Liberty or Freedom??

 

 

As I have gradually increasing interest in American Studies, I borrowed a book from the library: We the People. It is a concise introduction textbook to American Politics. The author is a professor of Harvard University. I studied that the American's core values include the following: Liberty, Equality and Self-Government.

When I came to this "Liberty", I found out the definition is "the belief or principle that individuals should be free to act and think as they choose, provided they do not infringe unreasonably on the freedom and well-being of others". I thought about that for a while. It is absolutely true that in China, many young people pursue American-styled liberty. In their opinions, the American-styled liberty is a kind of absolute liberty. From this textbook that has been used by hundreds of colleges and universities in America, we can see this American-styled liberty still defines on the premise of "do not infringe unreasonably on the freedom and well-being of others". （美国式自由其实也并非绝对的自由，仍然建立在不毫无理由地侵犯别人的自由和安康的前提之上。）

Here, I would like to say something about liberty and freedom. In Chinese, they both mean 自由. But just consult any dictionary, you will find out that Liberty is a kind of freedom, "freedom to live as you choose without too many restrictions from government or authority" is the definition in OALD. 因此，liberty一词应该指“几乎不受政府限制的自由”。但是，正如我刚才在前面一段所说的，这种liberty虽然几乎不受政府限制，但是也并非绝对的自由，而是一种相对的自由，一种比较不受限的相对自由。Secondly, look up for the Chinese meaning of the word Freedom in an OALD, you will find “（指权利）自由”.

因此，我们就不难理解，Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 他所追求的是黑人的权利自由，因而他用freedom一词，并非像Patrick Henry在美国独立前那样喊出的发自内心的号角："Give me Liberty, or Give me Death（不自由，毋宁死）."