the american view of freedom: what we say, what we mean

The David Riesman Lecture on American Society

THE AMERICAN VIEW OF FREEDOM: WHAT WE SAY,

WHATWE MEAN

Orlando

I discovered the works of David Riesman some forty years ago when, as an undergraduate in econom-

ics at the University of the West Indies, I had just comple ted my assigned reading in a sociology course on the culture of modern industrial societ- ies. This was a section from The Lonely Crowd, a

book that had been published only a decade previ-

ously, but from the perspective of a 20-year old, had a publication date vaguely associated in time with my other assignment, Tocqueville's Democ-

racy in America. The Lonely Crowd and the other

work of David's that was available in our little li- brary, Individualism Reconsidered, had a profound and lasting effect on me and my thinking. It wasn' t simply the fact that coming under the spell of David Riesman meant, all of a sudden, that it was all over

with economics for me, but rather the nature of

that influence. Riesman's style of sociology--his integration of the analytic and the interpretive, the macrosociological and the microsociological, the social and the cultural and his vigorous pursuit, especially in his many elegant essays, of that Jame- sian equipoise between the impulse of the individual and the sympathy of the communi ty- -was to become my own model.

But there was something else that was to have

an even deeper impact on me. While no scholar has been more scrupulous in grounding his arguments in facts--especially those facts gained from experience, observation, and the documents of life--

David Riesman, nonetheless, has never confused

sociology with applied statistics. And it has always

been his firm belief, as it was to become mine, that sociology, whatever its claims to be a social sci-

Patterson

ence, is nothing if not a moral science. And this is

because the object of our study, human beings, are quintessentially normative, impassioned and usu-

ally non-rational agents caught in endless plots and mysteries that they themselves have written, and because we who study them are ourselves human, there is no escaping, and every reason to applaud

and embrace, a complete engagement with the moral dimension of social facts.

Riesman has had two major preoccupations. One

has been his attempt to understand the culture of modern America. America, he once wrote, is "not

only big and rich, it is mysterious." Now that was an intriguing thought. I had always thought that places like Jamaica and Haiti were the mysterious ones, and that inscrutability pointed eastward. But all great social scientists, like all good writers of mys-

tery, have the capacity to make the familiar unfamiliar and mysterious. Reading Riesman ensnared me into a fascination with America and an abiding intellectual need to penetrate the mysteries of its culture. So here I am, thirty years at it, and still fascinated.

Any understanding of America however, must come to terms with its central value and ideal, which also happens to be the second major theme in David's work: America's preoccupation with freedom. All of Riesman's work is shot through with a

deep engagement with the problem of freedom and its meaning in American life. In particular, with

those"areas of freedom" that foster autonomy. One

of David Riesman's greatest concerns has been that

modern capitalistAmerica had spawned a mass cul-

ture that threatens to violate and destroy what he holds most dear: personal autonomy. The pressures

THE AMERICAN VIEW OF FREEDOM 37

of the mass media, of the peer group and of the many identity-groups inkanerica, he saw relentlessly steering Americans toward an other-directed con-

formism that was devastating for any true meaning of freedom.

All of which brings me to my subject. Freedom. America. The two terms go together like a drum and its drumbeat. If there is one thing that all the

great and small thinkers, and all the great and small

leaders of America from its Founding Fathers on- wards are agreed on, it is that freedom isAmerica's most cherished ideal and the foundation of its great- ness. What's more, that America cherishes and ex-

periences freedom more than any other country on

earth. In 1792, James Madison wrote in a vein of national triumphalism that persists to this day: "In

Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America set the example and France has fol-

lowed it, of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most tri-

umphant epoch of its history and the most consol- ing presage of its happiness."

There has been no letting up in this celebration since then, whether it was Emerson acclaiming how

"freedom all winged expands";the national anthem proclaimingAmerica to be"the land of the free and

the home of the brave" or the national song exult- ing on the "sweet land of liberty"; the Battle Hymn of the Republic which co-opted Jesus Christ himself in the celebratory lines, "He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free"; the Statue of

Liberty with its stirring invitation to the poor and

unfree of the world; or America's claim to be the leader of the free world in the struggle against com- munism during the era of the Cold War.

The obsession with liberty persists in our time. One interesting statistic will illustrate the point.

During the 12 months between October 1, 1999 and October 1, 2000 there were, in the nation's top 50 newspapers, a total of 89,000 references to freedom inAmerica by the nation's journalists.

Well then, let's take it as given that we are the sweet land of liberty par excellence. But what does it all mean? Many thoughtful people have been

puzzled by this question the most famous being

Abraham Lincoln who lamented in 1864 that: "We

all declare for liberty, but in using the same word

we do not all mean the same thing.'There were good reasons for Lincoln's puzzlement and that of other thoughtful Americans.

Take first, what I have called the paradox of the confounding fathers. Why was it, how could it have

been, that nearly all the Founding Fathers, and cer- tainly the greatest of them--Jefferson, Washington, Madison--men who fought for and laid the founda-

tions of the nation's freedom, and celebrated it in

some of the finest prose written by statesmen, were not just slaveholders but large-scale slavemasters who all went to their noble graves holding hundreds of their fellow human beings in bondage?And there was the related paradox that confounded Lincoln,

not just the fact that the Southern half of the country had gone to war to defend slavery, but that they genuinely believed that they were doing so in defense of their l iberty--the liberty to enslave a sixth

of the nation.

The paradoxes of freedom are not, however, confined to the American past. Consider the fol-

lowing features of modern America. Why is it that this land of the free and the brave is the only mod-

ern country to execute its citizens? And why is it that the former governor of the state that has had a virtual carnival of executions, and who is now presi-

dent, was not once called to question by his oppo- nent on this issue?

