Since the 1960s, the term ‘liberation’ has increasingly been used to describe both political movements and the goal they strive for. The fight against colonialism in the developing world was often portrayed as a struggle for ‘national liberation’. The feminist movement was reborn as the women’s liberation movement, and came to embrace the goal of ‘sexual liberation’. Radical priests in Latin America who denounced social inequality and political oppression embraced what they called Liberation Theology. At first sight, liberation merely seems to be a synonym for freedom; after all, to ‘liberate’ means to free or to escape. However, the term is more than just a fashionable slogan. It denotes a particular form of political liberty and a distinctive style of political movement. Liberation implies not merely the removal of constraints upon the individual or even the promotion of individual self-development, but rather the overthrow of what is seen as an all-encompassing system of subjugation and oppression. Liberation marks nothing less than a historic break with the past: the past represents oppression and unfreedom, while the future offers the prospect of complete human satisfaction. The term liberation therefore tends to possess a quasi-religious character in that, whether it refers to an oppressed nation, ethnic group, gender or an entire society, it offers a vision of human life as entirely satisfying and completely fulfilling.
Although liberation movements, which proclaim the possibility of complete emancipation from a pervasive ‘system of exploitation’, are usually regarded as a modern development, the roots of the idea lie in a much older tradition of political millenarianism. Literally, this means a belief in the ‘millennium’, the establishment on earth of a thousand-year ‘Kingdom of God’. Millenarian sects and movements, such as the Diggers of the English Civil War and the Shakers and Mormons of nineteenth-century USA, often espoused political beliefs and values as well as religious doctrines. They sought, in other words, to establish an entirely new system of living. For instance, under the leadership of Gerrard Winstanley the Diggers argued not only for the overthrow of clerical privilege but also for a crude type of communism. Although modern liberation movements may not embrace millenial beliefs, or, with the exception of Liberation Theology, openly endorse religious doctrines, they nevertheless practise a highly moralistic style of politics. Existing society is rejected as fundamen-tally corrupt, and a utopian future is eagerly anticipated. This is why many conservatives and some liberals see liberation politics as positively danger-ous, believing that it turns the rationalist principle of individual freedom into a quasi-mystical doctrine.
National Liberation
Nationalist movements have been in existence since the early nineteenth century. Traditionally, the goal of nationalism has been the establishment of national self-determination, brought about either through unification or by the overthrow of foreign rule. The goal of ‘national liberation’, however, is of more modern origin and reflects the emergence of the new and more radical style of nationalist politics embraced by self-styled ‘liberation fronts’ and linked to the ideas of anticolonialism. For example, in 1954, under the leadership of Ahmed Ben Bella, an Algerian National Liberation Front was founded to fight the French; a Vietnamese National Liberation Front was formed in 1960 by groups opposed, first, to the South Vietnamese Ngo Dinh Diem regime and, subsequently, to US involvement; and 1964 saw the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), an umbrella organization which campaigned against Israel for the formation of a secular Palestinian state. By adopting the goal of national liberation such groups were setting themselves apart from more traditional forms of nationalism, both conservative nationalism, which tended to be insular and backward-looking, and liberal nationalism, which campaigned for the limited goals of independence and national unification. National liberation, by contrast, fused nationalist and socialist goals: ‘liberation’ stood not just for independence but also for full economic and social emancipation. Indeed, the goal of national liberation moved nationalism beyond its traditional political objective – the formation of a nation-state – by holding out the prospect of social revolution, cultural renewal and even psychological regeneration.
National liberation movements typically embraced some form of revolu-tionary socialism, usually Marxism. On the surface, nationalism and Marxism share little in common except mutual antipathy. Marxism, for instance, espouses a form of internationalism, and has usually regarded nationalism as, at best, a deviation from the class struggle, if not as a form of ‘bourgeois ideology’. Nevertheless, Marxism exerted a powerful appeal in the developing world, both because it offered an analysis of oppression and exploitation that helped to make sense of the colonial experience, and because it held out the prospect of fundamental social change. The form of Marxism adopted was usually Marxism-Leninism, Lenin’s unbending commitment to a revolutionary road to socialism coincided with the belief of many Third-World nationalists that colonialism could be overthrown only by a violent uprising, an ‘armed struggle’. Moreover, Lenin had been the first Marxist thinker to draw attention to the economic roots of colonialism. In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism ([1916] 1970) he portrayed imperialism as a form of economic exploitation through which capitalist countries maintained profit levels by exporting capital to the developing world and by gaining the benefits of cheap labour and raw materials. National liberation thus came to mean much more than simply the overthrow of colonial rule: it promised an end to all forms of oppression, colonial, social and economic, and so held out the prospect of full economic and political emancipation.
