Defining freedom

Americans and Germans have different ideas about what "freedom" means.

To Americans, freedom is "nobody telling you what to do." There are many examples, but I think the best explanation of the American perspective is Dennis Leary's monologue from the 1993 movie Demolition Man.

"I want high cholesterol. I want to eat bacon, butter and buckets of cheese, okay? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in a non-smoking section. I wanna run through the streets naked with green Jello all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly might feel the need to." [Source]

To Germans, however, this take on freedom can only come from a person who has never suffered *real* deprivation. Their perspective on freedom is closer to that of Franklin Roosevelt, as put forth in his January 1941 State of the Union address. In it, Roosevelt spoke of Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Roosevelt was speaking to a generation that was intimately familiar with deprivations of that sort, but the Germans' memories of those hardships are more recent than ours. And this is the problem with the Edgar Friendly character -- here is a man who is reduced to stealing food to avoid eating rats, yet who talks of freedom from 1990s PC "tyranny" as if those problems were somehow analogous. The diatribe resonated with the audience, but it was not the perspective of anyone who has *really* experienced hunger. (For that, I recommend reading either about Al Capone's soup kitchens or the book "Aquariums of Pyongyang"). To Germans, the American version of freedom seems more like "anomie," the complete absence of guiding principles, responsibilities, or constraints. It is a shallow kind of freedom, and strikes them as a bit immature.

To Americans, the German preference for order and affinity for rules is oppressive, but it reflects a worldview that places greater value on social awareness and consideration. So while I do kinda think traffic signs for a buffet line are a bit excessive... ...I can at least recognize and appreciate what compels them to think they are necessary.