Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity

We all know the motto of the French Revolution, "liberté, égalité, fraternité," which means liberty, equality, and fraternity. These three things sound beautiful when you hear them for the first time — so beautiful that it almost feels like a good justification for beheading thousands of people in the guillotine without a fair trial. I'm not saying that the reign of King Louis XVI was good, but the revolutionaries proved to be much worse. Despite their motto, all they really wanted was blood — not only the king's blood but also the blood of everyone who disagreed with them. So they went from a monarchy to a dictatorship. Way to go, France!

But I'm not here to talk about the French Revolution; I'm here to talk specifically about liberty, equality, and fraternity. These words were not just used in the French Revolution; they were also present in many other revolutions that followed, in many different countries. Different versions of these words are still present in the constitutions of some countries even today. Liberty, equality, and fraternity are not just pretty words. Each of them has a deep and complex meaning, and when you study them closely, you realize that they cannot coexist. So, let's take a look at the meaning of each one individually.

Liberty: in the political context, when we talk about liberty, we are usually referring to civil liberty. The definition of civil liberty in the Cambridge Dictionary is "the right of people to basic freedoms and to live without the government becoming involved in private matters." So, liberty is basically having free will, and a society that has liberty is a free society in which people have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, economic freedom, and personal freedom. The most common ideology that defends liberty is liberalism: the political belief that there should be free trade, that people should be allowed more personal freedom, and that changes in society should be made gradually.

Equality: the definition of equality in the Cambridge Dictionary is "the right of different groups of people to have a similar social position and receive the same treatment." There are many kinds of equality, including social equality, political equality, and economic equality. When it comes to economic equality, the most prominent ideology is socialism, in which the government controls all property in order to eliminate financial and social differences between people. But this, of course, goes against liberty because you can't do what you want with your own money. The government decides what you can or cannot have, thereby controlling the most important aspects of your life. Therefore, the only way to achieve economic equality in a society is through a dictatorship. You have to choose between liberty and equality; you can't have the two at the same time.

Fraternity: according to the same dictionary, fraternity means "a group of people who have the same job or interest." But in the political sense, it's a group of people who share the same country and the same ideas about how that country should be. The most notable ideas here are patriotism and nationalism. To be a patriot is to love your country and to be proud of it no matter what. To be a nationalist is to take it a step further, believing that your country is superior to every other country in the world and that only the people who were born in your country have the right to be there. This can lead to a disregard for other nationalities and hatred towards foreigners. For that reason, fraternity, when exaggerated, can go against both liberty and equality.

As you can see, these are three completely different concepts that don't mix, so we can conclude that the motto "liberté, égalité, fraternité" is hypocritical. You must decide which one of these ideals is the most important to you and put the other two aside. For me, the most important thing is, and will always be, liberty. There's no point in equality or fraternity if we are not free. And while it's true that too much freedom can lead to crime and chaos, a good rule of thumb is that we have to respect the freedom of others if we expect others to respect our own. The ideal society is one based on freedom and mutual respect, rather than on extreme ideologies, or the motto of a violent revolution.