Freedom vs. Order

“It is still impossible for man to organize his social life without repressions, and the balance has yet to be struck between order and freedom” - Arthur Miller. The argument of order vs. Freedom has been a debate for many centuries. The conflict is that society needs to have order so that it can run smoothly, but at the same time there needs to be freedom or else everything will completely fall apart. The freedom of citizens of the society is important because if there is too much order then everyone will debate whether or not the government is running more of a monarchy vs. a democratic society where every has a say in everything political, social, educational, etc. However if you let the society have total freedom over order then they could take it to their advantage and become greedy and not see eye to eye on certain things with other people.

If one was to put order over freedom then you are putting everyone under the rule of a certain group of people. They will have no rights at all. Their words would be as useless to argue their opposition. For example, in The Crucible, a lot of innocent people were convicted as witches in the court. Their words and statements were worthless and there was no hope of them. The court took the power of order to a level that was not necessary at all. In the Salem witch trials of 1693, a total of 22 people were executed and another 165 were accused. A majority of those accused and executed were middle-aged women. There was no freedom during the Salem Witch trials and without freedom in a society, there is an obscene amount of order that will destroy a society.

Too much freedom can also destroy a society as equally as lack of freedom. In recent news, there has been a lot of articles about home we are giving too much freedom to police officers. Racial profiling between police officers and certain races has treated total pandemonium. Police have killed over 1,037 people just this year. One of the most controversial incidents involving the killing of an unarmed civilian was the Ferguson case. Many debates revolving the case led many people to question whether if we give law enforcement too much freedom.

The debate over freedom vs. order will continue for a long time and there seems to be no hope for a resolution anytime soon. In our society we should think about what Arthur Miller stated because there has to be a balance in order to have peace.