Climate Movement Values: Freedom

Introductory Series Post #10.4

Movements are born out of freedom of choice and must be free for their entire existence. As such, movements cannot abide control. There may be times in campaigns or coalitions or events like a march or a rally where some control, even a good deal of control is exercised. But these are temporary and/or localized — and participants have chosen to be a part of them. Movements die if freedom of choice is constrained.

So we value freedom of choice because without it we won’t become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world. And that is what we need to be if we are going to play our indispensable role.

Freedom of choice makes everything else that much more valuable because we chose to invest. We must choose to tap into love’s emotional power; we must choose to champion justice; we must choose to be beauty-creators and hope-makers. We must choose to make a sustained commitment to collective action over time, and then we must keep choosing to remain true to our commitment. In everything we must choose. Our choices demonstrate what we value by the expenditure of two of the most precious things we have: our time and our energy. And by choosing how we expend our time and energy we make such investments valuable to us.

But freedom of choice is not the fullness of freedom. It is the essential means to freedom. The ability to choose is freedom’s door. We must have the ability to choose, or the choice-function, so that we can in fact choose. We must have the ability, and then we must exercise that ability or choice-function. We must choose to open freedom’s door and walk through it into the fullness of freedom.

And what is the fullness of freedom? Being what we were created to be. Then we are truly free.

And what is that?

We were created to love and be loved; we were created to have all we need to live the lives intended for us; we were created to fulfill all of our gifts and abilities; we were created to live in balance and harmony with each other and the rest of the natural world; we were created to create and experience beauty; we were created to live joyfully. This and so much more is the fullness of freedom, which is the birthright of everyone alive today, those yet to be born, and every species on the Earth.

Freedom is choosing rightly to create a better world, to bring about the fullness of freedom.

Some people conflate the ability to choose, the choice-function, and the free exercising of this choice-function with freedom itself. If they are not constrained by some type of power preventing them from making the choices they want they see themselves as free. Some wrongly think of freedom as being able to do whatever the hell they want.

Sadly, they don’t understand freedom at all. Freedom is choosing rightly. Freedom is choosing rightly to create a better world. Freedom is choosing to create the fullness of freedom. Freedom is being what we were created to be.

Each one of us was created to be free, and we aren’t all free until all of us are free, because the fullness of freedom can only occur in a just and beautiful world. Injustice makes all of us less free. Ugliness makes all of us less free. Hatred and prejudice and racism make all of us less free. Poverty makes all of us less free. The extinction of species makes all of us less free. Climate consequences — which are connected to all these others — make all of us less free.

Photo Credit: Jim Ball

Overcoming climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything is one of the greatest causes of freedom in human history.

As such, we are embarked on a great cause of freedom. The Climate Movement is a freedom movement. When we keep on choosing to overcome climate change we are striving into the fullness of freedom where every step is filled with love, every step creates justice, every step creates beauty, every step heals the world.

And that is why freedom is one of our Movement Values. That is why striving for freedom makes our future come faster. That is why freedom creates hope, because it is what we hope for. Join us!

Remember to check out the other posts in this Introductory Series, especially the other values of Love, Justice, Beauty, and Creativity. If you like this post, please “like,” comment, and share with others.