Why is it, how can it be, that this sweet land of liberty has the highest rate of incarceration of any nation on earth, with 1.9 million of its citizens be- hind bars as of June 30, 1999? Why is the incarcera-

tion rate for Euro-American men seven times greater than the average European rate?

Why, in this sweet land of liberty have we locked up 4617 of every 100,000 African American men? How can we explain the amazing discrepancy between the incarceration of Afro-American men and

Euro-Americans. And then there is the scandal of pr ivacy in

America. Privacy, as Justice Louis Brandeis observed in 1928, is "the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.'Today, however, the United States has the worst record of pro- tection of privacy of all the advanced industrial na- tions. Our government permits more wiretapping and eavesdropping on our calls than any other civi-

lized nation, and the vast body of data it collects on each and everyone of us is not protected by any comprehensive laws of privacy. Every citizen faces

invasion of his or her privacy each day from all quar-

ters of the p r iva te sector . And each n igh t

telemarketers ruin our dinners. Our medical records are not secure. Employers are permitted to moni- tor the most private aspect of employees'lives while at work. The Internet poses enormous new threats, and no one is so naive as to believe that their e-mail is private.

38 SOCIETY �9 MAY/JUNE 2001

Finally, and mos t p e r p l e x i n g of all, is the d ismal

state of our pa r t i c i pa to ry democracy , the ve ry founda t ion of any free society. Of far g rea te r c o n c e r n is

the nea r c o m p l e t e con t ro l of the legislat ive p r o c e s s

and of the c a m p a i g n sys tem by spec i a l m o n e y e d

in te res t s . Close ly r e l a t e d to this , i n d e e d p a r t l y a

c o n s e q u e n c e o f it, is a n o t h e r fatal f l aw in o u r

d e m o c r a t i c sys tem: t he d i sma l s ta te o f v o t e r par-

t i c i pa t i on . In 1996 less t h a n ha l f t he e l ig ib l e vot-

ers e l e c t e d Bill C l i n ton to off ice, t he w o r s t turn-

o u t in 70 years . Even m o r e t roub l ing are v o t e r

t u rnou t s for congress iona l e lec t ions . Wi th an aver-

age vo te r t u rnou t of 38 p e r c e n t in legislat ive elec-

t ions, the Uni ted States ranks near the b o t t o m of

d e m o c r a c i e s in the n u m b e r of e l igible vo te r s w h o

e lec t the i r legislat ive bodies . Voter pa r t i c i pa t i on is

m u c h h ighe r in o t h e r indus t r ia l ized count r ies . In

Italy, the average t u rnou t is 87 pe rcen t ; in Sweden,

84 pe rcen t ; in Australia, 82 pe rcen t ; in Spain, 78

p e r c e n t ; i n Germany, 73 pe rcen t ; inTurkey, 71 per-

cent; in the Uni ted Kingdom, 69 pe rcen t ; and in

Canada, 56 pe rcen t .

But that ' s no t the w h o l e story. A viable democ-

racy requ i res no t just r easonab le t u r n o u t of vo te r s

but also a vibrant civil society. And as Rober t Pu tnam

and o the r s have recen t ly w a r n e d , the re has b e e n a

drast ic dec l ine in civic pa r t i c ipa t i on among Ameri -

cans in r ecen t decades . One may d isagree w i t h Pro-

fessor Pu tnam a b o u t the reasons for this, or the

ex t en t of the decl ine , bu t no one ques t ions his ba-

sic a r g u m e n t that Amer i cans p a r t i c i p a t e less than

p rev ious ly in civic assoc ia t ions and that the na t ion

ranks l o w e r than mos t of the o t h e r mature democ-

racies in this area, as in so many o thers .

All of w h i c h has led me to ask, w h a t is this free-

d o m of w h i c h w e are so p roud?To u n d e r s t a n d w h a t

Amer icans say and m e a n by f reedom, w e mus t first

real ize that it is who l ly inadequa te to th ink of free-

d o m solely as an idea or a set of beliefs . That it

ce r ta in ly i s - - a n d I shall c o m e to w h a t I t h ink is in-

volved s h o r t l y - - b u t any u n d e r s t a n d i n g of f r e e d o m

mus t beg in w i t h the fact that it is a cul tura l system.

This cul tural sys tem has four in te r re la ted doma ins

and each t ends to be the spec ia l c o n c e r n of differ-

en t k inds of scholars and in t e rp re te r s .

The Semantics and Ideology of Freedom There is, o f course , a vast b o d y of analyt ic and

p re sc r ip t ive l i te ra ture on the na ture of f r eedom. I

w o n ' t speak for the rest of my co l l eagues in the so-

cial s c i ence communi ty , bu t it shou ld be obv ious

to anyone w h o has read my w o r k s on f r e e d o m that

I take this t r ad i t ion seriously. All great cu l tu res of

f r e e dom have, mus t have, a grea t t rad i t ion of dis-

cour se on f r e e d o m as an integral c o m p o n e n t , and

Amer ica has b e e n for tuna te in that some of its great-

est t hough t s on f r e e d o m came at the bes t poss ib le

t ime, w h e n it was ins t i tu t ing its cons t i tu t ion , and

f rom m e n of ac t ion w h o also h a p p e n e d to be m e n

of great w i s d o m and re f lec t ion .

At the same t ime, w e mus t no te that the re is a

cons t an t danger of exaggera t ing the s igni f icance of

w h a t these e x p e r t s and spec ia l i s t s say a b o u t free-

dom. Even more i m p o r t a n t to me, as a h i s tor ica l

soc io logis t of cul ture , is the s e c o n d d o m a i n o f free-

dom, that is, its r e p o r t e d pragmat ics .

The Reported Pragmatics By the r e p o r t e d p ragmat i c s of f r e e dom I m e a n

s imply w h a t lay p e o p l e say and m e a n b y f r e e d o m .

