Discipline vs Freedom

Excerpt from: The Paradox of Discipline (By Nathanael Smith)

[A very nice piece of writing, especially these two paragraphs that have illustrated the relationship between discipline and freedom very clearly. ]

"Growing up illustrates the principle. A child might, on a whim, shout in a church or (were he let in) run and jump and roll on the floor during a business meeting. A very small child might start to undress on the streets, or pick leaves and rubbish up off the ground and put it in his mouth. An adult is under all sorts of restrictions as to what he can do. But, precisely for that reason, adults can walk around the city unsupervised, can enter many places where children are not allowed, can operate machinery, travel internationally, give speeches, etc. They have learned discipline, and it has made them free, while the child finds his errant will blocked at every turn.

Not every discipline or morality is so fertile and, ultimately, liberating. It is the right morality, the right rules, the right discipline that expands the scope of freedom, that make us able to do more, to make dreams come true. But the discipline of the medieval monasteries led to prodigies in learning and the practical arts, but the caste system kept India, the Confucian classics kept China, turning on the same treadmill for a thousand years. The wrong discipline can be a dead end, but the true discipline leads ever onward and upward, into new regions of awe, always expanding the realm of the possible."