Freedom and virtue

Freedom, like reason, science, technology, and the rest, is a source of good in the world. But like those other sources of good, freedom is not necessarily used for good or evil, alone. Freedom is the rich soil from which virtue, and all things that flow from it, grows.

It is soil that must, because of our initial vulnerability, be planted with seeds by others before virtue can sprout.

But virtue's seeds cannot, ultimately, be tended to by others, primarily. We must grow our own garden ourselves. There will be weeds and parasites that threaten the growth of virtue. At times, they may overwhelm its blossoms.

Still virtue must, in the end, be nurtured and harvested by each person in their own soil.

Virtue that is hovered over or controlled by another, is not real virtue, in the end. Real virtue does not need the control or oversight of others. We might seek or accept the input of other gardeners. But if virtue is not grown by our own hands, if conscience does not make our final judgments, if self-discipline does not, finally, come from ourselves, then it can never fully express itself and never fully mature. Discipline that is forever imposed by others never really becomes self-discipline or independent judgment and maturity at all. Only our own consciences, the fruits of our own labors and reflection, can develop the seed of virtue, lest we be stuck in the immaturity that is found by being tended to, persistently, by another. And, even then, it is only how and what we learn and how to thrive that determines the trajectory of our growth or lack thereof.

Many of us begin with soil that is rocky, dry, infertile, or otherwise difficult to grow from. But grow we must. And no amount of oversight from others can ever, ultimately, grow the harvest that only we can cultivate. And our dependence on that oversight, and its false promise, at long last, is the source of so much failure to mature, grow, and thrive by, all too tragically, the vast majority of humanity.

Freedom does not guarantee virtue, any more than repression.

But it does offer far richer soil, the only real soil from which virtue can grow, in fact, and the only real opportunity, for virtue to grow sustainably and fulfilling the promise of its seed to thrive given conditions that support its development.

If we do not live under such conditions, we must create them.

That is life's clearest lesson.

And the need to create conditions that support our growth, even if they do not currently exist, is the basis for the march of freedom, and virtue, and genuine progress for humanity.