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#Post#: 16422--------------------------------------------------
Freedom and liberty, rights and law
By: MartinSR Date: June 2, 2019, 2:48 pm
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You know that I usually avoid political discussions. It's maybe
because I don't feel competent enough to talk about the politics
of my country, and especially about the other countries I don't
live in.
But today is a different day. I've just finished to watch a
debate on TV. The debate was held at the European Center of
Solidarity in Gdańsk (the institution which commemorates
the Polish 'Solidarity' and its part in the fall of communism
here) and the occasion on which it was organised today is 30th
anniversary of first partially-free elections in Poland in 1989
(partially-free because 65% of places in the parliament were
guaranteed to the communist party and only 35% were to be chosen
freely during the elections). The debate was interesting not
only from the historical point of view but also because of some
linguistic problems. One of the participants was a professor of
history from the Oxford University (I don't remember his name),
and a few comments were about the meaning people understand
under the phrases like 'freedom as a human right'.
In Polish we have the word 'wolność' which may be
translated as 'freedom' or 'liberty'. People have "prawo" to be
free and the word 'prawo' means 'right' but also 'law'. People
have rights to fight for their freedom, but what should they do
when they get it - fight to defend THEIR rights or elaborate the
compromise which gives maximal possible liberty to biggest
possible group of people with the respect to freedom of the
others. The English historian defined 'liberty' like something
every person has rights to, and freedom as something connected
to the state of group of people or the whole society. Another
participant - Polish professor of Law - pointed to this
unfortunate meaning of 'prawo'. She said that freedom should be
a human right, but people see it as something given them (or
not) by the law. Some politicians think that getting the highest
rate in the FREE elections give them the RIGHT to change the LAW
according to their views ignoring completely the others (and
their LIBERTY).
What is interesting not all the parts of the political scene
equally enthusiastically celebrate this anniversary. There are
groups which say that some groups made a treaty with the
communist and thus deceived the ideals of the 'Solidarity'
movement, and that there is nothing to celebrate today.
I don't want to discuss about who is right and who is wrong
here, because I try to keep myself as far from the politics as I
can. My questions are:
1) What is the meaning of these words (right, law, freedom,
liberty) to you?
2) How about the equivalents of these words in other languages -
is the meaning language-dependent?
3) How the possible differences of these words in different
languages can influence the history of nations?
#Post#: 16430--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freedom and liberty, rights and law
By: Nikola Date: June 2, 2019, 4:38 pm
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These are really good questions, Martin. Thanks for posting
them. I've never thought about how the way we perceive the
meaning of these words could be language-related.
1) I see Right as something no one can take away from you (or no
one should be allowed to, technically, but some countries don't
worry about this too much), I think of basic human rights and
rights given by law. They're something you can demand and should
be enforceable.
Law is a field of study or an individual law (rule), either
man-made or described by science (laws of physics).
Freedom and Liberty are ones I struggle with. I assumed they
both meant general lack of control or oppression.
2) In Czech: right = právo, law (field of study) = právo or
práva, law (individual rule) = zákon
so there is the same term for two of them but it's usually clear
which one you mean.
Freedom and liberty would both be svoboda. Freedom of speech =
svoboda slova, Statue of Liberty = Socha Svobody.
I had to look up the difference. If I'm correct, liberty is
something everyone has but not everyone has freedom as it is
more subjective?
We do have the word volnost as well. I guess it could be used as
freedom but more in relation to animals or one's emotional
state.
3) I am not sure but we might be able to see a pattern once more
people have replied.
#Post#: 16450--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freedom and liberty, rights and law
By: Pasha Date: June 3, 2019, 2:10 am
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It is all about power. I mean in a broad sense of that word like
money, muscles (military force), institutional position in a
society etc. Freedom or Liberty (aren't they interchangeable
words?) is ability to do anything you want as long as you have
power to do it without any repercussions. Rights is very
abstract meaningless term on its own. If you have a power, you
have rights. If you don't have a power, you have no any rights.
If you meet a guy with a gun and you don't have one, you are
basically screwed, no matter what is written on some papers or
stones or whatever. And what is the law? As long as you have
power to enforce it, it will work. On the other hand, if you
have a power, you can break the law without consequences.
#Post#: 16455--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freedom and liberty, rights and law
By: MartinSR Date: June 3, 2019, 4:08 am
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@Nikola
1) I have similar views to the difference between 'right' and
'law'.
