Liberty Reflected Within My Methodology
My personal methodology of writing: I do not write as a detached observer, but from lived experience, engaging philosophy, psychology, history, and theology as conversation partners. Each voice is tested in the light of Christ — not to dismiss others, but to discern what truth each carries. These essays are invitations, not demands. My hope is not your agreement, but your presence. Sit at the table with me. Bring your questions, your convictions, and your doubts. I will bring mine. Together, let us pursue truth with honesty, humility, and the courage to be changed by what we discover together.
My journey into understanding liberty did not begin in a quiet library, but in the friction of constrained reality — from the strange isolation of Rotorua to the stark physical limits of a prison cell. In those spaces, I discovered that true liberty requires us to embrace a paradox. It demands that we let contradictory philosophies meet within us: Mill’s political boundaries, Sartre’s radical self‑creation, Frankl’s internal sovereignty, and Nietzsche’s critique of the herd. To hold these ideas simultaneously is not an act of intellectual confusion, but the very exercise of freedom itself. The individual is the arena where competing truths collide. By engaging with thinkers whose ultimate conclusions we may reject, we learn to recognise shared human anxieties, respect our opponents, and yet stand firm in our own embodied truth — a freedom that no external authority can grant or take away. Ultimately this article seeks to exemplify this very idea: to demonstrate embodied liberty by bringing together perspectives that rarely sit side‑by‑side — and letting them speak to one another about the depth of human existence, and the truths each carries.
As Proverbs says: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17) So too can opposition sharpen and enhance our understanding without requiring us to buy into an entire perspective.
The profound strangeness of those days in Rotorua, coupled with the personal constraints I was navigating, illuminated the importance of liberty in a way abstract thought never could. It became acutely apparent not just that liberty is valuable, but that it is a fundamental human need. More than that, it revealed the equally fundamental imperative for any healthy society to continually challenge that which constrains liberty — whether it be a virus, a government, or the opinions of the majority.
It is precisely this deep‑seated human need for liberty that John Stuart Mill so eloquently articulated in On Liberty. Mill begins with the most foundational question: “the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.”
At its core, Mill defines liberty as protection against the tyranny of the political rulers. For centuries, he notes, “by liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers” — against those who held authority by inheritance or conquest, not by consent. Later it was supposed that if rulers were identified with the people, such limits might no longer be needed. But Mill saw deeper: even the will of the majority, even prevailing opinion, can become a tyranny. And so he laid down the principle that remains the bedrock of liberal thought:
“The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self‑protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”
He adds that accountability extends also to inaction: “A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”
This principle — that interference is justified only to prevent harm to others — is a powerful safeguard. It suggests society should not dictate how individuals live, think, or believe, unless those actions directly and demonstrably harm others. This is not licence; it is the necessary space for individual growth, for the exploration of ideas, and for the very formation of character.
Fear, Consensus, and the Erosion of Questioning
This space, this fundamental liberty, was brought into sharp relief in recent years. The COVID‑19 pandemic forced the whole world to reconsider what liberty means. Debates about public health measures will continue for decades. But my deepest concern lies elsewhere: how fear can reshape the boundaries of what a society believes it can question.
Fear is a powerful force. It narrows vision, makes uncertainty intolerable, and turns genuine disagreement into suspicion. Mill understood that liberty requires space for questioning, because truth is discovered through testing and even disagreement. And when fear dominates, even science can risk becoming less a search for truth and more a defence of consensus.
The Great Barrington Declaration stands as one illustration of this. Three scientists offered an alternative framework — focused protection rather than universal lockdown — and found themselves marginalised amid intense scientific, political, and public disagreement. Whatever one concludes about their proposal, their experience raises a difficult question about how quickly dissent can become disloyalty when fear and consensus take hold.
This phenomenon — the erosion of liberty through fear‑driven collective action — is not new. Thinkers throughout history have grappled with how fear can compel individuals to submit to authority, often at the expense of their own critical faculties and freedom. Gustave Le Bon described how crowds are easily swayed by emotion, particularly fear, leading to irrationality and suggestibility. Friedrich Nietzsche, in his critique of the “herd,” pointed to how fear of isolation and a desire for conformity can drive individuals to embrace the will of the majority, often at the cost of their own will to power and individual expression. Søren Kierkegaard explored existential dread — the anxiety of freedom — and how people might seek refuge from this burden by submitting to external structures and authorities that promise certainty. Even Martin Heidegger’s concept of “Das Man” speaks to how fear of standing out leads us to conform to anonymous societal norms.
