Generation Z Artists

Chapter 269 American Freedom
Because my scumbag father so longed for American freedom, the freedom of America, from the first day I arrived in America, I frantically read all sorts of articles and historical materials, trying to truly understand this kind of freedom.

Did I succeed?
I did it.

You don't have to believe my wild claims, but you will be amazed by my discoveries.

The following is class time.

American freedom is a unique historical product, unlike any other kind of freedom. It is inherently imbued with a strong frontier spirit and extreme individualism.

As we all know, the United States is a nation of immigrants, not only now, but since before its founding.

When the first ship carrying British colonists landed at the mouth of the James River in Virginia, the era of the "Great Expedition," as officially defined by the United States, began in earnest.

In the embellished language of modern scholars, they were a group of "extremely adventurous" explorers.

They are born with a thirst for adventure and a yearning for freedom, using their individual or small group strength to confront the vast unknown.

The New World was so unfamiliar and mysterious. They harbored a desire for wealth and a better life, and relied on their own courage, wisdom and strength to create a new life. Success belonged to them, and failure was also their own responsibility.

This shaped America's original cultural DNA: the self-made man, who valued individual effort and starting from scratch, and was deeply wary of government power.

Therefore, while reviewing the Bill of Rights, I discovered a very interesting feature—

Most of its provisions are written in the negative form of "Congress shall make no law," clearly delineating a sacred domain for individuals that the government has no right to intrude upon.

Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of gun ownership all stem from this.

Before the United States, no other country in the world had a bill of rights composed of negative and restrictive sentences, which is enough to show that American liberty was already at the core of its culture in the early days of the nation's founding.

So what is the essence of this freedom?
Negative liberty and individualism.

Americans are most accustomed to emphasizing "freedom from".

This means that the less coercion and intervention by the government or other external forces in an individual's actions, the better, and the pursuit of the individual's ultimate autonomy, self-determination, and self-sufficiency.

This is completely different from British freedom, completely different from French freedom, and different from all other philosophies of freedom in the world.

Because this is a nation founded by "explorers".

When they began their exploration, they had already decided to unleash their full potential and freely destroy everything in their path.

This blend of romantic freedom and brutality was vividly displayed during the Western Development Strategy.

Those Western movies that you consider classics are all full of praise and celebration of extreme individualism, but they are essentially a bloody and tearful road paved with human lives.

But this is the price of freedom.

As long as I don't pay for it, it will always be worth it.

The two sentences above are not my own feelings, but rather taken from two classic American movies. I absolutely love those two movies; they are monuments on every level.

Similarly, I absolutely adore people who dare to speak the truth, whether it's good or bad.

For example, the famous journalist John O'Sullivan.

I was very fortunate to read his original manuscript, which best embodies American freedom, at the National Museum of America.

That was an article published by O'Sullivan in 1845. It incorporated many popular ideas in the United States at the time, put forward a completely new approach, and truly refined and sublimated American freedom.

With a timeless quote, O'Sullivan sparked a movement of thought about the coexistence of light and darkness.

The original quote is: "Our sovereignty over Oregon is divinely ordained."

Manifest Destiny.

The will of Heaven is clear.

Mr. Turan must have disliked his own country's history very much. He criticized my concept of destiny in "Hero" as "deliberate mystification." But in fact, the United States was extremely convinced of destiny in its early days and incorporated all the ideas that could be incorporated.

For example, the early Puritans, led by the Mayflower, considered themselves "people on the hill," the new Israelites chosen by God, who would establish a heavenly kingdom on earth in the new world.

This sense of being "God's chosen people" imbues expansion with a sacred aura—expansion is not only a necessity for survival, but also a fulfillment of a mission bestowed upon us by God.

Another group of Anglo-Saxon immigrants firmly believed in the theory of racial superiority.

The Anssa people, then and now, have always believed that their civilization (Protestantism, democracy, capitalism) is the most advanced and that they have the responsibility and the right to replace "inferior" civilizations.

Therefore, they plundered and expelled indigenous people without any psychological burden, and vigorously suppressed Mexican Catholicism. Their brutal expansion was packaged as a noble act of "expanding the territory of freedom".