I treated the freedom and liberty as synonymous so far... Giving
it a deeper thought I would say (without checking anything in
dictionary) that freedom is more what we feel and the liberty is
a more abstract concept meaning all that *freedoms* our
countries provide us by the use of law. But it's different to
what I heard in the debate yesterday.
2) The same with prawo, but we use it for individual rules too.
The word "zakon" in Polish means the monastery (building) or the
group of monks/nuns (congregation) or the order they obey (e.g.
the monks of the Franciscan Order). In this context one of the
Harry Potter books has the title "Zakon Feniksa".
We have the word "swoboda" but it's rather the freedom of
movement or freedom of doing what you want to do. So
wolność and swoboda work just opposite way in our
languages (like many other words).
3) I'm not sure. I was thinking everybody sees the difference
between the law and the right even though we use the same word -
it's like everyone sees the difference between the door lock and
the castle even though both are called "zamek" (at least in
Russian they differentiate "замок"
with different accent placing but Polish isn't
accent-sensitive).
@Pasha
I can agree that in societies with dysfunctional law, when the
freedom is not granted by it (or is granted in theory only), the
power is what you use to provide a kind of freedom to you.
We often forget it living in countries like EU members, US and
others. Our countries give us at least the illusion of safety.
Of course everybody knows that things like murders are happening
and that some groups of citizens are privileged in the eyes of
authorities. But we feel we have the enough amount of freedom
and safety.
I remember it was similar even in the times of communism
(speaking about ordinary criminal assaults not about the
political things) - the people were feeling safe and protected
by the police (which had more rights and privileges then - now
they have more limits and rules to obey).
#Post#: 16456--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freedom and liberty, rights and law
By: Alharacas Date: June 3, 2019, 5:15 am
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We might need Steven to explain the difference between "freedom"
and "liberty", and also between "right/s" and "law".
However, as I understand it, even though they're frequently used
as synonyms, freedom is the general thing. As in: I'm free to
travel the world, for example. In theory, I could go anywhere I
pleased and where my passport is accepted; at any rate, nobody
could stop me from leaving my country. In practice, though, I'm
constrained by family obligations and also by lack of money.
Therefore, I'm actually not at liberty to travel.
German doesn't make the distiction, there is just the one word:
Freiheit.
We do have one word for "right/s", Recht/e, and another one for
"law", Gesetz. And the way I see it, laws are often there to
curtail your rights. While we do have freedom of speech, Recht
auf freie Meinungsäußerung, for example, there are laws against
insulting people. However, the two do cross over at times,
because we talk about Rechtssprechung (court rulings).
As to n° 3... You know, Marcin, for somebody who's just claimed
his English wasn't up to complicated discussions, you don't half
ask difficult questions, do you? :D
Anyway, there is no state where everyone is completely free, is
there? Nor would you wish to live in a state where everybody was
free to kill off or rob other people at will, for example, would
you? And governments are always pretty good at telling their
people how it's to everybody's good that their rights have been
curtailed, aren't they? You'd therefore always want to take a
really close look at the laws to be able to judge to whose
benefit everybody's rights had really been reduced.
Personally, I think it's pretty dangerous, for example, if there
is a serious infringement of individual people's rights/freedom,
introduced solely to guarantee the continued existence of a
state (read: one particular government). Take for example the
laws against leaving the GDR - people got shot simply for
wanting to live in a different country. Still, I'm sure
schoolchildren in Eastern Germany were taught they were growing
up in a free country, that they actually had much more freedom
than the slaves of capitalism across the border.
#Post#: 16460--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freedom and liberty, rights and law
By: MartinSR Date: June 3, 2019, 7:05 am
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[quote author=Alharacas link=topic=1127.msg16456#msg16456
date=1559556942]
You know, Marcin, for somebody who's just claimed his English
wasn't up to complicated discussions, you don't half ask
difficult questions, do you? :D
[/quote]
I just felt myself obliged to mobilize my mind and write a few
posts yesterday evening (even though my wife wasn't happy about
it - she would prefer to watch a movie together). I had no time
to check dictionaries or other sources, so... if you think my
English is still understandable - I'm satisfied (I'm not
preparing to take any exam on it anyway).
[quote]
Anyway, there is no state where everyone is completely free, is
there? Nor would you wish to live in a state where everybody was
free to kill off or rob other people at will, for example, would
you?
[/quote]
Of course. It's obvious that one's freedom should be limited by
other people freedom rights (and by common sense, natural law,
religion, whatever you will call it). And the law should be the
instrument of keeping the freedom equally balanced.
