Freedom and Conformity

Always and ever before us is the question of freedom and force—of what we do willingly, because we want to, and what we do because we feel we must. Freedom and conformity can be much misunderstood—by the young, and by those of all ages.
Sometimes, paradoxically, a person may much enjoy what has been brought about by a certain set of standards, and yet rebel against the very standards that have brought it about. For example, sometimes those who like to live in a free land seek to undermine the foundations of the very freedom under which they like to live.
People like the protection of law. But when it is applied to them they often feel that there is unfairness.
Look, for example, at the laws of highway speed and safety. They are generally considered to be essential, but when someone is fined for exceeding the limits of the law, he may feel that there is unfairness—for others were going as fast or faster. Look, for example, at another paradox: Sometimes youth willingly conform to the foolish conduct of the crowd, yet seem to resent following what would clearly be for their own benefit. They may, for example, resent going to school or complying with the required curriculum. (While those who don’t have the privilege would gratefully seek and accept it, yet those who have come to expect society to provide all the education they can absorb, sometimes seem to go to class with the feeling that they are doing a favor for someone except themselves.)
Another example: some seem to resent the conformity that calls for keeping the commandments. Yet we couldn’t live long together in this world without some considerable keeping of the commandments. Nor are they arbitrary. The Lord God hasn’t simply sat down and thought up a series of “thou shalt not’s.” He knows us. He knows our nature. He knows what will make us happy or unhappy. And in a sense each basic law or commandment enforces itself. Each law of nature enforces itself. If we don’t keep them we simply pay a price.
Coercion in many of its aspects is an evil. Taking freedom from another person by fear or force is, in many of its aspects, an evil. There is no more fundamental law in the gospel of the Master than the free agency of man.
But this we would say to youth, and to all others also: the wisest, most intelligent use of freedom is using freedom to live within the law. And the wisest decision a man can make is to conform to high standards, to the keeping of the commandments, to living within the law. Willing conformity to law gives man his finest freedom.