The re is a long t r ad i t ion of su rvey w o r k going back

to t he po l i t i c a l s o c i o l o g i s t Samuel S touffer w h i c h

p r o b e s A m e r i c a n s ' v i e w s o f t o l e r a n c e by asking

t h e m h o w t h e y w o u l d reac t to cer ta in s i tuat ions

such as hav ing a c o m m u n i s t o r a gay p e r s o n t e a c h

in o n e ' s loca l h igh schoo l . W h i l e I f i nd th is t radi-

t i on o f s c h o l a r s h i p useful , my p r o b l e m w i t h it is

tha t it is f o c u s e d t o o n a r r o w l y on the q u e s t i o n o f

to le rance , w h i c h is only one d imens ion of f reedom,

and it p r e judges the issue of w h a t Amer i cans mean

by f r e e d o m in the ve ry na tu r e of the q u e s t i o n s

asked.

A n o t h e r w a y of a p p r o a c h i n g the issue is s imply

to ask p e o p l e w h a t they mean by f r e e d o m and the i r

o t h e r va lues . A small , b u t d i s t i n g u i s h e d g r o u p o f

s c h o l a r s , m o s t n o t a b l y R o b e r t Lane, J e n n i f e r

H o s c h c h i l d , H e r b e r t McClosky, Dav id Hale, Den-

nis C h o n g and a few o t h e r s , have d o n e so. I have

b e e n w o r k i n g in a s imi la r ve in ove r t h e yea rs ,

t h r o u g h i n - d e p t h i n t e r v i e w i n g , o b s e r v a t i o n , and a m o d u l e o f q u e s t i o n s I d e s i g n e d w h i c h was ad-

m i n i s t e r e d on m y b e h a l f to a n a t i o n a l s a m p l e o f

A m e r i c a n s by the Nat iona l O p i n i o n Resea rch Cen-

t e r in its G e n e r a l Social Survey for t he y e a r 2000.

N o w an i m p o r t a n t p r o b l e m that c o m e s immedi -

ately to mind is the na ture of the re la t ionsh ip be-

t w e e n the specia l i s t s ' v i ews of f r e e dom and those

of lay pe op l e . No one has add res sed this p r o b l e m

more e loquen t ly than Professor Stanley Cavell w h o

o p e n e d his by n o w classic p a p e r en t i t l ed "Must We

Mean W h a t We Say?" w i t h an o b s e r v a t i o n tha t ,

w h e t h e r he i n t e n d e d it o r not , has b r o u g h t joy to

the hear t s of all soc io logis t s w h o s tudy the role of

ideas and bel iefs in h u m a n cul tures . "That w h a t w e

ord inar i ly say and mean, " he wro te , "may have a

d i rec t and d e e p con t ro l over w h a t w e can philo-


sophically say and mean is an idea which many phi- losophers find oppressive 'And he adds, "There is,

after all, something oppressive about a philosophy which seems to have uncanny information about

our most personal philosophical assumptions.., and

which inevitably nags us about them" He notes fur-

ther, that when ordinary or lay persons say things they "do not, in general, need evidence for what is said in the language, they are the source of such evidence."Amen.

Now, in making these remarks, Professor Cavell was not in the act of talking himself out of a job. As he later points out, "It is exactly because the language which contains a culture changes with the changes of that culture that philosophical aware-

ness of ordinary language is illuminating." With this I entirely agree, which is why my work on the historical sociology of freedom embraces deep study of what phi losophers of f reedom have had to say. However, Cavell is quite emphatic in his

view that what phi losophers say about specific expressions can never be any more privileged than what butchers and bakers say. And he was will- ing to concede that where we are talking about

such specific expressions the issue is "straight-

forwardly empirical, " and the exploration of se-

mantic pragmatics advocated by Mates, of w h o m he was otherwise quite critical, becomes relevant. It is with this concession to empiricism that I take my leave of Professor Cavell's paper, which de- veloped into an exceedingly subtle and illuminating discourse on the phi losophy of ordinary language.

The Observed Pragmatics of Freedom In addition to the elicitation of meaning from

what people say about freedom, we can also infer a great deal of what they mean by it from what they do when they tell us they are being free. I have gotten at this in two ways. One is to have people tell me what they are doing when they feel most free. The other way is what I call the observed pragmatics of freedom. I refer here to the things people

do and say in their everyday life of freedom when

they are not being asked to talk about freedom, but are doing it naturally; in other words when they are

engaged in behavioral acts of freedom rather than speech acts of freedom. This is the least studied domain of freedom, but may well be the most im-

portant. Indeed, America's claim to be the preeminent

land of freedom rests largely on the fact that its citizens in their ordinary lives are more preoccupied

with freedom than any other group of people. Free- dom is existentially meaningful to Americans to a degree unknown elsewhere. Americans in their dealings with relatives, lovers, spouses, employ-

ers or just strangers on the streets are constantly

drawing on and using the vocabula ry of free- d o m - p r o t e c t i n g their private spaces, keeping

other people out of their faces, screaming at their parents to leave them alone before they can barely

speak, demanding to be left to do their own thing, loudly asserting their rights to almost every imag-

inable area of life, in other words, to use one of my favorite phrases from Aeschyllus' play, The Per- sians-perhaps the first great work on the theme

of f reedom-- they are endlessly "bawling their lib-

erty." In addition to observational methods, I have fol-

lowed the lead of Erving Goffman, the great soci- ologist of everyday life, in making use of reports in the nation's newspapers as a major source of infor-

mation on this domain of freedom. On-line data

sources now make it possible to conduct such studies in a systematic, statistically informed, way not possible when Goffman wrote. With my assistant, Matt Kalinder, we are now in the process of analyz-

ing a 3 percent sample of the 89,000 reported cases of freedom-acts mentioned earlier.

