DAVID SIDORSKY
557
an environment in which the self develops its own given potentialities,
represent constraints on freedom of choice. The third concept of liberty
promotes a more variable sense of the options for individual lifestyles.
The possibility of "dropping out" rather than striving to realize poten–
tial and the option of moving beyond reasoned criticism of the inherited
social institutions in favor of an adversarial stance toward one's own
culture are legitimated . The legitimation of alternative lifestyles seems to
have been taking place at a greater pace in Western society and educa–
tion since the 1960s.
The case for diversity, whether of cultural identification or of
lifestyle, is supported as a requirement of human freedom. Conse–
quently, the constraints which are derived from a historical tradition,
social unity, and cultural standards are judged to be secondary to the
priority of freedom.
According to this analysis, the third concept of liberty serves as a
kind of trumping suit against the alternative views in current disputes
on issues of gender, nationalism, and culture. In light of the significant
role played by the third concept of liberty in contemporary political and
cultural life, the adequacy of this concept merits critical examination.
The perennial challenges to any concept of liberty which are implicit in
the constraints of nature, the irreversibility of history, and the inevitable
need for balance in choosing among competing values merit restatement
and review.
IN MANY
SOCIETIES, THE IDEA OF FREEDOM,
often in association with a
"dream of Reason," has been an instrument that projects a vision of
human liberation from the bonds of nature or the constraints of history.
In general terms, the vision of human liberation has included the claim
that there can be an infinite extension of the natural resources available
to human society and that there can be unlimited progression toward
human perfectibility. Without evaluating such a general thesis of the
scope of human freedom, the more particular thesis of the third concept
of liberty has stressed the possibility of the transformation of human
identity, both of the individual and of the group, despite the seeming
limits of nature or the apparent givens of history. Yet any vision of lib–
eration must confront the recognition of the "eternal verities" and plat–
itudes about the ineradicable facts of nature and the burdens of history.
The recognition of the truths that are embedded in platitudinous expres–
sions about the ways in which nature and history circumscribe human
transformation challenges the application of the third concept of liberty
in any society.