[quote]
I think it's pretty dangerous, for example, if there is a
serious infringement of individual people's rights/freedom,
introduced solely to guarantee the continued existence of a
state (read: one particular government). Take for example the
laws against leaving the GDR - people got shot simply for
wanting to live in a different country. Still, I'm sure
schoolchildren in Eastern Germany were taught they were growing
up in a free country, that they actually had much more freedom
than the slaves of capitalism across the border.
[/quote]
I do totally agree. It wasn't my intention to advocate the
communism or show it's benefits - It's forbidden by the law in
my country by the way, but I was old enough (even as a teenager)
to see what wasn't working properly in this system. Of course we
were taught officially that the system we used to live in in
80's was the best in the world. But one has not to be a genius
to see it didn't work in practice. I know that the power given
to the police and military forces was to keep people where they
were and with their mouths shut. I was answering to Pasha's
post, which connected freedom to safety. I mean that even badly
designed law may be effective against the common crimes. Of
course until the politics and ideology gets involved in the
matter. When the criminal knows someone, who knows someone... it
appears suddenly that his victim is the one who committed the
crime.It was a popular song in the '80s which concluded 'my
stupor doesn't go away until today, that they called thieves
"the political system"'. The police in democratic countries
often complains nowadays, that they have no instrument to fight
against the criminals, being too limited by citizens' rights. It
doesn't mean I would prefer to live in any kind of
totalitarianism.
There's another Polish song with refrain like that: 'Freedom...
I love and understand. Freedom... I can't give away.'
#Post#: 16467--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freedom and liberty, rights and law
By: Chizuko hanji Date: June 3, 2019, 10:08 am
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Japanese words originally are related to Chinese and the word
of freedom didn't exist until 1862. It was imported and
translated into Japanese. It has a positive meaning. Before the
positive word, freedom, people in the old time seemed to use
another word to mean "being selfish" as freedom.
Freedom, liberty, right, these words are just 100- 150 years old
in Japan. All Japanese know the meaning of them, but they didn't
feel they were things to cherish and keep an important
philosophy and idea. Because we didn't fight to acquire them,
unlike France. We ourselves didn't change the country to the
democratic. Those ideas were given and taught by the westerners.
Of course, we discuss and fight for that, for example, to
establish women's right or freedom. Then we always have to quote
Europe and US way to prove how the women's right is admitted by
the laws. Japanese can't do anything without good examples from
westerners. We are behind as a civilized country from the
advanced world, but interestingly Japan is known to the world as
one of the safest countries. The freedom country, the US is
known as a dangerous society where citizens have rights to hold
the guns to protect themselves. It is a sad contradictory.
#Post#: 16468--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freedom and liberty, rights and law
By: Chizuko hanji Date: June 3, 2019, 10:11 am
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Martin, this is very coincident! I watched the film Powidoki by
Andrzej Wajda last night. Then I found this discussion this
morning. Surprising! I don't know why I chose the film on
Netflix last night.
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AielZKxSuB8
#Post#: 16472--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freedom and liberty, rights and law
By: Chizuko hanji Date: June 3, 2019, 10:46 am
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I have something interesting story regarding the words, right,
and law. This is just my own original idea so please take it
with a grain of salt.
The word, right, has three meaning. It means to be correct. The
other meaning is to be qualified. And the last one is the
opposite of left.
One day, when I saw the famous painting、” Last Judgment"
by Michelangelo in the book, it took my breath away.
"Oh..! That's why! Right and Left"
I understood the painting said, "God let the people who did the
right things go to the right place. God left the people who did
the wrong things to the left place."
If you look at the painting, Last Judgment, you will get the
meaning of my saying.
If you live to do the right things, you will give the right to
be free and you are protected by God. But God is always busy to
help people all over the world so that human invented "laws" to
protect them.
I'm not religious but I thought of this story seriously.
#Post#: 16479--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freedom and liberty, rights and law
By: MartinSR Date: June 3, 2019, 12:11 pm
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I like your analysis of the "Last Judgement" (painting and the
whole idea). :D
I remember I liked this movie (Powidoki) when I was watching it.
Now I forgot the details and it's obviously worth refreshing in
my memory.
The story about the word "freedom" in Japanese reminds us of
another truth.
We are thinking about (doubtful in this case) influence of the
word meaning on history, and forget that real meaning of it
depends on the history of nations which use it. In Europe most
countries have longer or shorter episodes in history when their
freedom understood as independence was temporarily lost, limited
or at least endangered. There are even nations which didn't
manage to win their independence for centuries. The freedom is
what they could (or can) only dream of.
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