Ukraine’s aspirations have their roots much deeper than the modern European family.
Seen in the modern geopolitical context, there is a tendency to view Ukraine’s aspirations for its future as very European or American. Some of its more ardent detractors claim that it has become bedazzled by Western power and in thrall to the West’s political, economic, and military reach. However, that is to get distracted from the much deeper tap root of freedom.
The desire to be free is neither European nor American.
Over two thousand years ago, ancient Greek historian Thucydides recounts the funeral oration of one of his contemporaries, Pericles. Gathered in front of him in the year 431 BCE, was the assembled public of ancient Athens. They were there to pay annual homage to the fathers and sons who had given their lives to fight for Greece. Ancient Greece was then one year into the Peloponnesian War. It was up to Pericles to explain why the loved ones of the deceased should feel proud of the sacrifices they had made against armies and empires of much greater military capacity than ancient Athens. It is worth quoting part of his oration:
‘Let me say that our system of government does not copy the institutions of our neighbors. It is more the case of our being a model to others than of our imitating anyone else. Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty. And, just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-to-day life in our relations with each other. We do not get into a state with our next-door neighbor if he enjoys himself in his own way, nor do we give him the kind of black looks which, though they do no real harm, still hurt people’s feelings. We are free and tolerant in our private lives; but in public affairs we keep to the law. This is because it commands our deep respect.’
Pericles thought freedom was worth fighting for. But what was remarkable about his speech was that for the first time in history, it sought to inspire people to fight not for resources, power, territory or influence, but for an idea – an aspiration to be free. Pericles saw two things about freedom that he thought merited sacrifice on the battlefield. First, the freedom for individuals to decide for themselves what constitutes the good life. Disparaging looks towards others for expressing their own ideas were not the mark of a good society, he thought. But he also understood that freedom was not just a crass demand for self-realization, a foil often used by the enemies of liberty to denounce modern western societies. Freedom was also about respect for the law, provided those laws were constructed by accountable government. The participatory democracy of ancient Athens was a bit of a rabble to be sure, and it was well known to fall prey to demagogues now and then, but Pericles had given voice to the vision of a society run by accountable government where everyone was equal before the law and where people could live their lives without the fear of being treated arbitrarily by the power of the state. It was a new vision of human organization. But more than that, Pericles did not believe that such a society was a utopia; it was achievable and worth fighting for.
It is easy to get fixated by the modern geopolitical world. The U.S. is the most militarily and economically powerful of the modern liberal states. The European Union is an impressive assemblage of culturally diverse states that are also bound together by the common desire to build free societies. Yet it would be entirely wrong to make the historic mistake of thinking that democracy and freedom are therefore something ‘American’ or ‘European’ and that nations who seek to follow these models of government (even improve upon them) are therefore in thrall to these states. Although it is true that from a purely practical point of view, nations that seek to build accountable democratic commercial societies today tend to lean towards these states and their military infrastructure (i.e. NATO) because that is where those values are most forcefully expressed, what they seek is something with a tap root that extends far below these modern historical currents.
It is true to say that the power of the U.S. in particular has meant that, in modern conversation, freedom has in some respects become attached to that vast nation. With it, there is a tendency for nations that seek to show a political or economic independence from the U.S. to rail against ‘freedom’ – even to take sides with other nations that oppose ‘American freedom’. But they have misunderstood the deep history and human yearning for freedom. Freedom is a human concept, not an American or European one.
Kyiv and Edinburgh and the spirit of Enlightenment
The ideas of ancient Greece made their way in a slightly more authoritarian hue into the Roman Republic and then the ideas of liberty went into abeyance across Europe, largely snuffed out by autocratic monarchies. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they were rediscovered in the city states of Italy and there, relatively liberal social orders led to a veritable Athens-like flourishing of science and art, the great works of the Renaissance. But the full vigor of the ideas of freedom would see its modern expression during the period we now call The Enlightenment, which began the great experiments of democracy in the seventeenth century and through to the present day. The word ‘Enlightenment’ is understandably irksome because of course in the last three hundred years, the recrudescence of liberal ideas was also the engine of colonialism and expansion. European powers wreaked human havoc across Africa, India and elsewhere. Although these egregious distortions of human society should not be downplayed, the Enlightenment also saw the rediscovery and development of the ideas of accountable government and human freedoms. One of the countries that was an intellectual powerhouse of political ideas in this time was Scotland.