The idea of national liberation also has an important cultural dimen-sion. Colonial oppression is often thought to operate as much through cultural stereotypes and values as through political control, military power and economic manipulation. Colonialism is so difficult to root out because, in a sense, it has been ‘internalized’; colonized peoples find it difficult to challenge or throw off colonial rule because they have been indoctrinated by a culture of inferiority, passivity and subordination. Such an analysis has been particularly evident within the black liberation movement in the USA and elsewhere. Stokely Carmichael (1968), for example, one of the Black Power leaders of the 1960s, proclaimed that he was fighting in the USA and throughout the Third World a ‘system of international white supremacy coupled with international capitalism’. The root of this system, however, was what Carmichael called ‘cultural imposition’, a process through which the oppressed are encouraged to regard their oppression as natural, inevitable and unchallengeable. The first step to rebelling against this all-pervasive oppression is therefore an ‘inner’ refusal, a form of cultural renewal. As a result, the black nationalist movement has often stressed the need for ‘consciousness raising’ and a rediscovery of pride in its black or Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean roots. Such ideas led the Jamaican political thinker and activist, Marcus Garvey, to found the African Orthodox Church in an effort to inculcate a distinctive black consciousness, and in the 1960s led to the growth of the Black Muslim movement under the leadership of Malcolm X.
The ‘inner’ or psychological dimension of national liberation was emphasized by the Algerian revolutionary and psychiatrist, Franz Fanon. In The Wretched of the Earth (1962), written in the light of the Algerian liberation struggle, Fanon developed a powerful critique of the psychological impact of colonialism. In Fanon’s view, colonialism has created a culture of subordination which renders colonial peoples politi-cally impotent and incapable of rebellion. He argued that the only way to break through this impotence and passivity was through the regenerative experience of violence: only by killing or attacking the colonial master can the slave regain a sense of pride, power and purpose. In this way, therefore, ‘national liberation’ ultimately proclaims the need for a revolution of the human psyche.
Sexual Liberation
As with nationalist movements, the feminist or women’s movement first emerged in the nineteenth century. During that period and for the early part of the twentieth century it was principally concerned with liberal values such as equal rights and with the goal of political emancipation, in particular, the quest for female suffrage. This is usually referred to as ‘first-wave’ feminism. During the 1960s, however, a more radical and militant wing of the feminist movement emerged, styling itself the women’s liberation movement. In one sense, the idea of ‘women’s liberation’ came to stand broadly for any action that would improve the social role of women. However, at the same time the use of the term ‘liberation’ indicated a more radical, even revolutionary, analysis of female oppression, and the development of a new style of politics. It is these radical theories that have given modern or ‘second-wave’ feminism its distinctive character.
Radical feminists differ from their predecessors in believing that women are not merely disadvantaged by a lack of rights or opportunities, or by economic inequality, but are confronted by a system of sexist oppression which pervades every aspect of life, political, economic, social, personal and sexual. This system of oppression is often described as ‘patriarchy’, literally the ‘rule of the father’ but is usually taken to describe the dominance of men and subordination of women in society at large. For radical feminists such as Kate Millett, patriarchy has been a social constant; it is found in all societies, contemporary and historical. Moreover, patriarchy is the most pervasive and fundamental form of political oppression, gender inequality running deeper than class exploita-tion, racial discrimination and so forth. To call for ‘women’s liberation’ is therefore to demand not just political reform but a social, cultural and personal revolution: the overthrow of patriarchy.
Radical feminists have emphasized the degree to which patriarchy is rooted in a process of cultural domination. In Patriarchal Attitudes ([1970] 1987), Eva Figes drew attention to the prevalence of patriarchal values and beliefs in modern culture, philosophy, morality and religion. Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics ([1970] 1990) highlights the sexist character, even misogyny, of much modern literature, and analyses the process of ‘conditioning’ through which from a very early age boys and girls are encouraged to conform to very specific gender identities. In Millett’s view, male domination is reproduced in each generation by the family, ‘patri-archy’s chief institution’, which systematically prepares boys for the role of domination and accustoms girls to accepting subordination. This is why modern feminists insist that ‘the personal is the political’. At the very least, the goal of liberation means a re-examination of traditional family roles and a redistribution of domestic and child-rearing responsibilities. For some radical feminists, it may require the outright abolition of the family and a wholesale social revolution. This revolution, however, seeks to address not merely economic, social and political issues but also opens up the prospect of personal development and, above all, sexual fulfilment.
