The Idea of America

Understudies: Defining Freedom

Needs, Wants, and Ideals

Since this unit will investigate the meaning of freedom, I find it useful to develop a brief synopsis of the rhetoric of freedom. Additionally, I think it is useful to understand the theoretical constructs of "freedom" upon which many of the debates in American history were founded. These definitions will help to more clearly articulate students' perspectives and more interestingly, make them question what it really means to "be free." When asked, "What is freedom?" students will use a wide variety of words and phrases that seem synonymous: "we want to think for ourselves," "not have to listen to our parents all the time," "need some personal space." I would like to suggest that simply trying to define "freedom" or "liberty" will bring to surface the nuances we take for granted in classroom discussion. To help determine how to classify words associated with freedom, Colin Campbell's discussion of "needs" and "wants" in his article, "Consumption and the Rhetorics of Need and Want" is a useful start. Campbell describes need versus want in terms of consumerism, but the distinctions of "freedom" involve similar rhetoric as citizens establish their individuality, the role of their government, and how these two interact. Thomas Jefferson serves as a primary example in the Declaration of Independence, "it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another." ⁵

I identify the terms "needs," "wants," and suggest the incorporation of "ideals" because I think making a distinction between them will aide classroom discussion of what formulates a sense of freedom. I define "ideal" as a concept that is the perfect condition of human life. A "need" is something that is necessary to survive. These are the principles students will say must be present to exist: food, water, and shelter are the most probable initial responses. A "desire" or "want" is something that is not essential to human survival but important. To Campbell, want is a "search for pleasure [that] expose[s] oneself to certain stimuli in the hope that they will trigger the desired response within oneself." ⁶ In the case of this unit, the stimulus is American society and the desired response is a sense of freedom. The duality of need versus want will help students think about what they believe is absolutely necessary to their lives and why these principles are essential. Here is where debate arises in the classroom (and by parallel, America) since many will believe that ideals, such as the ability to "do your own thing"/live unencumbered by another (i.e. their guardians, teachers, peers) are not just important but essential to their existence. This is a microcosm of America's historic progression towards autonomy. In terms of freedom, it is helpful to look to Colin Campbell's view of need as "a state of deprivation, one in which there is a lack of something necessary to maintain a given condition of existence." ⁷The Declaration of Independence's statement of freedom from tyranny alludes to just such a deprived state.

The true question that must arise is how to identify whether an ideal is a need or a want. Perspectives that demand progress would argue that if a belief is an ideal, we must continually try to bridge the gap between what we have and what we truly need. The juxtaposition of need versus desire is intended to make students question whether there is any tangible or intangible entity that they believe is not necessary to their lives. I imagine that once students start entering the world of intangibles, they will more easily identify tangible items unnecessary to survival, like certain material possessions they did not own as a child or did not exist for previous generations. Intangibles will bring much more heated debate. At the center of America's intangible debate of freedom, and more than likely students', is the tenuous relationship between the individual and the community.

As Raymond Knapp observes,

America has often been understood as founded on two principles, embodied in the name 'United States': union (community) and independent units (states). Thus, America tries to preserve both of these sometimes opposing principles, balancing the strength promised by union against the rights and independence of the smaller units being joined, ranging from states, to minorities defined in various ways, to individuals. ⁸

Do we want or need individual rights, and if so how are these to be governed, if at all? Late eighteenth century liberalism placed particular emphasis on freedom through economic independence. By owning one's own land, a citizen may be considered free because he is unable to be coerced economically by the powers upon which he is dependant. ⁹ In the same regard, if a citizen is to be expected to be an autonomous being, he must be afforded the opportunity to achieve such freedom. From here, citizens against slavery criticized it as not merely an infringement of political freedom, but more generally, individual freedom. America experienced a more diverse shift from the want for individual freedom to a need. Rhetoric cited inalienable rights of man and equality as the need to change the concept of freedom. Fredrick Douglas writes, "Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty?...am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow man?" ^{1 0} It is from this sense of individual freedom within a community that two definitions of freedom arise: Positive freedom (freedom to) and negative freedom (freedom from).

Regarding this unit, I think it became apparent to me that the more I investigated what types of freedoms America sought throughout its history, the more I was aware that musicals that offer social commentary seem to be created when an ideal that was formerly just a want shifts to being a need. The musicals chosen here demonstrate how a sense of freedom was taken for granted (or simply taken). Consequently, Americans decided that these lost or infringed upon freedoms were actually essential to American life. Hence, they required a medium that would allow the communication of this discrepancy to the masses.

Freedom To and Freedom From: Positive and Negative Freedom

First, throughout this unit, I will use "freedom" and "liberty" interchangeably. There are not a wide variety of sources that clearly define a difference between the two, and if there is a difference, the nuances between the two are not useful for this unit. To define positive and negative freedom, my primary source is Isaiah Berlin's "Two Concepts of Liberty." Initial inquiry through student discussions may develop various concepts of freedom. I cite Berlin because he simplifies the many types of freedom likely to arise in the classroom into two categories: positive freedom and negative freedom. ^{1 1} At its most basic level, positive freedom represents one's freedom to something: freedom to make one's own decisions and live independently according to one's needs/wants. Whereas, negative freedom represents one's freedom from: freedom from the oppression of others or from the system created by the other that gave the other power. The objective of this unit is to analyze how and why particular time periods found it necessary to create musicals that stage positive and negative freedom.

Of course, there is an important distinction to make regarding the nature of this unit. This unit understands musical theater as a representation of freedom(s) in America through its citizens that define "freedom." Hence, this unit is by nature a politically/socially-driven entity. That is, there is a presumed social or political context to all of the selected shows. While some would argue that certain shows are meant to be completely diversionary and without social context, I believe this to be impossible. Since Americans create and perform these musicals, their cultural heritage is inextricably connected to the story and songs onstage. Marvin Carlson explains, "However general may be the 'airy nothing' with which the poet begins," (for the sake of this unit, Freedom), "when it is brought into the world of objects" (that is, theater) "…then that process must inevitably be conditioned by the artistic tools of the artist's own culture and by the ways that culture defines and interprets artistic artifacts." ^{1 2} Whether diversionary or not, these performances are conditioned by American cultural influences.

The advantage of this cultural conditioning is that any representation of liberty in the American musical is an authentic engagement because the musical, for the most part, was made for and by Americans. Hence, the potential musical selections and types of freedom explored are as large as the number of musicals created with some influence from American artists and audiences.

The selections I use in this unit are merely examples, carefully chosen to represent particular freedoms of interest. I would encourage any teacher to first gain an understanding of what freedoms are important to his/her students and make selections that compliment their understanding. After all, by engaging with these musicals, students will attribute their own reading of freedom, just as audiences have done since the inception of each show. Thus, shows like Oklahoma! can be seen as both a diversionary experience that takes Americans out of their real lives and into the Old West or a socially observant performance that reveals America's search for a glorious past in a time of war. Perspective is essential. Positive and negative freedom, by definition, are opposing forces, but this does not preclude that a musical cannot explore both. In fact, within the frameworks I establish for my students, I hint that these two freedoms respond to each other: where we might see the representation of freedom from government oppression, we might also view a celebration of the freedom to protest. Perhaps the dual reading of a shared text is the reason why musicals are created: we need a means of articulating social issues and then responding to how we fix these problems.