Institutional Context and Dynamics The institutional context and dynamics of free-

dom are the mainstays of political science and political sociology. The political system, the judi- ciary, and the various organs of government and the institutions of civil society are the structures that both facilitate and limit the expression and exper iences of freedom by citizens and hence its meaning. I have spent a good part of the past 18 years drawing on the vast empirical and theoreti- cal literature on this domain of f reedom in my

quest to understand the rise and diffusion of free- dora in the modern world, which is the subject of the second of my two-volume historical sociology of freedom.

Clearly then, in attempting to understand what

Americans mean by freedom I did not arrive with a clean slate or an innocent head. I had a model of

what I think freedom means, based on previous work on the history of freedom in the West and in

America, and one of my objectives is to test whether this model is confirmed by modern layAmericans'

view of freedom. So let me now very briefly sum- marize my conjecture or model of freedom and of the way it has evolved in American history.


T h e Pr imal M o d e l o f F r e e d o m

In my ear l ie r w o r k I have t r ied to s h o w that free-

d o m is a c o h e r e n t t r iad o f values wi th d e e p roo t s

going back to the ve ry beg inn ings of Wes te rn civili-

zation. I a rgued that , wh i l e the re have b e e n cer-

tainly changes ove r the mi l lennia of this value 's his-

tory, one can d e t e c t ce r ta in c lear W i t t g e n s t e i n i a n

c e n t r a l t e n d e n c i e s o r fami ly r e s e m b l a n c e s in th is

va lue . I u s e d the m e t a p h o r o f a c h o r d a l t r i ad sug-

ges t ing tha t the p r o t o t y p i c a l value has always been

a conf igura t ion of th ree cul tura l notes , these be ing

negative f r eedom or the absence of restraint on one ' s

capac i ty to pu r sue one ' s desires. Secondly , posi -

t ive f r e e d o m , w h i c h is t he des i r e and c a p a c i t y to

do w h a t e v e r o n e wan t s , s u b j e c t to t he laws, in-

c l u d e s t he e x e r c i s e o f p o w e r ove r o n e s e l f - - s e l f -

con t ro l , s e l f - de t e rmina t i on and p e r s o n a l i n d e p e n -

d e n c e - a s w e l l as p o w e r a n d i n f l u e n c e o v e r

o the r s . And, thirdly, t h e r e is the n o t e tha t is t he

f r e e d o m to p a r t i c i p a t e in the g o v e r n m e n t of o n e ' s

socie ty .

Note that the re is a s imple , ye t p o w e r f u l coher -

ence in this tr iad. W h a t ho lds t h e m t o g e t h e r is,

h o w e v e r counter- intui t ively, the no t ion of power .

We are free to the degree that w e are no t u n d e r the

p o w e r of a n o t h e r p e r s o n or force (negat ive free-

dom); to the deg ree that w e have the o p p o r t u n i t y

and the capac i ty to exe rc i se p o w e r over ourse lves

and o the r s (pos i t ive f reedom); and to the degree

that we share the c o m m o n power , pa r t i c i pa t e in

the pub l i c p o w e r or g o v e r n m e n t of our soc ie ty (de-

mocracy) . N o w whi le the tr iad has b e e n he ld by all

p e o p l e s w h o cher i sh f r eedom, over the cen tu r i e s

there has b e e n a c lear t e n d e n c y for di f ferent classes

to emphas i ze one or o t h e r no te wh i l e p laying the

o t h e r two less empha t i ca l ly so to speak. None the-

less, an i m p o r t a n t feature of the t rad i t ion of free- d o m is the fact that unt i l the end the 18th century ,

and espec ia l ly in Revo lu t iona ry Amer ica , democ-

racy was a lways he ld to be an integral pa r t of any

c o n c e p t i o n of f r eedom.

Is A m e r i c a n d e m o c r a c y still an integral pa r t of

f r e e d o m or is it c o n c e i v e d of as s o m e t h i n g in con-

flict wi th , or r emoved from, it? Revolut ionary rheto-

r ic in favor of d e m o c r a c y c o o l e d rapid ly in Amer i ca

as the e m e r g i n g capi ta l is t e l i tes c ame to fear that

the p r o b l e m of g o v e r n m e n t was no t h o w to pro-

tec t the many against the few, bu t r a the r h o w to

p r o t e c t the f e w - - e s p e c i a l l y p r o p e r t y o w n e r s and

c r e d i t o r s - - a g a i n s t the many. Coun t e r i ng the ten-

denc i e s t o w a r d mass d e m o c r a c y that b e g a n w i th

the Jackson ian era, was a re len t less el i t ist move-

m e n t in favor of a minimal is t capi ta l is t democracy .

This ve r s ion of d e m o c r a c y was ex tens ive ly inclu-

sive, by w h i c h I m e a n that it was wi l l ing to em-

brace all g roups of pe r sons , inc lud ing Afro-Ameri-

cans and immigran t s bu t r e s i s t ed any d e e p e n i n g

o f c i t i z e n s h i p , e i t h e r by w a y o f e x p a n d i n g op-

p o r t u n i t i e s for p a r t i c i p a t i o n b e y o n d the vo te o r

any e x t e n s i o n o f t he n o t i o n o f po l i t i c a l ci t izen-

ship and equa l i ty to the d o m a i n of social security.

Indeed , it se ized eve ry o p p o r t u n i t y to demob i l i ze

the c i t izenry and emascu la t e the p o w e r of the vote.

