We hear an endless barrage these days about “freedom” and “democracy”. They are beautiful ideas, myths to dream about, but do we in fact live by these ideals?
The definition of freedom is “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.” The definition of licentiousness is “lacking moral discipline or ignoring legal restraint; having no regard for accepted rules or standards.”
I believe that what separates freedom from licentiousness is a moral code, or more precisely, a level of consciousness. Some people can only see their own personal needs or wants; their consciousness level prevents them from seeing things from anyone else’s point of view. These people are not free; they are simply licentious.
And herein lies the problem: you get the bulk of a society that has forgotten how to get along with others because they have been socialized into believing that their needs supersede everyone else’s. This obsession with self permeates every corner of our culture, and is the greatest threat to the planetary social order. At best, it is the equivalent of a moral race to the bottom. At worst, it poses a risk to true democracy, threatening to turn it into a more repressive form of government as its citizens are screaming out to be controlled.
