As I teach high school students across the country in HSLDA’s Generation Joshua programs, I find that many have grown weary of fighting for freedom and for what’s good in the world. Some even doubt the goodness of freedom. I’ve heard practical musings that maybe politeness or security are more important than freedom. I think this is because the conversation in this country is dominated by talk of defeating the “bad guys.”
Because these “bad guys” dominate our focus, few people spend time thinking about what is good, beautiful, and true. Angry people are all over social media. (Or is that just my feed?) And the rest of the media is often just a beat away from angry emotions that tend to divide.
I was working on a political campaign not long ago, and as the election results came in, I noticed two astounding numbers. In the city, 93 percent of people were voting Democrat, and in the countryside just an hour outside the city, more than 92 percent were voting Republican.
So, if you live in the city, or an hour outside the city, and have 50 acquaintances, maybe three or four of them vote differently from you. With these stats, it’s no wonder political discord has spiked to the point where many don’t even know how to talk with people they disagree with.
Many of us have lost relationships with friends or family members because of politics—or we know someone who has. It’s not difficult to find people who think everyone involved in politics is corrupt. And it’s not far-fetched to say we seldom talk deeply with people who vote differently than we do. We seem to be motivated by anger and a desire for the downfall of our enemies.
Where that’s the case, we could learn something from Faramir of The Lord of the Rings. Faramir was a guardian of his homeland’s freedom. He fought monsters and kept evil at bay on the borderlands of his beloved home.
He was not driven by hate for the monsters, however. He was not motivated by the contest. He was not even motivated by his own heroism and the glory of it all. He was motivated by something more.
Something better.
“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory,” Faramir says. “I love only that which they defend.”
Freedom is under siege. It’s plain to see
that it’s not just homeschool freedom that is
being questioned by political and academic
elites, such as Harvard’s Professor Bartholet.1
While it’s tempting to blame elected officials,
political parties, and “they” (whoever “they”
may be), I think the real problem here is that
we have forgotten to love good more than we
hate evil.
Maybe we can get a glimpse of
what freedom is and why it still
matters by talking to the 8-year-old boy who can run through
the woods swinging sticks. To him, freedom
might still mean something more than just
fighting the bad guys—it might be a force
for good.
Maybe we should listen to the homeschool
mom teaching her kids. She might tell us
she’s not motivated by trying to overthrow
bureaucrats, but by love for her children. To
her, freedom might not mean the ability to do
whatever she wants, but the ability to chase
after what is best for her kids.
A dyslexic kid like me, for example, was
able to learn about good and beautiful things
because my mom was free to teach me at home
in ways that took into account my limitations
and gifts. Maybe this is what freedom is all
about: the ability to do good and pursue what
is beautiful, each in our own little ways.
At Generation Joshua, we teach young people
to love freedom. How do we do it? Maybe it is
inspired a little by my “ponderosa pine broadsword” and imaginary heroics.
We teach through simulations. At our
summer camps, we put teens in the roles of
national and international leaders, and we
throw crisis puzzles at them. Then we let
them succeed or fail in these imaginary
worlds. When we are allowed to act and learn
actively, each success and failure teaches a
love of freedom, because they see good and
evil, they see checks and balances, and they
see the results of their actions.
A teen at iGovern East
I’m not saying we need to forget social media
and play in the woods all the time. But maybe
more kids need the freedom that homeschooling offers. I see firsthand the effectiveness of
the freedom offered by the Generation Joshua
camps that I have a blast crafting.
Maybe, after all, Faramir is right, and instead
of focusing only on the enemies in front of us,
we need to focus on the beautiful things we are
defending.
Freedom is about being able to chase the
good, the beautiful, and the true. Let us focus
on those things.
1 J. Michael Smith, “HSLDA Responds: Harvard Professor
Bartholet’s Law Review Article,” HSLDA, May 12, 2020,
https://hslda.org/post/introducing-new-series-hslda-s-response-to-harvard-professor-bartholet.