Several power fu l w e a p o n s were successful ly used

t o w a r d this end, bu t I wil l m e n t i o n only two: the

ideo logy of min imal g o v e r n m e n t and the un ique ly

A m e r i c a n legal d o c t r i n e of judicial review. The ide-

o logy of min ima l g o v e r n m e n t en ta i l ed a h i s tor ic

change in the Wes te rn , and Amer ican , c o n c e p t i o n

of f r eedom, a f r agmen t ing of the c h o r d of f r eedom,

if you like, w i th the rise of cap i t a l i sm and its intel-

lec tua l h a n d m a i d e n , l iberal ism. I n A m e r i c a , the re

was a swift d e s c e n t f rom the r evo lu t i ona ry ideal of

f r e e d o m being, in g o o d part , act ive c i t i zensh ip in a

v i r tuous r epub l i can state, to the m i d - c e n t u r y lib-

eral v i ew of the state as a s in is ter power , the great-

est th rea t to one ' s liberty. Liber ty agains t the state

e m e r g e d as the centra l t h e m e in the n o r t h e r n con-

servat ive c o n c e p t i o n of f reedom. The state be came ,

at bes t a w a t c h m a n , at w o r s t a po ten t i a l m o n s t e r

u n d e r t h e c o n t r o l o f c o r r u p t p o l i t i c i a n s a f t e r

p e o p l e ' s ha rd e a r n e d money.

This was r e in fo rced by the p r i n c i p l e of judic ia l

review. Increasingly, l iber ty came to be i n t e r p r e t e d

as a c o n s t i t u t i o n a l l i m i t a t i o n on t h e l eg i s l a t i ve

b r anch of gove rnmen t . This b e c a m e so e n t r e n c h e d

a p r inc ip le i nAmer ican law and c omme rc i a l life that

b y the ear ly 20th c e n t u r y it was ha rd f o r A m e r i c a n s

to grasp the n e w n e s s , and pecu l i a r ly Amer i can ,

na ture of this legalist ic twis t on the n o t i o n of personal f r eedom.

The ques t ions that I w i sh to a n s w e r then, are

t h e s e : W h a t no t ions o f f r e e d o m do Amer i cans n o w

hold? Wha t e x p e r i e n c e s do they have in mind w h e n

they behave freely? W h a t re la t ion does the na t iona l

bea r to the exper ien t ia l? Where , if anywhere , is de-

moc ra c y in w h a t c o n t e m p o r a r y A m e r i c a n s say and

m e a n by f r e e d o m and in the i r e x p e r i e n c e s of it?

More generally, h o w does my ma t r ix or m o d e l of

f r e e dom ho ld up in the l ight of these findings?

Findings First, let us e x a m i n e w h a t Amer i cans n o w say

abou t f r eedom. Most Amer i cans (70 p e r c e n t ) th ink

that the i r c o u n t r y m e n have e i the r c o m p l e t e or a

grea t deal of f r eedom. W o m e n r e p o r t g rea te r free-


dom in the nation than men do. However, when

asked about their own freedom, more men than

w o m e n claim to be very free. Speaking of them-

selves, as opposed to the nation at large, a substan-

tial p ropor t ion of Mrican-Americans- -over 40 per-

c en t - - f ee l that they have only a moderate amount

of f reedom or are not really free, compared with a

quar ter of all Euro-Americans and 36 percen t of

o ther ethnic groups.

There is one striking finding which echoes a

tragic aspect of the nat ion 's h is tory of f reedom

touched on earlier. When asked ff there is more

freedom now than in the past in the nation at large,

moreAfro-Americans and women than Euro-Ameri-

can men say that they have more freedom now. This

is what we would expect, given developments since

the 1960s. What is really interesting is the fact that

fully 27 percent of Euro-American men claim to have

less freedom now than in the past (including many

who admit to still having a great deal of freedom).

How do we explain this discrepancy? I suggest

that it may well be a vestige of the nation's history

of the relationship be tween race and freedom. For

a substantial number of Euro-American men, free-

dom is still a zero-sum phenomenon measured in

terms of the amount possessed by Afro-Americans

and other previously excluded groups (which may

include women). The perceived loss of freedom in

the nation at large is thus a direct function of the

perceived increase in freedom exper ienced byAfro-

Americans and other minorities.

It came as a something of a surprise to me that

the most frequently ment ioned exper ience of free-

dom among modern Americans is that of moving about. And in this regard, the automobile takes pride

of place. Among the responses were the following:

"Traveling from coast to coast;""Driving around in

a convertible;" "Driving my truck on the highway

with Bruce Springstein on;" and:"The ability to jump

in my car and do what I want to do as long as I

don ' t interfere with other people or p roper ty [and]

when I got off the airplane after spending two years

overseas."

Actually, as someone deeply familiar with David

Riesman's work, I should have predicted all this.

One of Riesman's most brilliant essays, co-authored

with Eric Larrabee and publ ished originally in 1956

was called"Autos inAmerica: ' In that essay he made

an expl ic i t l ink b e t w e e n the car and Amer icans '

sense of f r eedom when he wrote : "The car not

only enhances the f reedom of p e o p l e to move

wes t and sou thwes t (and to Florida) but he lps

shape the image of the good life that these subur-

ban states symbolize, a life in which at work or at

play one always has one's car beside one as a poten-

tial escape mechanism." My survey data confirm the

continuing relevance of this observation. Even more

insightful was Riesman's discussion of the role of

what he called"the imaginary getaway"in theAmeri-

can imagination. Riesman also noted that the auto

was of special importance toMro-Americans and to

the Euro-American working class because of the free-

dom it offered from their respective exper iences of

constraint and racism. Writing before the civil rights

movement, he notes that, forMro-Americans the

car was the "first victory over Jim Crow trains and

buses, not to ment ion a substitute for decent hous-

ing."And to the Euro-American factory worker" the

car offers freedom not only to change jobs and drive

to a plant 50 miles away but also to compe te wi th

the foreman for status satisfactions that the job does

not provide."

Nearly 50 years later, these insights still hold.

