Freedom and Conformity (New)

How much does conformity come into conflict with freedom? How much freedom do we have if we must live according to law?

This is a question that young people often wrestle with, even from the earliest of youth. With the great principle of freedom before them, they sometimes want to know why they can’t do anything they want to do—or everything they want to do. If the Lord God meant men to be free, what reason is there for restraint?

Part of the answer is this: that the Lord God who gave us freedom also gave us commandments to keep, and also imposed penalties for not keeping the commandments. Freedom isn’t for us only, but for others also. And to insure everyone’s freedom, there must be restraints. Flagrant freedom, irresponsible freedom, freedom without restraint, is, literally, absolute anarchy. And anarchy, of course, is chaos. There simply isn’t any endurable freedom outside the limits of law.

But some people profess to suppose that if a person obeys the law or keeps the commandments or chooses to conform to high-minded standards and to the accepted conventions of society, he has sacrificed his freedom. But no man has sacrificed his freedom if he chooses to conform to high standards or to live within the limits of the law. He has simply used his freedom for what freedom was meant to be used for—for those who use their freedom to violate law and to flout the conventions and decencies of society always pay a price.

We cannot break any law—of health, of morals, of ethics, of honor or honesty—without paying a price. For every excess and for every abuse of freedom we pay a price. And often part of the price for abusing or misusing freedom is losing freedom, as man a man could testify who has found himself compromised of confined in one way or another, by bars or by other kinds of confining fetters.

Every broken law brings its penalty; every commandment ignored brings its sorrow and regret. And one of the earliest lessons that young people need to learn is that freedom isn’t free—and it isn’t a license to ignore law. It comes with discipline; it comes with restraint; it comes with reason and respect, with honor and honesty—and it endures only within the limits of the law