The idea of ‘sexual liberation’ has developed out of the writings of the Austrian psychiatrist and founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Freud’s writings were noted amongst other things for the stress he placed upon the role of sexuality or what he came to call the ‘pleasure principle’. In his view, the desire for sexual gratification was the most powerful of all human drives, other activities like work, sport and intellectual enquiry being the result of sublimated sexual energy. For Freud himself, sublimation was the very foundation of an ordered and civilised society: without it human beings would simply embark upon unrestrained sexual fulfilment, leaving all other considerations to one side. Later thinkers, however, drew more radical conclusions from Freud’s work.
One of Freud’s pupils, Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957), invented the term ‘sexual politics’ to describe what he believed to be a struggle within society between freedom and authority. Reich argued that by misdirecting sexual energy, in his view the life-force itself, the authoritarian structures that pervade modern society had created psychic damage and personal un-happiness. In The Function of the Orgasm ([1948] 1973), Reich went on to advocate unrestricted sexual freedom, and towards the end of his life he claimed to have invented a device that could capture and accumulate the sexual life-force, called ‘orgone’, from the environment. The idea of sexual liberation was further advanced by Herbert Marcuse. Marcuse’s Eros and Civilisation ([1955] 1969) developed a scathing attack on contemporary society by, in effect, turning Freudianism on its head. In Marcuse’s view, modern industrial society is characterised by ‘sexual repression’, brought about not by the need for social order but by capitalism’s desire for a disciplined and obedient workforce. Marcuse argued that there was a biological basis for socialism in the form of the need to liberate the sexual or libidinal instinct from repressive capitalism. Ultimately, sexual liberation would involve the re-sexualization of the whole body and the rediscovery of what Freud had called ‘polymorphous perversity’.
Such ideas have had considerable impact upon those sections of the women’s movement that see patriarchy as an all-encompassing system of female subordination. Patriarchy, in other words, is reflected not merely in the social and political subjection of women but also in their sexual repression. In The Female Eunuch ([1970] 1985), Germaine Greer sug-gested that male domination had had a devastating effect upon the personal quality of women’s lives. Women had effectively been ‘castrated’ by the cultural myth of the ‘eternal feminine’, which demanded that they be passive, submissive and asexual creatures. As a result, women’s liberation would be marked by personal and sexual emancipation in that they would for the first time be able to seek gratification as active and autonomous human beings. Similar ideas have also been developed by the gay and lesbian movement. Radical lesbians, for instance, have sometimes pointed out what in their view are the inadequacies of heterosexual relationships. They argue that heterosexual sex is implicitly oppressive because penetration is a symbol of male domination. The nature of women’s sexuality has also been the subject of analysis and debate. For example, in her essay ‘The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm’ (1973), Anne Koedt took issue with Freud’s notion that only through intercourse could women experience a ‘mature’ orgasm, highlighting instead the importance of the clitoris in the achievement of female sexual fulfilment.
Politics of Liberation
In the 1960s, ‘liberation’ was a demand made not only on behalf of specific groups – colonial peoples, women, gays and lesbians – but also in relation to the entire society. The quest for liberation was the rallying cry of a broad collection of groups broadly classified as the New Left. Although the New Left lacked theoretical and organisational coherence, embracing movements as diverse as feminism, environmentalism, student activism and anti-Vietnam War protest, it was distinguished by its rejection of both ‘old left’ alternatives on offer. Soviet-style state socialism in Eastern Europe was regarded as authoritarian and oppressive; Western social democracy was thought to be hopelessly compromised, lacking both vision and principles. By contrast, the New Left adopted a radical style of political activism which extolled the virtues of popular participation and direct action. The revolutionary character of this new political style was clearly revealed by the events of May 1968 in France, the month-long rebellion by students and young workers.
Many in the New Left were attracted by the revolutionary character of Marxist thought, but strove to remodel and revise it to make it applicable to advanced industrial societies that had achieved a high level of material affluence. Whereas orthodox Marxists had developed an economic critique of capitalism, emphasising the importance of exploitation, economic inequality and class war, the New Left, influenced by critical theory and anarchist ideas, underlined the way in which capitalism had produced a system of ideological and cultural domination. The enemy was therefore no longer simply the class system or a repressive state but rather ‘the system’, an all-encompassing process of repression that operated through the family, the educational system, conventional culture, work, politics and so on. In this context, ‘political liberation’ came to mean nothing less than a negation of the existing society, a radical break or, as Marcuse described it, a ‘leap into the realm of freedom – a total rupture’. Once again, ‘liberation’ held out the prospect of cultural, personal and psycho-logical revolution and not merely political change; at the same time it created the image of a fully satisfying and personally fulfilling society of the future.
