A LESSON ON THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM

april 19, 2008

Once upon a time, the animals on a certain farm decided to drive out the farmer who was their master, so that they could take over the farm and run it for themselves. Now, they thought, they would govern the affairs of the farm. No longer would they be in subjugation to the will of a human. With the farmer gone, equality would prevail among the animals. All the profits earned by the farm would now belong to them. They would be working for their own gain, not someone else’s.

Since the pigs were judged by the animals to have the highest intelligence, they agreed that the pigs should serve as the central leadership to insure that everything ran smoothly.

The animals’ experiment at first seemed to be a splendid success. However, the pigs’ excellent intelligence was not matched by their character, and their character flaws and lack of virtue and moral principle gradually became apparent. A power struggle emerged among the pigs, and with it, acts of betrayal, manipulation, and violence. The most cunning pig, and the one with the greatest ambition to dominate the farm, was Napoleon. He began to kill off any animal he suspected of being a threat to his supremacy. He rewrote the history of the animals’ takeover of the farm to glorify himself and demonize his enemies.

In time, a terrible storm beset the farm, ruining the crops, and causing hunger among the animals. It had never occurred to them that some catastrophe for which they had not prepared might occur one day, Nor had they given adequate consideration to how viciously animals could act toward one another when they were desperate. In their inflated self-confidence, they had never thought a day would come when only the experience and wisdom of a farmer could save them. Yet, even now, they refused to surrender the farm back to the farmer or let him help them in their need.

The animals were forced by Napoleon to work harder and longer than ever, yet they continued to suffer from starvation and the cold. In spite of the misery they had brought upon themselves, they continued to accept the propaganda that they were all equal, and that their lives were better now than when they had been under the farmer’s rule. Napoleon imposed more and more controls on the animals, while assuming more and more privileges and advantages himself and granting them to the other ruling pigs.

Eventually, after much havoc and horror, when it was too late and everything had been lost, the animals came to realize the self-destructive folly of their rebellion against the farmer.

The name the animals had given to their farm was the same as the title given to the book which told this story: Animal Farm. It was written by George Orwell at the end of World War II as an allegory, or satire, about Soviet totalitarianism, but also about the dangers inherent in capitalistic democracies. For in societies like ours, there is always a temptation to want basic notions of equality to translate into the abolition of all forms of authority, so that no one would be obliged to comply with anyone’s will other than one’s own. Similarly, Orwell could see, the capitalistic principles of free enterprise and equal opportunity could easily be reduced to a self-destructive social ethic in which the common good is lost sight of, and in which each individual becomes concerned only for his own well-being and interests, while abandoning all others to their separate fates.

Many sad times through history, the unpleasant truths told in Animal Farm have been witnessed and all such tragedies have had their origin in the very first act of human rebellion – the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise (Genesis 3). In Animal Farm, the animals wanted to be equal to the farmer. In Genesis, Adam and Eve wanted to be equal to God.

The lesson of the story of the fall of Adam and Eve is that God’s wisdom is superior to ours, and his plan for our happiness and well-being is also superior to ours. Whenever we think we have smarter plans for our happiness than God, or think we can judge better than God what laws are fit for us and what laws are not, we have set ourselves on a course that may seem to succeed splendidly in the early going, but that will eventually lead to our self-destruction. The same holds true when we make choices that put us at odds with God’s will,

Yes, we are all equal in dignity, and we are all obliged to treat each other with equal respect. Yes, we were endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights and freedoms, but we were also assigned duties that bind absolutely. We have evolved a system of self-governance which allows us to replace unwise or inept leaders with new ones in the next election. But we cannot allow ourselves to be like the animals in Animal Farm in relation to the farmer. We cannot imagine that our democracy authorizes us to banish God, overrule his authority, or replace any part of his moral law with contrary laws to our own liking and convenience.

God told Adam and Eve that the moment they ate from the forbidden tree they were surely doomed to die (Gen 2:17). The same is true of us. God has left us free to choose, but we should make no mistake about the consequences of our choices. To choose God’s way leads to life and prosperity. To choose any other leads to misery, self-destruction, and ruin.

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 21-Apr-2008 9:03 sitemap