Saturday Extra

For Eric Foner 'freedom' is the central word in American political rhetoric.

But the meaning of freedom is a source of continual debate and history is littered with bitter conflicts over who has the right to enjoy liberty.

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Geraldine Doogue: You might remember Don Watson, the Australian political observer, speaking on this program earlier in the year and telling us, very entertainingly, that during his recent journeys across the US that Americans kept talking to him about the concept of freedom in a way that we in Australia never even seem to think about. And he distilled all this in his book American Journeys.

Well according to my next guest, freedom has become the central word in American political rhetoric. But while we might imagine the idea of freedom to be unitary and consistent, actually, he says, its meaning is a source of continual conflict, including the question of who has the right to enjoy it.

Eric Foner is the De Witt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. He's currently visiting Australia and he'll give a lecture on 'The Idea of Freedom' at the University of Sydney on Tuesday 3 June this week. Eric Foner joins me now. Good morning.

Eric Foner:Yes, good morning, nice to talk to you.

Geraldine Doogue: President Bush has invoked this idea of freedom many times during his presidency, but as you point out, he's not alone. During the Cold War other presidents talked about defending the free world, and of course during World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt promised a New Deal, based on Four Freedoms. So this ideal really lies at the very heart of how America understands itself and its political system. I don't think it's necessarily what Australians understand. So could you enlighten us please?

Eric Foner:Well you're quite right of course with the examples you gave; Roosevelt and during the Cold War, and now President Bush were all wartime uses of freedom and the concept of the language of freedom has been used many times in American history to mobilise support for war. But of course it's much broader and deeper than that. This is the central concept, the central term in our political vocabulary in the United States. Obviously other people cherish freedom too, nobody would claim that Americans are the only ones who do. But it does seem to play a more central role in our language, in our definition of ourselves as a people, than in many other places. And you can trace it back to the American Revolution perhaps, because the founders of the nation claimed, insisted, that the new American nation was not just another geopolitical entity on the map, but was a kind of universal nation: it embodied the idea of freedom. Thomas Jefferson called the United States 'an empire of liberty', and this idea that we have a divine mission (many people think, including President Bush, has said there's a god-given mission to spread freedom throughout the world) is something that most other countries don't really have as central to their identity.

So freedom is pretty central to American ideas, but as you said, it is not a single idea, it has changed many times over the course of our history, and it's been a source of continual conflict as to what is freedom and who is actually entitled to enjoy it.

Geraldine Doogue: I think you suggest the American Civil War bears reflection too, because there was a great contest over the idea of freedom there, and who had a right to it.

Eric Foner:Well of course the Civil War is the central turning point in American history, and in terms of freedom, it clearly was essential because it eliminated the institution of slavery. For the first 70, 80 years of our existence, the United States was a nation dedicated to liberty, at least rhetorically, but with a large proportion of its population actually as slaves. The Civil War ended that particular contradiction, but more than that, well in addition to that, it also expanded the idea of freedom in the aftermath of the Civil War, the period we call reconstruction right after the war was over. The laws and the constitution were rewritten by the victorious North to eliminate what had previously existed as the racial boundaries of freedom. The real origin of the idea that freedom in America is something for everybody, regardless of race, really comes out of the struggle against slavery. It was not there at the beginning, because we had this large institution of African-American slavery. It's out of the Civil War that comes what is today the modern idea of freedom in the United States, that it applies to everybody regardless of race.

Geraldine Doogue: And indeed, the concept of freedom at the time of American Independence, the American Independence struggle, was really different again, wasn't it? It wasn't freedom to be a narcissistic individual, was it? It was a totally different understanding of it.

Eric Foner:Well yes, and I think the definition of freedom has changed many times. At the time of the American Revolution, I think when people spoke of freedom they thought of it in terms of a series of public entitlements, you know, the right to vote, the right to participate in government in some way, certain basic civil liberties that individuals would have. But over the course of two centuries or more, those ideas have not disappeared but they've been joined and in some ways superseded by a very privatised idea of freedom. Today if you ask your average American man or woman in the street what freedom is, they will start with private rights, not public rights; for the right to have (not a word I like, but widely used) the right to choose your own lifestyle, to your sexual orientation, how you wear your hair, your clothing, your music. It's sort of personal freedom, has become much more important. That was not what Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Thomas Payne...

Geraldine Doogue: Well they were really on about economic autonomy weren't they?

Eric Foner:Well economic freedom also of course is critical and as you say, back then economic freedom meant autonomy, independence, you know, owning your own lands at that time. Or maybe a shop, an artisan, a craftsman, a small merchant, not being dependent on somebody else for your livelihood, for wages. Abraham Lincoln a couple of generations later, said 'The person who works for wages his entire life is not really free, because they are dependent on someone else.' Now today of course, most people work for wages and owning a little plot of land is actually not going to get you very far. So economic freedom today has many other meaning. For some people it means economic security, that is, having a floor beneath which people will not fall economically. That's what Franklin Roosevelt meant. Remember one of the Four Freedoms was freedom from want. That's what I'm talking about, economic security, that nobody will actually be in need. That's kind of faded out of our politics lately; today, generally speaking in the US, economic freedom at least in the part of the government and leaders, tends to be the sort laissez-faire competition, pursuing your economic...

Geraldine Doogue: Well there's a sort of a privileging of capital over labour; we've had very interesting discussions about that.