Taking land from the “authoritarian” Mexican government or the “uncivilized” Native American tribes and incorporating it into the United States of America would bring freedom, the rule of law, and civilization to those lands.

This was the first time freedom was linked with external expansion and aggression—a brilliant innovation.

Furthermore, many American scholars still believe that this is the core of justice in American-style freedom.

This Mandate of Heaven movement profoundly altered American history and the present state of affairs, including but not limited to—

Using "destiny" as a pretext, they annexed Texas;
Oregon's territorial dispute;
The Mexican-American War resulted in the annexation of territories including present-day California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, laying the foundation for the current borders of the United States.
Throughout the 19th century, millions of American immigrants migrated westward under the call of "destiny."

What do you call this behavior?
Exploration, pioneering, the Western Development Strategy, the Westward Expedition, a great epic...

But looking back at your actions from today's perspective, it was clearly a systematic massacre and expulsion of indigenous people.

Today, Native Americans are still isolated in reservations, and they do not enjoy the freedom you enjoy.

A conscientious modern American scholar summarized it this way: what caused all of this was real material interests.

The eastern region is experiencing population growth and needs new land.
Farmers crave fertile farmland;

Miners are chasing gold;

Merchants sought new markets and ports;
At the same time, excluding European powers (such as Britain and France) from the North American continent to ensure the security of the United States was also an important motivation.

"The Mandate of Heaven is clear" is merely an idealistic cloak draped over these practical interests.

Wrapped in this magnificent robe, justice triumphed as it deserved, and evil was driven back to the Earth's core, where there is no hell, but a place far more terrifying than hell.

So why did Mr. Turan and others stop believing in destiny?
Because robbers who have laundered their money are very reluctant to mention their bloody and cruel first pot of gold, they erase the traces of original sin on a social level and turn around to embrace new freedom.

In public high school history books, in non-Ivy League college classrooms, in most public and private settings, and in the mouths of talkative hosts, you can't feel the slightest trace of that intellectual movement; it's as if it never existed.

Yet it exists in every cultural work at all times: Forrest Gump, Spider-Man, The Matrix, Current Affairs, Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches...

I must admit that many of America's forefathers, through arduous struggles, imbued the existing American freedom with a vibrant and dynamic brilliance.

The evolution of American freedom is a fascinating and dramatic story.

Initially, it was constitutionalism and the rule of law that constrained freedom from acting arbitrarily, thus giving rise to the separation of powers, which in theory can ultimately protect against the "tyranny of the majority." Of course, I have serious doubts about how effective it will remain and how many years it will last.

This is not mere conjecture; you have personally experienced it repeatedly.

Unrestrained free capitalism led to huge wealth inequality, monopolies, and social injustice. Pure "negative freedom" could not cope with the complex problems of industrialized society, thus giving rise to the Great Depression that nearly destroyed the American underclass.

Therefore, Theodore Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" and Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" introduced the dimension of "positive liberty," and the entire American liberty began to transform.

In other words, the government has a responsibility to intervene to ensure the "conditions" for everyone to achieve freedom.

Freedom is shifting from "freedom from interference" to "the ability to achieve a certain lifestyle".

From that point on, the American Dream became a new symbolic language.

It was shaped as an ideological weapon in opposition to Soviet communist authoritarianism, highly simplified, and promoted globally through cultural, economic, and military means, becoming the core of American soft power.

My foolish and selfish father, having blindly believed in the paradise depicted in the American Dream, became a complete believer in American freedom.

However, he doesn't understand that even in your own country, the United States, positive liberalism is still just a flash in the pan.

Capitalists were unwilling to be bound by the reins, so the idealists who were supposed to go to hell went to hell, and Li Genism came to power. His famous saying still resonates today: "Government itself is the problem."

He reiterated the need for tax cuts, deregulation, and reduced national welfare to loosen the reins on capitalist groups.

The classic concepts of "economic freedom" and "personal responsibility" have once again become the mainstream discourse, and the last wave of freedom is surging in.

This time, it's neoliberalism that's running rampant.

It is more absurd, selfish, domineering, and barbaric than the passive freedom of the early days of the People's Republic of China.

