"When we are unwilling to draw clear moral lines between free societies and fear societies, when we are unwilling to call the former good and the latter evil, we will not be able to advance the cause of peace because peace cannot be disconnected from freedom"
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Natan Sharansky, a Soviet dissident who spent years in prison for speaking his mind, built his political thought around a simple test: can a person stand in the town square and say what he thinks without fear of punishment? If so, it is a free society; if not, it is a fear society. The statement insists that refusing to name this difference as moral, refusing to call one good and the other evil, guarantees failure in the pursuit of peace. Peace is not merely the absence of gunfire; it is a durable order rooted in the dignity and agency of citizens. Without freedom, calm is a truce imposed by intimidation, as fragile as the power that enforces it.
The argument pushes back against realpolitik and moral relativism. When policymakers treat all regimes as interchangeable and prize short-term stability over liberty, they trade away the foundations of lasting peace. Dictatorships can sign agreements, but they cannot deliver the social trust that makes agreements stick. They must lie to their own people, and often to the world, to survive. By contrast, free societies make more reliable partners because accountability, open debate, and the rule of law create mechanisms for self-correction.
Sharansky drew this lesson from the Cold War and from his own cell. Western moral clarity, backed by pressure on human rights and dissidents, helped crack the Soviet empire; the Helsinki process and the insistence on naming evil were not rhetorical flourish but strategic leverage. After 9/11 he applied the same lens to the Middle East, arguing that peace initiatives built atop authoritarian fear would crumble.
There are fair cautions. Democracies are imperfect, and the free-versus-fear distinction can be abused to justify reckless crusades. Yet Sharansky’s point is not about purity but about a baseline: the ability to dissent without terror. If that line is blurred, policy drifts into cynicism, and peace becomes a euphemism for quiet repression. Call things by their right names, and the path to genuine peace begins to appear.
The argument pushes back against realpolitik and moral relativism. When policymakers treat all regimes as interchangeable and prize short-term stability over liberty, they trade away the foundations of lasting peace. Dictatorships can sign agreements, but they cannot deliver the social trust that makes agreements stick. They must lie to their own people, and often to the world, to survive. By contrast, free societies make more reliable partners because accountability, open debate, and the rule of law create mechanisms for self-correction.
Sharansky drew this lesson from the Cold War and from his own cell. Western moral clarity, backed by pressure on human rights and dissidents, helped crack the Soviet empire; the Helsinki process and the insistence on naming evil were not rhetorical flourish but strategic leverage. After 9/11 he applied the same lens to the Middle East, arguing that peace initiatives built atop authoritarian fear would crumble.
There are fair cautions. Democracies are imperfect, and the free-versus-fear distinction can be abused to justify reckless crusades. Yet Sharansky’s point is not about purity but about a baseline: the ability to dissent without terror. If that line is blurred, policy drifts into cynicism, and peace becomes a euphemism for quiet repression. Call things by their right names, and the path to genuine peace begins to appear.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
|---|---|
| Source | Natan Sharansky (with Ron Dermer), The Case for Democracy, PublicAffairs, 2004 — passage contrasting "free societies" and "fear societies" (exact page not provided). |
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