Benjamin Constant's Idea of Liberty
and
C. S. Forester's
Hornblower and the “Hotspur”
A 19th Century ship of the ship of the Royal Navy shows the differing ideas of liberty that Constant explains is his essay. However, the extremely ridged form of government on board ship, if it can even be called a government, it will allow us to examine the ideas from a very different viewpoint. There are captains who have great power to make decisions about their ship but are yet constrained in there choices by rules of the Navy, honor, and tradition. There are mid ranking sailors that have a foot in both worlds. There are your every day seamen that have both little control and few decisions to make. C. S. Forester even gives us a glimpse of early
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19th century live off a navy vessel to help give these individuals some context. Constant puts forth that there are two types of liberty and we have changed from one idea of liberty to the other over time. First there is the liberty of the ancients. This is the freedom to have a direct say in government. This ability to influence government might have been through something we would have recognized as a form of democracy. Or it may have been as informal as a debate in the town square with the entire town listening but the final decision still held by an individual or a small group. This influence on what the immediate group, town, city state or even small country does is a form of liberty. The cost of this liberty is loss of personal freedom or at very least personal privacy. Because of the direct visibility and influence into government, the government and the individuals in your local group also gain visibility into everyone else personal life. With this comes a great deal of control in the individuals personal life. Now what an individual does has real and perceived direct affects on the group as a whole. Through laws, peer pressure or direct force there will be many personal choices that are dictated by the group. Laws or edicts of the group are applied by the group with minimal further chance to debate or defend one's self. The second type of liberty is what we consider the more modern idea of liberty. The government and the groups of individuals that they control have gotten much larger. The individual now does not have direct access to his governing body. Groups elect an individual to represent their interests in government. They empower this individual to act on their behalf and trust them to do so in good faith. Each member of the group that individual represents has very little information on the laws or topics that their representative will be influencing. They loose the direct influence on the very large group decisions. What each member of the group gains for this is personal privacy and freedom. They are now lost in the much larger group and so each member is less concerned with what each other member is doing on a daily basis. Now the individuals start to value the smaller every day freedoms in their personal life. They gain the knowledge that the laws that are enacted will be applied fairly across the population and will have some mechanism to defend themselves if they are accused of breaking a law. How do these ideas play out on a sailing ship headed to war in the early 1800's. For the sake of this paper we are going to make a few assumptions. First that all the men in the Royal Navy at some point choose to join the Navy of their own free will. Second, they have some way to leave the Navy that is to some extent under their control. They can wait for their term to be up, the war to be over or choose to desert. Finally, we will exaggerate any influence asserted by the lower ranking individuals on their leaders. By adding these assumptions, we can look at the shipboard dynamics and understand the issues with such a system as predicted by Constant. The laws and traditions governing the Royal Navy have little chance of being changed by any of the characters in Hornblower and the Hotspur.
However, all of the characters have some control over how these laws are used to their advantage. Within this very ridged framework the individuals have the ability to choose if they will step forward to a challenge, or ignore the chance to advance. At first glance this looks very much like Constant's second description of liberty. The laws and decisions of how the larger group, of the ship, Navy or even Great Britain behave were made far away from and with little input from each of the lower layers of individuals. With some stretch, we could see that Hornblower can suggest some changes to the Captain of the Fleet or even an Admiral. However, the examples we see of this, Hornblower suggesting missions for boat. Bush did have some suggestions of courses of actions and things like how to intemperate things like a ship on the horizon when conversing with Hornblower but they were limited and could have been dismissed without another thought. This to me seems very much like the removed or representative form of government that Constant would suggest for modern liberty. Where then is the personal freedoms that the individuals should be taking great joy in. These are more or less apparent at different ranks within the Navy. Cornwallis certainly has great personal freedoms in the decisions on how to manage an entire fleet of boats. …show more content…
Although very much in the pubic view and the choices are constrained by of the laws of the Navy and honor, the freedom of choice is there and could easily be a substitute for the complete lack of privacy in his personal life. Hornblower is in very much the same situation. We see that he rarely has any privacy, and when he does it is almost completely consumed with duties relating to the Navy. Even his true feelings are constantly being kept in check and he feels the need to show a very constrained and practiced face to the crew. However, the substitute for this is the anatomy of captaining a ship. Once a mission is given for his ship, Hornblower is free to make many of the choices of how it is completed. He also has been empowered, albeit indirectly, by the crew to act on their best interest. The argument could be made that Hornblower will be acting in Great Britain’s best interest and not the individuals of the crew, but assuming that the crew has friends and family at home and that rule by the French is very undesirable, then borrowing from Socrates, the courageous thing is to defend your country so it is good and in the individuals best interest even if harm may come to the individual. So what about our glimpses into Hornblower's personal life. In both is marriage and to some extent his relationship with Doughty Hornblower seems very willing to give up some of his personal liberties. He is willing to let Maria run his home life and raise his child. The argument could be made that this is not a liberty that Hornblower wants anything to do with so it is of little loss to him. I belive it is then Maria that is grasping at any liberty she can find. She may truly love Hornblower but she also gains personal freedom by marrying a Navy Commander and the status such as it is that comes with that relationship. But what about Doughty. Hornblower is willing to give up even more of his very limited personal privacy to Doughty to better focus on the liberty he values more. By allowing first Grimes and even more so Doughty to manage some of his personal freedoms, Hornblower gains more time to focus on the decisions and tasks of running the ship. Now as you examine the lower ranks, the ideas that Constant has start to become less clear at first examination. Why would someone want to become a deckhand or gunner in the Royal Navy. There is the possibility of future liberty as you moved up through the ranks. Hornblower and C. S. Lewis show us that advancement is a possibility but it does not appear easy to do. It is a long term commitment and without a chance to prove yourself and a ranking officer willing to notice, an individual would be very unlikely to move up. There is no personal privacy and no real representative form of government. Even the rules at this point can be arbitrary and unjustly applied with little defense possible. They do have some ability to make changes in their lives such as Pool ordering a sounding when Hornblower is momentary distracted from his duties, but even Hornblower is not sure if this is an intentional action on Pool's part. The seaman chose to join the Navy and they have some ability to leave the Navy, what is their motivation.