Internally, it does everything in its power to expand its boundaries, demanding individual freedom at all levels and in all areas.

Externally, it selectively exports its power, unilaterally emphasizing "market freedom" and "political freedom," colluding with the elite groups of various countries to seize economic benefits while actively destroying the widespread freedoms of the people in other countries.

The combined effects of hegemonic interventionism and cultural imperialism not only frequently lead to regional chaos, but also result in global cultural homogenization and a spiritual crisis.

This is your new American version of liberalism.

Internal greed and double standards towards foreigners make the beautiful word "freedom" seem particularly hypocritical.

I even think this is a problem of cultural genes; your American-style freedom has been rotten to the core from the very beginning.

Who can still recite the Declaration of Independence?

How absurd and ridiculous it is that a country that declared independence with the slogans of "all men are created equal" and "freedom" retained slavery at the time of its founding!

From beginning to end, you only guaranteed freedom to white men with property.

He was free to choose whether to shoot a runaway Black slave or chase after him on horseback and lash him with a whip, and from this arose the freedom to bear arms; with another snap, all sorts of perverse hobbies arose...

Well, I probably prefer firearms to a whip, because they are violent enough and don't require such deep and painstaking thinking.

Have you found the reason why guns are so rampant in the United States?
It doesn't matter if we don't understand it yet; at least we've found the root cause of the hypocrisy and double standards of American freedom.

The first and most profound rift in American freedom was already torn apart before the founding of the nation by the extreme pursuit of freedom and the extreme deprivation of freedom.

This leads to a new, more fundamental question.

In other words: Who deserves freedom?

And... what kind of people can have what degree of freedom?

I love America, from the bottom of my heart.

Because I am the kind of person who is most entitled to the greatest freedom.

I dislike American-style freedom, and that comes from the bottom of my heart.

My pride does not allow me to use this kind of hegemony in the name of "freedom" to bully the weak; it would not make me happy. Therefore, I only question Mr. Turan, who is also a writer, and Peter, who is also a director, and never make things difficult for the staff who provide me with services for a meager salary.

At the same time, I also know clearly who loves American freedom the most, who fervently embraces it, and who devoutly defends it.

Don't make wild guesses. It's not that those capitalists who have been using these powers implicitly for a long time are the ones who actually advocate for something.

It is precisely those marginalized people who do not yet possess freedom and power, who have not obtained the ticket to the top, yet are fantasizing about the view from the top.

What they crave is not freedom itself, but an unrestrained and uncontrolled release of desires—to do whatever they want, to shoot those who try to escape them, to whip female celebrities with salt-soaked leather whips…

The common people feared his brutal rule, while the media praised his benevolence and kindness. Light and darkness intertwined in one man, a colorful veil bestowed upon him by power.

The hypocritical and double-standard American freedom is best at alienating people into animals.

Pigs, dogs, cattle, sheep, tigers, and wolves—which one are you?
That's not important.

If you believe you are free, then you have won.

(To be continued)
The section on "American Freedom" tears open a veil of American freedom.

In fact, this part of the article, or even the preceding section on "Chinese consciousness," did not generate much of a sensational impact on the whole society.

Because very few people can understand it.

Hmm, at most one-fifth?

However, among all the social classes or groups that can understand it, the chapter on "American Freedom" is truly too shocking, with a sense of judgment that is extremely concise, extremely sharp, and extremely cold.

It is not the truth; it is a butcher's knife.

Many people refused to acknowledge Fang Xinghe's correctness, but they were left speechless, their hearts pounding, their hands and feet turning cold, and they were filled with rage and helplessness by this blow.

For a moment, the cultural elite fell into an unspeakable silence, a complete suffocation.

They weren't subdued by the insults; they just didn't dare to get involved themselves.

Fear is spreading wildly among the true cultural elite.

Meanwhile, those ignorant and fearless clowns became even more rampant, jumping around and turning an article that most people couldn't understand into a major scandal of the year.

Things are getting more and more interesting, and the article's influence is rapidly spreading globally.

*********
I can never finish writing. Writing articles isn't tiring, but getting stuck on the line is.

(End of this chapter)