Herbert Marcuse was probably the most influential thinker within the New Left. Not only did Marcuse develop a biological critique of capitalism in terms of sexual repression, but he also tried to explain how conventional society had effectively contained criticism and questioning. In One-Dimensional Man (1964) he argued that, far from being tolerant and democratic, advanced industrial civilization had a totalitarian character. The capacity of advanced capitalism to ‘deliver the goods’ through relentless technological progress had turned human beings into unques-tioning and unthinking consumers, creating a ‘society without opposition’. For Marcuse, ‘liberation’ meant liberation from the ‘comfortable servi-tude’ of affluent society, not through a retreat into a kind of inner-worldly aestheticism but through the rediscovery of ‘genuine’ human needs and satisfactions. Marcuse was also scathing about the liberal-democratic freedoms enjoyed in Western societies. In his view, the battery of individual rights and liberties of which liberal societies are so proud amount to nothing more than ‘repressive tolerance’. By giving the impression of choice and individual freedom without offering human beings the prospect of genuine fulfilment, Western societies merely create a seductive and compelling form of oppression.
If conventional society is regarded as a repressive ‘system’, liberation from it requires the creation of an entirely new culture and an alternative lifestyle, a ‘counter culture’. One of the distinctive features of the New Left was a willingness to endorse and support cultural and social movements which fundamentally rejected ‘repressive technocratic society’. This was evident in the emergence of radical feminism and in the growth of ecologism. In the same way, there was greater interest in non-Western societies and values. In some cases this was linked to support for national liberation struggles in the developing world; in other cases it led to interest in Eastern mysticism in the form of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Zen. Similarly, a more sympathetic attitude was adopted to the use of so-called ‘consciousness-expanding’ drugs, endorsed by writers such as Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) and Timothy Leary. Within the counter-culture of the 1960s an openly permissive ethic reigned, distin-guishing it from the liberal tolerance that prevailed in conventional society. Although such movements were primarily social, cultural or even religious in character, many in the New Left nevertheless regarded them as intensely ‘political’ in that they constituted a form of resistance to an essentially repressive civilization. In that way, counter-cultural views and movements provided the basis for the liberated society of the future.
As with other forms of liberation, political liberation had an important psychological dimension. This was most clearly addressed in the work of psychiatrists such as R.D. Laing (1927–89) and David Cooper, who styled their work ‘anti-psychiatry’. Particularly influential in the 1960s and early 1970s, they were interested in challenging the conventional understanding of mental illness. In their view, it was society rather than the individual that was ‘insane’, in that social, personal and sexual repression had come to be regarded as ‘normal’. People who were classified as ‘mentally ill’ were not, they argued, insane, but were rather simply people who still struggled to hang on to their sanity in an insane world. In that light, conventional psychiatry, concerned as it is with ‘curing’ mental illness and preparing the sick for a return to conventional society, can be seen as being positively oppressive. In the view of anti-psychiatrists such as David Cooper (1967), the family lay at the heart of this system of repression in that it enforces conformity and obedience on children, thus preparing them for the demands of an insane world. From the perspective of anti-psychiatry, ‘liberation’ means the establishment of personal autonomy, a goal that can only be achieved when the family, together with the other institutions of conventional society, are finally abolished.
Summary
1 In its simplest sense, freedom means the absence of constraints or restric-tions. Few, however, believe that freedom should be absolute; they recognise the distinction between liberty and licence. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether liberty becomes licence when rights are abused, when harm is done to others or when freedom is unequally shared out.
2 Although a formal or neutral definition of freedom is possible, negative and positive conceptions of freedom have commonly been advanced. Negative freedom means non-interference, the absence of external constraints, usually understood to mean law or some kind of physical constraint. Positive freedom is conceived variously as autonomy or self-mastery, as personal
self-development and as some form of moral or ‘inner’ freedom.
3 Toleration refers to forbearance, the willingness to put up with actions or opinions with which we disagree. It can be defended on grounds of privacy, personal development and in the belief that it will promote progress and social harmony. Limits may, however, be placed on tolerance when it threatens social cohesion, the security of particular groups or provides a platform for political extremism.
4 Liberation constitutes a radical notion of freedom: the overthrow of an all-encompassing system of oppression, offering the prospect of complete human satisfaction. In the twentieth century, liberation movements have fought against colonial rule, against sexual and racial oppression, and against the pervasive manipulation that supposedly exists in advanced industrial societies.
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