In 1989, a small group of people from the city in which I live, Edinburgh, travelled to Kyiv. As the Soviet empire fragmented, our two cities became twinned. There were many reasons for this new alliance. Both cities share rich medieval histories. The 11th century Saint-Sophia Cathedral and the many churches and monastic buildings of Kyiv are evocative of Edinburgh’s own churches and ancient buildings. Both cities have UNESCO heritage sites. They are university cities with deep historical roots and a strong intellectual heritage. In Edinburgh, we celebrate our Scottish poet Robert Burns; Kyiv celebrates Taras Shevchenko, just without the haggis.
A man holds a child as he flees the city of Irpin, west of Kyiv, on March 7, 2022. Invading Russian forces pummelled Ukrainian cities from the air, land and sea on that day, with warnings they were preparing for an assault on Kyiv. (Photo by ARIS MESSINIS / AFP)
But beneath the architecture, and leaving poets aside, Edinburgh and Kyiv share fundamentally similar social aspirations. In the eighteenth century, Scotland effloresced with an astonishing collection of political philosophers who in many ways had grasped the baton of freedom from the Renaissance, people who themselves had taken it from the ancient Greco-Roman world. One of the most prominent of these philosophers was Adam Smith. In his now famous book The Wealth of Nations, he explained how the apparently selfish instincts of individuals, when mobilized in a society with proper laws and accountable government, would yield benefits to everyone. His book is regarded as the modern statement of capitalist society. Smith believed that commercial society was a motor for peace. Nations trading freely with each other would generate a multitude of tentacles that would interweave between those nations, making war too costly and destructive to be worthwhile. He was not naïve though; he understood that these commercial instincts must be expressed in a society not directed by a brutal autocrat, but by free and voluntary exchanges between people. He described this as an ‘invisible hand’ working its way in society as these millions of private interactions occurred.
Smith also believed, like Pericles, that freedom in a commercial society is not a crass display of self-realization, merely an individualistic demand for rights and recognition, as he is often misunderstood to have implied in his views on commerce. His book The Theory of Moral Sentiments laid emphasis on the idea of sympathy between humans, our capacity to step outside ourselves and empathize with our fellow human beings and understand our responsibilities to others and the duty to help build the very society that gave us freedom in the first place. Despite being colored as a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist, Smith was in favor of public education and other works to advance the common interests of citizens.
These ideas of the Enlightenment made their way across the Atlantic and found a powerful resonance with a new nation that wanted to throw off the chains of autocracy. Alexander Hamilton, one of the framers of the constitution that would lay out the contours of this nation that would rise to become the dominant power of our modern age, wondered ‘whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force’.
The constitution that the founding fathers of the United States of America wrote, resurrected that idea that Pericles had discovered – that the abstract idea of freedom itself was worth defending, fighting for, and building. Of course, with two thousand years of hindsight and wisdom, the liberal constitutions of our modern age are vastly more complex than the slightly amateurish direct democracy of ancient Athens. Within them are expressed specific freedoms of speech, religion, press, and assembly. Today, in our large nation states that would have been unimaginable to Pericles, the sheer number of people that live within them requires us to adopt more representative modes of democracy and with them ideas such as the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary, and proper shackles on the power of the executive, not least the encouragement and nurturing of credible political opposition.
Charles Cockell is Professor of Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. His book ‘Interplanetary Liberty: Building Free Societies in the Cosmos’ published by Oxford University Press in June 2022, explores idea of liberty beyond Earth.
This Op-Ed reflects the author’s views and not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post.
