Freedom of people in history

It is a surprising fact, from the perspective of today, to note how widespread the practise of human slavery was in the not so distant past. Slavery existed in Europe until the nineteenth century as it did in America.

Before that time there was no concept of any rights of "the people". The people were considered worthless; they were peasant farmers and the distance between the majority of people and the educated nobility was great. Only the very few were educated and well fed while the majority lived in squalor, disease etc. just as the "third world" poor live today.

But across Europe and finally in America the status of that majority of people slowly changed. Parliments were created and the notion of a rationally governed society replaced the notion of a society based upon birth right and hereditary rule. The former slaves were granted representation in the decision-making processes of the governments.

Nothing demonstrates the idea of political revolution better than this process of enfranchisement of the masses of the earth. This idea was first born in the minds of European political philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant and many others.

One of the ways that I first learned about the idea of freedom in history was from noting the aspect of how wars were waged prior to the enfranchisement of the people and how war was waged afterward.

Before the people had their freedoms, the wars waged by the aristocracy were done by a select group of soldiers and generals. But after the people had gained their freedoms wars were waged on a much greater and wider scale. Part of Napoleon's early success was due to the fact that he managed to enlist the majority of Frenchmen to fight in his "wars of liberation". It was the superior numbers of sodiers that allowed him to win so many victories.

This same phenomenon of mass mobilization was also on display during the American civil war. The American civil war is often cited (due to the historically high numbers of casualties) as a harbinger of the first two world wars. Finally technology did merge with mass mobilization of people to produce the astonoshing numbers of deaths in those wars.

One integral feature within the concept of revolution and freedom was the idea, put forth by philosophers, that the bible and biblical teaching was false. This concept, ironically, was advanced by some within protestantism after the wars of religion were over and nationalism begun to show its head.

The idea is that there are no micacles and that the teaching of super-naturalism in the bible were false teachings. This was considered revolutionary for obvious reasons. But the world of science showed pursuasively that the super-naturalism of the bible was incorrect. Simply stated the world of science, which relies upon evidence to produce its great power, implies that the man Jesus could not be a God. The conflict arose between Jesus and his miracles on the one hand, and the great powers of scientific advancements on the other hand. This is a pivotal dilemma in the modern concept of freedom and revolution (not so much in Europe today but certainly in the U.S.).

Another problem facing the freedom of the people is the question of what are we to do now that we are free. Does freedom ultimately mean that man is a consumer of commercial goods? Or is there some higher dimension to freedom, some goal other than consumption? It is said that there are no more metaphysical goals within the west; so what is the use of progress and freedom then?