ever had so many with so much liberty blamed so many for the things that go wrong in their lives.  One would have thought that the more liberty individual have the less appropriate it is for them to blame others for the things that go wrong in their lives.  Ironically, though, it seems to be the other way around these days.  People are constantly blaming others for things in their lives that have gone wrong.  From debt to overweight, it is someone else’s fault, nowadays, if a person is faced with a most undesirable outcome.  It would seem that people have lost sight of the truth that, for human beings, liberty works only when it contributes to the perfection of humanity. 

It goes without saying, of course, that people can be mislead and deceived.  They can be lied to outright.  And while it would be wonderful if we could always detect when someone has lied to us, it is obvious that deception and lies work best when they go undetected. 

But in the vast majority of cases, deception and lies are not the explanation for why so many are faced with rather painful consequences.  Rather, the explanation is none other than a lack of both self-discipline and foresight in the exercise of the very liberty upon which people insist upon having. 

This is where the blame-game comes into the picture.  This is to live what can only be characterized as a radical inconsistency.  If you give me the choice of 5 food times, and I choose item #2 although with each bite I end up vomiting, it is unmistakably clear that after the first time the fault lies with me, and none other, if I continue to eat item #2.  And if I blame you for my continuing to vomit because after all you made item #2 available to me, then I have a deep, deep, deep psychological problem. 

My thesis, then, is quite simple: Insofar as human beings are not willing to take responsibility for the untoward consequences that manifestly flow from the exercise of their liberties, then human beings thereby render themselves more like animals than not.  From Plato to Rousseau: It is been held that it is the proper exercise of our human capacities that affirms our humanity; otherwise, we necessarily become more animal like precisely because our human sensibilities become deadened.  It is this truth that modernity refuses to acknowledge. 

With the exception of capacities that are genetically determined from the outset such as seeing and hearing, our human capacities are sustained only if there are reinforced.  Notice that while we may never lose our capacity to speak (given that we remain healthy), we can indeed lose the capacity to speak with the eloquence that we once did if we become a vagabond.   

Pavarotti was well known for his high notes.  What is true nonetheless is that he practiced and practiced and practiced; and, moreover, he took enormous care of his voice. 

Watching on You Tube a diva version of “Natural Woman”, with Aretha Franklin, I was rather impressed by the way in which Aretha Franklin would so effortlessly and naturally throw in a chord here (see at 1m49secs) and there (see at 2m34secs), which added a wonderful touch to the song.  She even throws in a growl at one point (see at 2m13secs) that make for a really amazing transition in the song.  But there is the simple truth that she has been singing in this fashion virtually all of her life.  And her singing power exemplifies the saying that practice makes perfect.  (There are different versions on YouTube.  I am referring to the version hyperlinked here.) 

Well, self-discipline and foresight are not at all exceptions to the precept that practice makes perfect.  The wherewithal to say “No” to what one wants ever so badly but absolutely does not need and, moreover, which one simply cannot afford, is not an ability that falls from the heavens.  Rather, it is an ability that is cultivated.  True, it may be easier for some rather than for others to cultivate this ability than others.  Just so anyone who has this ability had to cultivate it.  And make no mistake about it: this cultivated ability can be easily enough destroyed.

Foresight is none other than the ability to consider with sufficient vivacity the different ways in which a choice on one’s part may impact both upon oneself and others.  Needless to say, considerable foresight is not something that is just acquired within a fortnight.  Invariably, we learn to be more attentive here and there precisely because in this or that instance of the failure to be attentive had sufficiently untoward consequences or, to go in the opposite direction, our being quite attentive had particularly fortuitous consequences.  . 

The point here is rather sublime: just as practice is pivotal to become and remaining an excellent singer, it is also pivotal to acquiring, and sustaining, self-discipline and foresight.  And all the liberty in the world will not change this truth.  

Thus, insisting upon liberty without simultaneously insisting upon the perfection of humanity is essentially to occasion none other than a vicious downward spiral in the realization of the human self. 

What distinguishes homo sapiens from all other creatures is that homo sapiens have a plethora of capacities that the other creatures do not have.  Alas, there is all the difference in the world between having a capacity and realizing it.  And modernity is bringing this truth into ever sharper relief. 

Precisely because exercising self-discipline and foresight are so very crucial to living well, one would have thought that traits of character would be well-realized in every human beings life. Nothing of the sort is the case nowadays; and that is precisely what one would expect when, as has come to be the case in modernity, insisting upon excellence, including excellence of character, is deemed to be an anathema to liberty. 

People now claim these days that they should have the freedom to act like animals if they so choose.  Perhaps.  But one has to ask, given such a claim: How exactly is the argument supposed to go that the enslavement of human beings is conceptually at odds with affirming the humanity of human beings?  Or, to proceed in the other direction, is it any accident nowadays that increasingly people think that their pets have the same moral standing as human beings?  I challenge any reader of this entry to locate the moral progress in either one of these lines of thought. 

Quite simply, liberty in the absence of the perfection of humanity leaves with less humanity.