Eric Foner:Right, and reducing the role of government. In other words, pursuing your economic interests without outside interference, without government regulation.

Geraldine Doogue: Eric Foner is the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. He's visiting Australia to give a lecture on The Idea of Freedom at the University of Sydney, and he's joining me here on Saturday Extra on Radio National.

What's interesting here is that you pointed out, and I think argued well, that freedom is almost the code by which ideas are discussed, changing ideas. But there's a notion it seems to me in America at the moment, that Americans have invented this idea, and that it is your gift to export it to the world. But really, that's a completely inappropriate understanding. Lots of other nations have ideas of freedom themselves, don't they, which are similarly contested. So this demonstrates a certain lack of understanding doesn't it, about world political history?

Eric Foner:I couldn't agree more with what you said, and of course this is a fundamental critique of President Bush and his whole approach you know, as if the United States kind of owns the idea of freedom and has an obligation or right to sort of spread it to other people, our particular version. It's not just Bush that's the problem, this notion goes way back in American history, you know the early Puritan settlers talked of their colony in the 17th century as 'a city on a hill' that is, a model to the whole rest of the world of how to organise society. Jefferson, as I said, spoke of America as 'an Empire of liberty'. Now you might say 'That seems contradictory. How can an empire also represent liberty? 'Empire' means domination, but Jefferson said 'No, our Empire is different. The old Empires of Europe mean oppression; the American Empire is an Empire of freedom.' Now the problem with that, as you suggest is therefore any exercise of American power over others can be justified as the expansion of freedom. So when we spread across the continent and uprooted the Native Americans, or later invaded Mexico and seized part of their territory in the Mexican-American War, those were all justified as expansions of freedom and therefore those who oppose it, people who oppose American policy are therefore seen not just as people with a different point of view, but as enemies of freedom.

Geraldine Doogue: Could I just mount a defence of your own system though? Because maybe in fact the early Americans did have a very strong and rational memory of old Europe, which was far more hierarchical, there were far more vested interests, and there was a genuine sense that there were some new notions abroad in this new land. I mean Australia had quite a lot of that too.

Eric Foner:Oh, absolutely.

Geraldine Doogue: And if I can just quote, I was thinking to myself the other day about the very noble role that the American military has of its own lawyers arguing from within, and they were some of the greatest opponents of Guantanamo Bay, our own David Hicks was defended by Major Michael Mori, who became a sort of an Australian champion as it were, by attacking from within. I can't remember many notions of that coming from the Old World.

Eric Foner:No, you're quite right, and I think it very striking that the military in our country lately has been much more principled in opposing the use of torture and in, as you said his military lawyers defending some notion of real judicial procedure at Guantanamo, compared to our civilian leaders like President Bush and Vice-President Cheney basically say that the President can override the constitution, override civil liberties for anyone they want as long as they designate them as a terrorist. These are real fundamental challenges to our traditional notions of civil liberties in the United States.

You know the Declaration of Independence Jefferson spoke of a decent respect to the opinions of mankind. That's what we have lost in the United States lately, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.

Geraldine Doogue: So I suppose in a way, the more you talk about it, freedom isn't just an idea, is it? It's a set of principles, legal principles.

Eric Foner:It's a set of institutions, a set of principles. It has to be embodied. That's a very important point that many people in the US don't understand, that it's not just an ideal, it has to have an institution framework to support freedom. And you know one of the things that...

Geraldine Doogue: And are you suggesting that some of the institutions to support freedom are more fragile now?

Eric Foner:That is exactly the point, that they are fragile. And a look at the reason history is relevant here is that those institutions have not always existed. I mean the very civil liberties that you mentioned, the military lawyers are trying to defend at Guantanamo are relatively recent in the United States in terms of jurisprudence. For a long period of time we had a rhetorical commitment to civil liberties, but many examples of gross infringements on those liberties. You know, try to give an anti-slavery speech in the South before the Civil War; or try to be a labour organiser in the early 20th century, and picket and hand out literature in many communities. In other words, the right to dissent, the right to express your ideas, were very fragile at many points in American history. It's only in the 20th century, really the second half of the 20th century that the institutional framework, the jurisprudence of civil liberties was institutionalised in the United States, thanks to the Supreme Court, thanks to mass movements like the labour movement, the civil rights movement, so that they are more fragile than sometimes people think. They're not a permanent part of our civilisation, they're relatively recent achievements, and that's why it's all the more important to defend them against the onslaught that's coming from the Bush administration.

Geraldine Doogue: Look, thank you very much indeed. Rich with thought; I really appreciate your time.

Eric Foner:Well it's a pleasure speaking to you.

Geraldine Doogue: Eric Foner is the De Witt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, and details about his lecture are on our home page. It's called 'The Idea of Freedom in the US, 1776-2008', and it's at The Seymour Centre at the University of Sydney. Let us know what you think about that, will you. I just detect that that might tickle your fancy, so I'd love to hear and of course also you are very welcome to go to our blog.

Guests

Eric Foner
DeWitt Clinton Professor of History Columbia University

Further Information

"The Idea of Freedom in the US, 1776 - 2008"
Professor Eric Foner at Sydney Ideas. Where: The Seymour Theatre Centre, Cnr of Cleveland St and City Road, the University of Sydney. When: 6pm on Tuesday, 3 June, 2008. Bookings: Box office 02 9351 7940 or online

Story Researcher and Producer

Julie Browning

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