What sets you free

In an increasingly diverse society, one of the things that seems most necessary is the ability to communicate. In the space of a generation, we have gone from a narrow environment, where strangers or people who were different were rare and required an effort to allow a true encounter, to the fact that, even in a small provincial town, people of various nationalities, colors, and cultures meet and we find ourselves having to make an effort to step outside ourselves. From the ease of communication made up of few words, each of which carried abundant common knowledge, generally conveyed through the use of dialect, to the fact that every word risks needing a long explanation, that every encounter is chosen and accepted or rejected, that a smile can open doors and a distracted look can cause wounds.

We are all now challenged to break out of a routine learned from youth to have a life whose contacts demand reflection. George Washington, the man who brought about the United States' independence from the British Empire, found himself pointing the way to a new path: that of liberty, unheard of by any other country at the time. He played an important role in understanding what it means to lead a democratic country, especially since, in the early years of the Republic, no one knew how a democratically elected leader should act. Washington knew that whatever he did would become the standard for all who came after him. "I am treading on untrodden ground," he wrote in 1790, the year after assuming the presidency. "There is scarcely any part of my conduct that may not be taken as a precedent in the future." Perhaps we cannot write such strong words about ourselves, but we live in an age in which we must seek ways and spaces to safeguard our freedom and help others to be jealous of theirs, without abusing others.
Being a good citizen and a good leader, for Washington meant living a moral and industrious life. In this way, he gave his fellow citizens a sense of freedom, which gradually developed and succeeded, even though it took a painful war, in freeing the slaves and making his homeland a witness to freedom, which influenced the entire Western world.

It was neither simple nor easy to educate a people to freedom: a freedom that was more a concern for others than for oneself, because if we are not agents of freedom for those around us, we cannot even be free people in our own sphere. The networks with which we bind others envelop us and, without our realizing it, become prisons for us.

Washington's awareness of being someone whose actions and behavior, words, and decisions were necessarily a school of freedom for his fellow citizens, forced him to reflect on what freedom is. One does not give it to others if one has not understood it for oneself. And, even as a boy, he understood that the first thing necessary was not to lie.

Lying is a prison, which locks us and others in a dead, fake, sterile world. Freedom, on the other hand, is life and breath. Jesus himself said: "The Truth will set you free," and to create a free world around us, we must have the courage of truth, which attracts others and, when lived, has all the joy and capacity to generate freedom.


Cesare Falletti
NP April 2025