And this same dynamic extends into the very platforms where public discourse now lives: social media. Governments approached these platforms with threats of legal consequence, demanding they align with officially sanctioned narratives. It became clear that social media was at risk of becoming an arm of state authority — a space where speech is permitted only if it fits the approved view. In my own personal opinion, had it not been for Elon Musk’s intervention with Twitter, now X, and his stated commitment to free expression, the landscape of public discussion might have been almost entirely constrained. I do not endorse everything he has done; I simply observe that without that intervention, the ability to question, to dissent, and to speak freely would have suffered a blow from which it may not have recovered.
Existentialism and the Demand for Liberty
Having traced these patterns, we turn to a philosophical tradition that places the individual’s freedom and responsibility at its very core: Existentialism. While Mill provides the political boundaries for liberty, existentialism delves into its profound, often unsettling, lived reality.
At its heart, existentialism posits that existence precedes essence. We are not born with a predetermined purpose or nature. We are thrown into existence, and it is through our choices, our actions, and our freedom that we define ourselves. We are, as Jean‑Paul Sartre put it, “condemned to be free.” This freedom is not a gift, but a fundamental condition of our being — one that carries radical responsibility.
This existential freedom is the bedrock upon which the demand for liberty is built.
- For the individual: To be truly existential is to embrace the burden and the glory of self‑creation. It means acknowledging that our choices matter, that we are the authors of our own lives. This requires the liberty to think for oneself, to choose one’s path, to express one’s authentic self, and to live according to one’s own conscience — without undue external coercion.
- For the collective: If each person is radically free and responsible for creating their own meaning, then a just society must allow for this self‑creation. A collective that seeks to impose a single prescribed way of life is denying the existential reality of its members. True liberty is therefore not just a political right — it is a condition for human flourishing.
The ultimate symbol of this individual existential stand might be that lone figure in Tiananmen Square. I remember seeing the news images as a young man: a single individual, holding grocery bags, standing before an advancing column of tanks. Iron, metal, guns, cannons — capable of crushing him like dust. Yet he did not move. In that silence, he declared: I am not merely an object to be moved or destroyed. He asserted his existence — his freedom to choose his stance — even in the face of annihilation.
The Liberty That Cannot Be Taken
It was in prison that I came to understand something deeper still. When external freedoms are stripped away — when movement, association, voice, and choice are all controlled — one discovers that the deepest liberty cannot simply be granted or revoked by the state. It is something embodied.
Faced with the stark reality of a cell, I realised I could choose to see it not as a prison, but as my university, my centre of learning, my place of reflection. I would tease Mike, one of the other prisoners, by calling it my chalet. He said, “This isn’t your bloody chalet, Malcolm!” and I’d reply, “It’s what I choose it to be.”
It was then that I truly understood Viktor Frankl’s wisdom within my own experience: I choose how I see something, and in that choice, I define how I live out my reality. Even when every external constraint is imposed, the inner liberty to choose one’s attitude, one’s meaning, and one’s stance remains intact. This is the ultimate liberty — the one that no authority, no fear, no crisis can fully take away.
“As to the last, man’s freedom of choice concerns the freedom to choose not only one’s own way of living, but even one’s own way of dying.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning
Freedom is given, but it is not passive. Its corresponding quality within us is creativity, and through creativity it becomes embodied in the way we live. What we are given as freedom becomes visible through what we create, how we choose, how we relate, and ultimately how we inhabit our existence.
Conclusion: Liberty as Embodied Truth
Bringing it all together, a clear understanding emerges: liberty is not merely a legal construct or a passive right to be defended only when threatened. It is something far more fundamental.
- Liberty is a human necessity, not just a political benefit. It is the very ground of self‑determination and meaning‑making.
- Fear is liberty’s oldest enemy. It turns people toward authority, away from questioning, and into the safety of the herd.
- The deepest liberty is internal. It survives when all else is taken — the freedom to choose one’s response, one’s meaning, and one’s integrity.
- Liberty is asserted, not given. Laws may protect its expression, but they cannot create it. True liberty rises from the individual who claims it, lives it, and embodies it.
For me, this means liberty is not something we wait for permission to exercise. If you desire liberty, you must first take it as a fundamental part of your authentic self, and then create how that liberty is expressed in the way you embody your truth, your character, and the way you live your life in front of the world.
For me personally, this finds its deepest fulfilment in Christian existentialism. To be a “new creation” in Christ is not to be constrained, but to be liberated — liberated from every false lordship, every false authority, every demand to conform that is not of God. It means existing authentically before Him.
And because I am free in Him, I am called to extend that same freedom to others. I am free to live and believe as I do — but I must also grant you the freedom to say, “That’s cool for you, Malcolm, but not for me.” True liberty is not imposed; it is honoured. It is not only individual; it is relational. And it is in this mutual respect for the authentic self, standing before God in one’s own chosen way, that the true spirit of liberty resides.
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