools fears the students. It is no exaggeration to say that the lowest and most vile proponents of moral anarchy are not embarrassed to claim support as legitimate representatives of modern life styles!
Whence all this?
In a lighthearted vein, with an important truth for our questions, one of the gedolei Torah of the previous generation once said that the founder of the movement for the prevention of cruelty to animals had a dairy business, and thus a vested interest in this movement.
With this in mind, let us consider the history of the movements for equality and freedom. Was it the rich, the factory owners and landed gentry, who were inspired by the suffering of the downtrodden workers, and therefore called upon them to share in their riches, their comfortable life, and to enjoy equal rights?
No, most certainly not! It was not the wealthy who were moved to liberate their oppressed and downtrodden brethren, but rather it was the downtrodden themselves, the suffering workers whose patience ran out and went on the revolutionary path until they eventually forced their approach on all others.
And what was the struggle for minority rights in the United States? Was it only the promise of the Constitution and its philosophy of the equal rights of all? Or was it not the story of the rising of the blacks against the white majority after many years of suffering, and the protest of minorities who were existing on the edge of society, without a socially important position, with frustratingly little impact on the culture and lifestyle of the country. The revolutionary demonstrations led my Martin Luther King made it quite evident.
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