Daily Cascade

The Fight for Values

Prompt:
Eleanor Roosevelt: "At all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want — for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war".
Do you agree or disagree with Ms. Roosevelt about the value of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want?

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I surely do. Especially the first two. The third one "freedom from want"--although I can sense her meaning here--I think "want" is an iffy word. Granted, "want" may have had an added meaning in Elenor Roosevelt's time and could be substituted for "need."

I say this, because like the silly me, most of us want stuff that we don't really need or maybe only emotionally need. Anyway, most of such "want"s can die in minutes, sometimes.

Now that I've substituted "need" for "want," I certainly agree with what she's saying. Also, there are many other values that may be close in importance to these values, but I guess I'll stick to the quote's three values for brevity's sake.

Granted that these three values are very important, what makes "freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want" especially to fight for as values? Yes, I would fight for them like Eleanor, but I would probably choose tact and peace over war. This is because I would worry that gross and aggressive action could have damaging results not only to people but to the value itself.

Then, what if values clash?

Come to think of it, most difficult decisions are choices about the relative weight of a value. I mean. how can you choose to fight for one value versus another! Case in point, how can you trade a value like “freedom” with “security”? Not tradeable, isn't it? And I agree, these two aren’t tradeable...mostly.

The thing is, what happens when this choice involves your entire family's or town's or nation's security? Then, possibly your fight will have to go underground and you would fight underhandedly while still having some security. Is this also a choice? I really don't know the answer to this. I only hope and pray that none of us and nobody in the world will have to face such difficult choices.

The nicest part of the quote, however, is its last section, "for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war."

I certainly wish we could avoid all wars and fight for our values in peace, without screaming and scraping at one another.