My favorite illustration of this is the Mrican-Ameri-

can respondent from our pretest interviewing. Free-

dom, he said, was "sitting in my car outside." He

meant outside his home. Talk about having it all

ways. There is his home, with whatever security it

has to offer. But here he is in his car, ready for the

quick getaway. He isn' t moving, mind you. This is

not your working class Euro-American in his pick-

up t r u c k on the h i g h w a y l i s t e n i n g to Bruce

Springstein. He is just sitting there; but he is ready

for the quick getaway.

There is one other surprising feature of the re-

sponses about movement as the embodiment of free-

dom. ManyAmericans said that the ability to move from one state in the U.S. to another was the most

important aspect of freedom for them. I found this

odd, since I, perhaps from my educated, North-

eastern perspective, had always assumed that this

was by now a taken-for-granted area of American

life. Not so. Ordinary Americans still think it is a

unique and wonderful feature of their country and

an important component of their experience of free-

dom that they can get up and move from one state

to another whenever the spirit moves them with-

out needing a passport . This is possibly a reflection

of the continuing impact of immigration on the na-

tional imagination, even among older generation

Americans.

I noted that security, including equality, ranked

low in Americans' definition of freedom. However,

when talking about f reedom as a lived exper ience,

in contrast wi th purely notional views, this now

ranks second of all exper iences mentioned, being

42 SOCIETY �9 MAY / JUNE 2001

16 p e r c e n t of all men t ions . A m o n g the r e sponses

are the fol lowing:"Having my o w n profess ion ; ' 'Hav-

ing my o w n m o n e y and my o w n place;""My abi l i ty

to susta in myself;" "It 's so many things: it means to

me I w o n ' t be ca l led a nigger, having to sit on the

back of the bus and can live w h e r e I wan t to."

The same d i s c r e p a n c y is found wi th c i t izenship ,

the th i rd mos t i m p o r t a n t ca t ego ry of e x p e r i e n c e

men t ioned , or 13 p e r c e n t of the total. I shou ld

po in t ou t that this is a b road ca t egory of exper i -

ences inc luding voting, pol i t ical par t ic ipa t ion , civic

par t i c ipa t ion and s imply pa t r io t ic express ions of joy

at be ing an America . Even so, it is r emarkab le that

p e o p l e chose this ca t ego ry of e x p e r i e n c e so fre-

quen t ly in l ight of its nea r ab sence f rom the i r no-

t ions of f r eedom.

Leisure act ivi t ies and inne r e x p e r i e n c e s are the

fourth ranked categor ies of behavior associa ted wi th

be ing free. Amer ica is a spo r t -beso t t ed c o u n t r y so

w e shou ld hard ly be su rp r i s ed at these results. One

Bostonian said, sweetly, that his grea tes t exper i -

ence of f r e e d o m w a s " g o i n g to the Red Sox game at

Fenway Park w i th my son."And the re are still many

disciples of Henry DavidThoreau today, p e o p l e w h o

feel mos t free w h e n e x p e r i e n c i n g the joys of na-

ture, this be ing 3 p e r c e n t of all ment ions .

Amer ica o r ig ina ted in the f ierce Puri tan search

for a home , a N e w Jerusa lem, in w h i c h to wage the

inner s t ruggle for the salvat ion of the i r souls. They

had a highly deve loped , if pa radox ica l c o n c e p t i o n ,

of w h a t t hey cal led ' o r d e r e d l iber ty"And as Sacvan

Bercovi tch has e loquen t ly a rgued in The Puritan Origins of the American Sel./~ the i r p r e o c c u p a t i o n

w i th the i r inne r spir i tual self led, unwit t ingly, to-

wa rd the secu la rAmer ican p r e o c c u p a t i o n wi th con-

sc i ence and individual ism. Amer ica r emains t o d a y

the m o s t r e l i g ious of t he a d v a n c e d indus t r i a l so- c i e t i e s and it is t h e r e f o r e i n t e r e s t i n g to e x a m i n e

the e x t e n t to w h i c h the sp i r i t ua l e x p e r i e n c e is

a s s o c i a t e d w i t h f r e e d o m . Eleven p e r c e n t of all

m e n t i o n s fall into this category. Examples of inne r

e x p e r i e n c e s m e n t i o n e d are: "My re la t ionsh ip w i th

G o d " ; " F r e e d o m in Chr i s t ' ; and "My born-aga in ex-

pe r i ence , yes, w h e n I was work ing and pra is ing

the Lord."

There is a s l ightly grea ter m e n t i o n of negat ive

e x p e r i e n c e s assoc ia ted wi th f r e edom (9 p e r c e n t of

total ) than the 7 p e r c e n t of m e n t i o n s in def in i t ions

given of the value. The answers he re are intr iguing.

A n u m b e r of w o m e n said the e x p e r i e n c e that m a d e

t h e m feel mos t free was get t ing d i v o r c e d f rom the i r

husbands , a l though, let m e has ten to add that this

was a little less than 2 p e r c e n t of all w o m e n . Fur-

the rmore , for w h a t it is wor th , ve ry near ly the same

n u m b e r said that fall ing in love and get t ing mar r i ed

were the expe r i ences that made t hem feel most free.

S o m e w h a t m o r e t roub l ing w e r e those w o m e n w h o

gave as the i r mos t m e m o r a b l e m o m e n t of f r e e d o m

the day they b e c a m e a widow. As one w o m a n said:

"Becoming a w i d o w has given me no one to an-

swer to."

The ca t ego ry "social, " w h i c h ranks equal ly wi th

the negat ive , inc ludes all r e fe rences to e x p e r i e n c e s

such as b r ing ing u p chi ldren, ca r ing for o thers ,

having a loving re la t ionsh ip , and do ing good o r re-

spons ib le acts. Here, p e o p l e f ind f r e e d o m in car-

ing in te rac t ions w i th o thers .

