Today's discussion of Amy Tan's essay, "To Complain is American," and the American Radio Works documentary, "Great Textbook War," pushed me to think more about competing freedoms. This is not quite the same thing as Foner's notion that freedom is a contested concept. Rather, I have in mind situations in which two people's, or groups of people's, freedoms seem to compete or even when one person experiences one freedom limiting another.
In the West Virginia textbook "war" some parents wanted a sort of moral and personal freedom to follow their own beliefs and to decide what their children would learn without an coercion from the school board. At the same time, public education in the USA is intended to prepare students for their responsibilities as citizens who have political freedom. Thus the civic community has a stake in those students' learning.
Matt's introduction of the federally mandated observance of "Constitution Day," elicited some of this same dynamic. Who said, "If the government pays, the government can make regulations?" In order to have access to resources (economic freedom?), the institution, its employees and students submit to a bit of coercion about our programs.
This raises the related, crucial question: What is freedom for? How is it to be used? Tan's essay highlights these questions as she wrestles with the American right to speech, even to complain, the writer's responsibility to speak, and the likely consequences of doing so. She hints at the distinction we have heard in the news about the proposed mosque/community center in Manhattan. While the community has a right to build there, that right does not necessarily make doing so a good idea.
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