Isaiah Berlin vs. Chilean gold miners: What we talk about when we talk about liberty

In his excellent, timeless and eminently readable 1958 essay “Two Concepts of Liberty” (find it online here), the late political theorist Isaiah Berlin offered striking definitions of “liberty” and discussed how this often-abused term gets applied to all kinds of things, many of which have nothing to do with (political) liberty. Among them is a form of social withdrawal or asceticism Berlin called “the retreat to the inner citadel”. Berlin explains:

I wish to be master of my kingdom, but my frontiers are long and vulnerable, therefore I contract them in order to reduce or eliminate the vulnerable area. (…) I have withdrawn into myself; there, and there alone, I am secure. It is as if I were to say: ‘I have a wound in my leg. There are two methods of freeing myself from pain. One is to heal the wound. But if the cure is too difficult or uncertain, there is another method. I can get rid of the wound by cutting off my leg. If I train myself to want nothing to which the possession of my leg is indispensable, I shall not feel the lack of it.’ This is the traditional self-emancipation of ascetics and quietists, of stoics or Buddhist sages, men of various religions or of none, who have fled the world, and escaped the yoke of society or public opinion

More that 50 years after Berlin’s eloquent definitions, (and with a new timeliness of these kinds of discussions thanks to  freedom movements in the Greater Middle East) you still see the misguided usage of “liberty” or “freedom” pop up once in a while. The other day, I found a particularly interesting example while browsing the current issue of Time magazine (till Feb. 21) on the subway.

In this magazine, Aaron Nelsen contributes an arresting feature on pirquineros, solo miners who dig for gold under the Chilean desert. Nelsen follows one of them, called Aladino Olivares, around, describing how his protagonist reacts rather unimpressed when he learns yet another solo miner has been burried alive in his improvised mine:

“It’s a sacrifice,” he says of the dangers he faces every day. “But nobody tells me what to do in my mine.” That freedom is part of the allure of being a Chilean pirquinero,

…or is it rather a rationalization we shouldn’t neccessarily buy into? Of course, Nelsen is clear about the riches the miners are seeking. Only to finish his piece with the words:

pirquineros like Olivares make it clear what they think is more important. “After everything,” he says, “I’m my own boss.”

I’m afraid this will sound terribly patronizing, but still — this suggestion is just ripe with irony: Men are digging holes into the dirt, crawling into tunnels with a height that sometimes doesn’t exceed one meter, literally enduring physical oppression because that’s how they find freedom? I’m willing to accept that people will do almost anything for money. I’ll also accept that there are potentionally many things to find in improvised mines, gold and death among them. But freedom?