Finally, there is the ca tegory of exper i ences cal led

choice . Here we refer to those r e s p o n d e n t s w h o

claimed, even after be ing p r o d d e d , that cho i ce was

an act qui te i n d e p e n d e n t of any pa r t i cu la r exper i -

ence w i th w h i c h it was associated. These v iews

were s o m e t i m e s qui te sophis t ica ted . Occas iona l ly

such p e r s o n s s o u n d e d like Aust inians th ink ing of

speech acts, such as the p e r s o n w h o said, "I have a

cho ice to choose." More typical was the p e r s o n w h o

made it c lear that dec i s ion making was the f r e edom

act he had in mind by saying: "Just do ing w h a t I

choose in my life, making my o w n d e c i s i o n s - - t h a t ' s

it!"

The f indings I have r e p o r t e d so far refer to the

na t ion at large. As can wel l be imagined , t he re are

impor t an t var ia t ions accord ing to groups and I have

t ime to make on ly a few cu r so ry obse rva t ions here .

First, t he re we re s ignif icant g e n d e r d i f fe rences al-

t hough no t as great as one might have imagined .

It is in the e x p e r i e n c e s t hey assoc ia te w i th free-

d o m that the main e thn ic g roups in Amer ica differ.

For Euro-Americans, moving about , social secur i ty

and c i t i zensh ip are the th ree mos t i m p o r t a n t cat- e g o r i e s o f e x p e r i e n c e s m e n t i o n e d , in tha t order ,

w h e r e a s for A f r o - A m e r i c a n s t h e y a re secu r i ty ,

nega t ive f r e e d o m and inne r f r eedom. This is m o r e

c o n s i s t e n t w i t h w h a t w e k n o w of Af ro -Amer i can

life. It also makes sense that security, be ing able to

move abou t and c i t i zensh ip are the mos t impor t an t

ca t egor i e s of men t ions by o t h e r groups , many of

w h o m are r ecen t immigrants or the ch i ld ren of im-

migrants.

Freedom Alive and Well? F r e e d o m is alive and pervas ive in Amer ica . The

long-held c la im that it is the na t ion ' s p re -eminen t

secu la r value cer ta in ly ho lds up. Wha t ' s more , as I

have argued, it is not just a value bu t a cul tural

sys tem that offers mean ing to all aspec ts of peop le ' s


lives. And with one major exception, my model of American freedom has been largely confirmed.

The culture of freedom is alive. But is it well?

Earlier, I argued that America was the only Western nation that did not repair the great fragmentation

of the Western chord of freedom by liberalism during the 19th century- - tha t divorce of democracy, the sharing of social and political power, from the

domain of freedom. There have been many attempts

to do so, to be sure, most notably in the New Deal and the struggle for what Roosevelt called the four freedoms. But there has been a renewed assault on this only partly successful attempt at re-integrating the negative and positive notes of freedom with the equalitarian note of democracy.

My study indicates that the assault on the chord of freedom was only partly successful. As we have

seen, the classical liberal attempt to define free-

dom in wholly negative terms against the state was not a success in America. Americans, we can now

state with some confidence, overwhelmingly con-

ceive of, and experience, their f reedom in positive terms. Freedom means doing what one wants; it is the capacity to choose; it is the ability to define one's goals, to fashion oneself as one pleases, and it is the power to be able to do all these things. Negative f reedom is alive, to be sure, as it should be. But only among a small, if very vocal minor- ity, is it primarily liberty against the state. In- stead, it is liberty against oppressive social and personal fo rces - - the interpersonal dimension of my ma t r ix - - and for some, the struggle against inner forces and demons. What working men and

w o m e n are most conce rned with are liberty from the oppression of the assembly line, the alien- ation of de-skilled and underpaid work, and the petty tyrannies of the foreman or factory manager. What w o m e n want is liberty from those private forces that are determined to keep them in their traditional places and attenuate their choices. What Afro-Americans and other disadvantaged minorities want is liberty from discrimination in the private sec-

tor and from inherited institutional constraints. And they want these negative liberties in order

to exercise positive power in and over their lives.

They want these negative liberties in order to be empowered in their communities, in order to be

positively free in their society. For they now see, as clearly as David Riesman saw 50 years ago, that "power indeed is founded in large measure on in-

terpersonal expectations and attitudes." In all these respects, and in spite of all the ideological camou-

flage, freedom is both alive and well in America.

But note that the freedom that is alive and well is largely confined to the private, inter-personal do- mains of life. And herein lies our problem.

There is one respect in whichAmerican freedom

is so unwell that it threatens to bring the whole culture of freedom down if something is not done

about it. For while the attempt to define freedom wholly in negative terms against the state failed, the second prong of the classical liberal attack on de-

mocracy was devastatingly successful in America. And this was the demobilization of the electorate as well as the sustained propaganda that the state was an evil Leviathan, hostile to personal interests and social security, and the view that small govern-

ment and less government is necessarily better government, that democracy is nothing more than the least of all evils. But as David Riesman once wrote: "It is hard to find satisfaction in a society whose

best defense is that it is less evil than some other social form."

It is the success of two centuries of assault against

democracy that accounts for its enfeebled state in America today. Now there is a long tradition of schol- arship in political science that blames the so-called apathy of the electorate for the dismal state of democracy: their presumed lack of civic obligations; their lack of education; their love of television and whatnot . And, more recently, rational choice theorists have added a new twist to the old political science game of blaming the masses for the state of democracy by arguing that failure to vote is a

rational decision, given that the costs of voting for each individual outweighs any perceived benefit.

