True Freedom in Eastern Europe
During our interviews in Hungary and Estonia, we learned of people’s concern for balancing personal rights and collective responsibilities. In America and many Western European countries, there is an overemphasis on individual rights and an in adequate emphasis on collective responsibilities (Gilligan, 1982). The Hungarians and Estonians we interviewed generally seemed to begin with a rather “natural” concern for collective responsibility; they had greater difficulty in recognizing the nature of and means for supporting individual rights, although they all were well aware of the horrible consequences of living in a society where these individual rights were ignored or violated.
Several of our interviewees indicated that freedom means responsibility. Professor Brichacek was most explicit: “Freedom means for me responsibility- responsibility to my inner voice, responsibility to my friends, responsibility for the future generation. . . . Freedom is to [take] this responsibility just according to your own will, just according to your own values … just according to your own best ideas. Freedom means to me to realize my responsibility by means that I find to be appropriate.” He was articulate about the dimensions of this responsibility. When he is free, he can be responsible to his friends, to the future generation, to the cosmos, and perhaps most importantly, to his inner voice.
Similarly, an Estonian reformer declared, “Freedom is . . . a willingness to give up something, to make choices.” Yet for this Czech and this Estonian, there was very little sense of the meaning of freedom with regard to their own individual rights. If they are each to be guided by their inner voice in deciding what must be given up, then how are their rights assured to act upon their inner voice and to sacrifice in a way that yields a social benefit? They must be provided with some individual protections, as long as their actions don’t infringe upon the rights of other people. If a Czech, an Estonian, or a Hungarian is to be responsible to his or her friends and future generations, then how can this person be assured that he or she will have the right and ability to act upon this sense of responsibility as a neighbor and citizen?
What will prevent people in authority from blocking responsible citizens from meeting their responsibilities? What will prevent leaders from distorting or manipulating the sense of responsibility? These questions can only be answered if sufficient attention is given to the other half of the equation, and this is one area in which Americans and American society might serve as an appropriate model. Beginning with the Bill of Rights, Americans have certainly given considerable attention to protecting individual rights, including the right to act upon one’s sense of responsibility. How do we find the appropriate balance between rights and responsibility in our own society as well as in other societies operating in our 21st Century world? I would suggest that the balancing act is becoming more difficult given the new and greater challenges associated with something I am calling VUCA-Plus (Bergquist, 2020).