It would seem that this may be what Constant attempts to warn us about in this quote on (Fuller p. 119) “The danger of modern liberty is that absorbed in the enjoyment of our private independence, and in the pursuit of our particular interests, we should surrender our right to share in political power too easily.” Although Constant doesn't quite get there as he finishes describing the downfalls of being to far removed from our government. I believe the next step could be tyranny. This is the lack of any liberty. Tyranny could describe the lives the lowest ranking sailors on Hotspur. They have given up all of their input into their government and the government is now controlling their public or group lives as well as their complete personal lives as well. This is a small leap from Constant's descriptions we are given on Fuller page 119 it seems to fit the over all idea of the
essay. It has been my finding than when a theory is applied to something much smaller or larger than it was intended to describe, all but the best theories break down. With some very minor issues, Constant's ideas on liberty and the way individuals are willing work to gain some form of liberty within their lives seem to hold up when applied at this much smaller level. Constant's ideas about human behavior and the desire to have some control of our daily lives seem to be a very good predictor of how groups of individuals find liberty anywhere they can. Fuller, T. (2000). Leading and leadership. Univ of Notre Dame Pr.
However, the author 's interpretations of Jefferson 's decisions and their connection to modern politics are intriguing, to say the least. In 1774, Jefferson penned A Summary View of the Rights of British America and, later, in 1775, drafted the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (Ellis 32-44). According to Ellis, the documents act as proof that Jefferson was insensitive to the constitutional complexities a Revolution held as his interpretation of otherwise important matters revolved around his “pattern of juvenile romanticism” (38). Evidently, the American colonies’ desire for independence from the mother country was a momentous decision that affected all thirteen colonies. However, in Ellis’ arguments, Thomas Jefferson’s writing at the time showed either his failure to acknowledge the severity of the situation or his disregard of the same. Accordingly, as written in the American Sphinx, Jefferson’s mannerisms in the first Continental Congress and Virginia evokes the picture of an adolescent instead of the thirty-year-old man he was at the time (Ellis 38). It is no wonder Ellis observes Thomas Jefferson as a founding father who was not only “wildly idealistic” but also possessed “extraordinary naivete” while advocating the notions of a Jeffersonian utopia that unrestrained
The worries of yesterday Eventually, we will have a tyranny without a strong, trustworthy constitution. We do not want to recreate exactly what the colonists were trying to avoid and escape from, which was tyranny. Tyranny refers to when a person has a lot of power, and has a lot on their hands, having complete control, and total control. In 1787 a group of delegates from 12 of the 13 states goes together to try to better the country.
Foner focuses, specifically, on how the definition of liberty has been molded over time. He describes how other factors played a role in the change of liberty using three interrelated themes. The first theme, as he describes it, covers the dimensions or meanings of freedom. The dimensions include “political freedom, or the right to participate in public affairs… civil liberties, or rights that individuals can assert against authority…[and] moral or ‘Christian’ ideal of freedom,” the freedom to act morally or ethically good (Foner xvii). It also includes personal freedom or being able to make individual choices free from coercion, and “economic freedom…[which covers how] the kinds of economic relations constitute freedom for… [individual’s working lives]” (Foner xviii). All these dimensions are looked at individually as they play a role in reshaping the definition of freedom or liberty.
Henry opens his speech addressing why colonists of differing opinions should come together to fight Britain’s rule. He acknowledges both sides, knowing that he must empathize with the differing sides and then promote his plan. He considers the action or dormancy of America’s military against British rule nothing more than a “question of freedom and slavery” (Henry). By doing so, he creates and ultimatum using two antonymic words “freedom” and “slavery”, therefore creating a fear of enslavement yet also evoking a sense of hope only found in military action. Henry says that by holding back his opinions he “should consider myself [himself] as guilty of treason towards my country, ...
