Is anyone not thinking about school safety? Is anyone not thinking about our laws and the when/where/why and who of guns? Is anyone reading this not wondering how we should balance safety, individual freedoms, and personal responsibilities in these times? Here’s one way to start thinking about America and guns. We need to take a fresh, really old, look at ways to talk about where freedom and safety fit together.
Most everyone can imagine Justice, as thousands of years of Western civilization has personified her, in the form of a statue at a courthouse. She holds a balance and a sword. She’s almost always blindfolded. She’s often wearing a crown and she’s always very scantily clad. Google Justice and take a careful look. Ask yourself, what can we learn about the nature or essence of justice by contemplating this ancient embodiment of it? Every detail is meant to remind us what justice is and what it does.
Of course, the blindfold, crown, balance and the sword are kind of easy, but beyond those loudest symbols, ask yourself, what’s in her dominant hand? Why? Why do you think we can see so much of her body? Where does her authority come from? Why a woman? Why such a young woman? Look at her stance and posture. What’s the idea behind each detail?
Now, Google a really good image of the Statue of Liberty, our American symbol of freedom. Take your time. Really look. What do you notice? What do all those things you may never have noticed before actually say about the nature or essence of Liberty?
If these figures embody our deep, innate understanding of Justice and Liberty, what exactly are they communicating? How have these figures spoken so clearly, without words, to the whole world, and for so long?
Justice stands before us, armed, but otherwise exposed, yet in the dark, herself. Liberty is clear-eyed, holding high a light, but obscured in folds and folds of dress that hide her form.
Justice has youth, promise, strength, beauty, unpredictability, and menace. She’s a force to be reckoned with… now I look at her blindfold, and new meaning comes to me. I used to think it just reminded us that a fair judge couldn’t be influenced by the look of a person. But now I also think that blindfold is telling us she can easily get lost without a trustworthy guide… and that the more lost she gets, the more apt she may be to use the sword… and then justice really is lost.
Liberty, by contrast, beckons. She’s steadfast and stoic. She guides us to her, but does so without offering anything but light. She’s not sexy. Her expression lacks warmth. She offers no promises, rewards or guarantees. Liberty is a mystery. She’s not alluring or motherly… she’s not warm. She’s not reaching out to us. Why do we love her?
I can say I love Liberty because her lack of form gives me the freedom to define what she stands for. Her solitary figure reminds me that nobody has any more authority than I do to define her true form under that heavy full-length dress. Her unflinching gaze and closed lips model the freedom to just be–without feeling the need to prove anything to anyone. She models freedom from any obligation to create a persona or identity within any particular group or tribe. Her lips are closed, but she shows none of the vulnerability of one who needs anyone else to speak for her.
Neither Justice nor Liberty promises safety, or even order, really. Yet at the same time, they’re there for us, just as they have been there for many generations before us, reminding us that justice and liberty require independent, intelligent, fair, compassionate thinking if we are to live by them. We are invited as individuals and as a society, to contemplate what their forms are telling us and to draw wisdom and practical knowledge from them. Together, they form what has been for nearly 250 years our American Dream and our democratic conscience.
Right now we have a chance to step back and look around. We can renew our understanding of the meaning of justice and liberty and all the ways in which they’re important to us and how we maintain them. Important, too, is recognizing how much justice and liberty rely on each other to operate in a truly American way. Without them we get mayhem with an iron fist.