These views are perniciously wrong. It is important to note that Americans are not turned off democracy per se, as my survey clearly shows, but against politicians. The history of voting behavior demonstrates that people when not demobilized and when politically engaged by meaningful politics will participate. As Francis Piven and Richard Cloward have correctly observed: "When politics matters people behave as if it matters. Apathy and

lack of political skill are a consequence , not a

cause, of the party structure and political culture that is sustained by legal and political barri-

ers to e lec tora l par t ic ipat ion." W h a t e v e r the causes, the broken and sick state of our democracy is a fact, and it threatens the other freedoms

that we claim to cherish. The persistent, unre- lenting rhetoric of small or minimal or downsized government not only fails to acknowledge the fact

that the American government is actually relatively small w h e n measured in terms of its vast national


p r o d u c t , and w h e n c o m p a r e d wi th o t h e r m o d e r n

governments , bu t fails to no te that small, unrespon-

sive g o v e r n m e n t s can be as devas ta t ingly in t rus ive

as any b ig gove rnmen t .

The successfu l assault on d e m o c r a c y has s imply

mean t that w e have c losed the front d o o r of par t ic i -

pa t ion and re spons ive g o v e r n m e n t wh i l e leaving

o p e n the back d o o r to a g o v e r n m e n t that has b e e n

c a p t u r e d by specia l in te res t s and u n e l e c t e d lobby-

ists of eve ry s tr ipe. We have c lo sed the f ron t d o o r

to a g o v e r n m e n t tha t ca re s e n o u g h a b o u t p r i v a c y

and o t h e r areas of p e r s o n a l f r e e d o m to pass a com-

p r e h e n s i v e and e n f o r c e a b l e p r i v a c y act , w h i l e

l eav ing the b a c k d o o r o p e n to the mos t e g r e g i o u s

assau l t s on o u r p r i v a c y and p e r s o n a l l i be r t i e s b y

agen t s of t he s ta te and se l f - se rv ing e l e m e n t s of

the p r i v a t e sector . We have c l o s e d the f ron t d o o r

on the c o n c e p t i o n of f r e e d o m as equa l jus t i ce ,

e f fec t ive we l f a r e and soc ia l s e c u r i t y g u a r a n t e e d

by a car ing , c iv i l i zed state , wh i l e leaving the b a c k

d o o r wide , w ide o p e n to c o r p o r a t e wel fa re , the

se i zu re o f o u r n a t i o n a l lands , o u r air w a v e s and

ou r o t h e r n a t i o n a l p a t r i m o n L and to e v e r y con-

ce ivab le fo rm of p l u t o c r a t i c c o r r u p t i o n of ou r leg-

is la ture .

The cul ture of f reedom is alive in our pr ivate lives,

bu t as long as our d e m o c r a c y - - t h a t cr i t ical th i rd

no te of this great cul tural c h o r d - - r e m a i n s f l a t t ened

and d i sconnec t ed , our o t h e r two no tes of f r e e dom

are in danger of b e c o m i n g w h a t the sad Janis Jopl in,

song says, no more than a state of having no th ing

left to lose.

Ins tead of b laming the p e o p l e and the i r apa thy

for this gr im state of our democracy , w e w h o are

among the l eaders of this great c o u n t r y or are train-

ing those w h o will b e c o m e its leaders , should heed

David Riesman 's appea l for w h a t he calls a "saving remnant" of a u t o n o m o u s p e r s o n s alert to the dan-

gers that a sick d e m o c r a c y p o s e s to the entiret T of

our freedom, alert to the indisputable sociological fact,

and here I quote him that"People can become deeply

at tached only to a society which takes account of their

longings for connec t ion wi th each o ther ... [and] to

the degree that capitalist individualism has fostered

an ethic of cal lousness , the resul t has b e e n to un-

d e r m i n e all forms of individual ism, good and bad."

And may I add, all forms of f r eedom.

AMERICAN STUDIES

TRANSACTION PUBLISHERS

RUTGERS--THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF HEW JERSEY, DEPT. AOILS, 35 BERRUE CIRCLE, PISCATAWAY, NJ 08854

IN THE UK--3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON WC2E 8LU TEL: +44 (0)20 7 240 0856 OR FAX: +44 (0)20 7 379 0609

Orlando Pat terson is J o h n Cowles Professor o f So- ciology a t H a r v a r d University. This art icle is based

on the H a r v a r d SocioR~), Depar tmen t ' s second an-

n u a l D a v i d R i e s m a n Lecture on A m e r i c a n Society,

w h i c h w a s de l ivered on October 31, 2000.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND CULTURAL RENEWAL COLLECTED ESSAYS OF FRANCIS GRAHAM WILSON

Francis Graham Wilson H. Lee Cheek, Jr., M. Susan Power,

and Kathy B. Cheek, editors 0-7658-0045-4 (cloth) 2000 263 pp. $49.95 / s

THE RADICAL RIGHT THIRD EDITION

Daniel Bell, editor With a new introduction

by David Plotke, and an afterword by Daniel Bell

0-7658-0749-1 (paper) 2000 570 pp. $29.95 / s

CULTURE AND THE RADICAL CONSCIENCE

Eugene Goodheart 0-7658-0737-8 (paper) 2000 179 pp. $24,95 / s

THE NEW AGRARIAN MIND THE MOVEMENT TOWARD DECENTRALIST THOUGHT

IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICA Allan Carlson

1-56000-421-5 (cloth) 2000 197 pp. $29.95 / s

THE CIVIL WAR AND THE PRESS David B. Sachsman, S. Kitrell Rushing,

Debra Reddin van Tuyll, editors 0-7658-0008-X (cloth) 2000 584 pp. $49.95 / s

Order from your bookstore or direct from the publisher.

(*Available from Transaction in North America only.)

Toll free (US only) 1-888-999-6778 or fax 732-748-9801


the american view of freedom: what we say, what we mean

Documents