One of the main ones is about the government. Paine states “That government sole purpose is to protect life, liberty and property, and that a government should be judged solely on the basis of the extent to which it accomplishes this goal.” (Common Sense) Then reading what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence which states “These rights include the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When a government fails to protect those rights, it is not only the right but also the duty of the people to overthrow that government.” (Declaration of Independence) In both of these it states that they were doing what was in the best interest for the people. It was a check and balance system. It may not have started out as a great one but it was a start. However, the colonist did feel that British government was to complex. The colonist were seen as being rebels because they were standing up for what they felt was right. This is one of the big reasons the United States became
"The Horrors of Government Control essays." MegaEssays.com - Over 85,000 essays, essays and term papers available for instant access!!. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. .
John Stuart Mill defines liberty, as a limitation of power; “By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers. The rulers were conceived (except in some of the popular governments of Greece) as in a necessarily antagonistic position to the people whom they ruled.” (John Stuart Mill “On Liberty” Pg. 29) This limit on power is what he refers to as civil liberty; the limitation is put into play for the people, Mill acknowled...
Everyday we have the chance to make her own opinions and give reason to our own voice. We have the chance to live in a country that encourages freedom in society, which separate ourselves from any restrictions imposed upon by authority, actions or any political views. liberty is the power we possess to act as we please through freedom and independence. But what happens when we choose to give away our basic liberties for temporary safety? Benjamin Franklin once stated, “They who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Those who decide to give away their personal freedoms for something that is temporary do not see the value in the long-lasting gift called freedom. In
It can be depicted through the source that society will ultimately find a way of having freedom within every human heart over a period of time. Prison walls, martial laws and secrete police will not help spread the desire of freedom for all citizens. George W. Bush, the United States president from January 20, 2001 -January 20, 2009 and the author of this source believes that the world would run more effectively if there was less government participation. This type of government values individualistic efforts which promotes neo-conservative principles. Individual accountability and participation in society is not seen as a government responsibility but is rather seen as personal responsibility that must be met in order to keep the nation
Thomas Jefferson once stated, "When the people fear the government you have tyranny... when the government fears the people you have liberty." (http://www.chvanilla.net/frogquotes.html)
In the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, the generation of our founder fathers faced internal and external problems during the fight for American freedom and the creation of the Constitution. These problems were either the result of the colonists and their fight for liberty and ideology between themselves or the British trying to evoke their power onto the colonists. Both conflicts go hand in hand with each other, but present different forms of problems. While reading the Bernstein’s “Thomas Jefferson” it was easy to see the internal conflict that the colonist would face after gaining there freedom from the British simply because they didn’t have a background in
John Stuart Mill discusses the concept of liberty in many ways. I’d like to focus on his ideas of the harm principle and touch a little on his thoughts about the freedom of action. The harm principle and freedom of action are just two subtopics of Mill’s extensive thoughts on the concept of liberty. Not only do I plan to discuss and explain each of these parts of the conception of liberty, but I also plan to discuss my thoughts and feelings. I have a few disagreements with Mill on the harm principle; they will be stated and explained.
Too much government control can be frightening according to the novel Divergent by Veronica Roth. Government fears Divergents because everything and anything is possible when dealing with one. It can mean living life fearlessly or it can mean living life in complete fear of whether or not the government finds out what faction a person fits into, if any. A utopian society seems like perfection to some people, however a perfect society can also cause damage by eliminating free will. The government in Divergent, prides itself on stealing people's identity to create an identity that is satisfying to them. That is wrong on so many levels. The Dauntless faction is surrounded
Or rather, the citizens do not want these freedoms. The topic of individual rights is a hot issue in contemporary society but in this timeline, any basic rights - or lack thereof - are for the collective. Any outliers are to be handicapped or jailed. Any protests are stopped before they begin. The people are not allowed to know what existentialism is, let alone believe in it. The police are sent to stop threats that would ruin this controlled society and the citizens police themselves to defend the same system. They can sit around watching the same TV shows like zombies, wearing their bag of birdshot and hearing an ear-splitting noise every twenty seconds for the rest of their lives. But everyone does the same thing, so at least they can all be equal while they do it. In this radical version of equality exemplified in “Harrison Bergeron”, Harrison is freedom and the Handicapper General is the government. One shot is all it takes to neutralize him. Freedom is now dead. Then, the H-G men simply sweep it under the rug and move on with their lives. Since the competitive “dark ages,” no social progress has been made. And as much as Freedom can progress, it can be stopped with a single bullet. How will change ever happen if the people are sheeps and left at the whims of wolves who wear their
Although Washington wears no divine crown, he maintains an unquestionable authority. He is the general of the ship, and the general of America. The image portrays a wide array of characters. An androgynous individual sits beside an Indian, a black man, and a men of the frontier. They all row under an American flag that had yet to be created. Adorned in their hodgepodge of makeshift uniforms, the boat is not just carrying the crew to victory, but toward liberty. This is the grand idea of the American Revolution. To most Americans, the Revolution wasn’t a Civil War, but a war against tyrants. Romancing the war in this way is tempting. Instead of a civil war with lukewarm popularity, a fight with a cruel antagonist for liberty makes for a better story. Yet, what this symbolic painting misses is that not all were sailing toward freedom. Sadly, unlike the mythical boat, the black man was actually rowing towards years of bondage; and the Indian removal from his land. Nonetheless, the painting is inspiring. It shows what America could be at its