Civilization and Freedom

While there are many ways in which civilization can be seen as being destructive of freedom, there are more meaningful ways in which it is conducive to freedom. By civilized I mean this: Being able to work out differences among one another. The more people can do that, the more freedom they get to enjoy. And in that way being civilized very much works for the benefit of freedom.

In uncivilized places, such as the Middle East, there is also very little personal freedom. That is because in such places people don't know how to work out their differences. A love triangle results in one or more people getting killed. A competition between businesses turns into a feud that absorbs whole areas and thousands of lives over generations. A political disagreement turns into a civil war. And further on along the same line.

Whereas the more people are skilled at arriving at solutions that don't result in anyone getting killed, the more freedom is actually possible. One of the greatest cultural accomplishments along that line was French president Mitterand's wife and mistress both attending his funeral and standing next to his coffin. The people in that situation worked out an arrangement that worked for the parties involved. The result was that they all got to enjoy the benefits of that arrangement.

In present world, the most personal freedom is enjoyed by the highly civilized places such as Sweden, Denmark and Netherlands; the least is enjoyed by the least civilized places such as Afghanistan. By being civilized I do not mean financial wealth, although financial wealth can be conducive to freedom in other ways. I mean the attitudes that people have and their ability to work with one another.

The more people can do that, the greater freedoms they can enjoy. And being able to work with one another is therefore very much a part of creating real freedom.