Liberalism

Liberal Freemasonry – an oxymoron?

The human being — the individual who stands at the centre of liberal philosophy — is to be granted the greatest possible freedom. Individual freedom, according to liberal conviction, is the fundamental norm of human society, and therefore also of the Masonic community.

Liberalism (from the Latin liber — free, and liberalis — pertaining to freedom) is a freedom‑oriented attitude and political‑philosophical doctrine that emerged in the second half of the 17th century, during the Enlightenment. Liberalism laid the foundation for the emancipation from feudalism and absolutism, and from inherited dogmas that sought to justify unfreedom — for example, the divine right of kings as a legitimisation of monarchical claims to rule, which in turn leads conceptually to the “unity of state, church, and religion”

At the centre of liberal philosophy stands the individual, who is to be granted the greatest possible freedom. Individual freedom, according to liberal conviction, is the fundamental norm of human society, and it is toward this norm that the state and its political and economic order must be oriented. Wherever the freedom of the individual is touched, all power — including that of the state — must come to an end; the state should intervene only when the freedom of individuals is violated. The role of the state is therefore primarily to preserve law and freedom. Regulations should be kept to a minimum. With greater freedom, the individual is to be entrusted with greater responsibility for themselves. Responsibility arising from freedom — that is the foundation of Masonic action.

In theory, liberalism stands in opposition to totalitarianism and is in many places regarded as a prerequisite for — if not a synonym of — the concept of a modern pluralistic democracy. To this day, even representatives of parties that are not explicitly liberal consider themselves liberals in the sense of the Enlightenment’s philosophical definition of liberalism.

A central political demand of liberalism is that of fundamental rights as the institutionalised form of human rights. These rights must be guaranteed by the state and take precedence even over decisions reached democratically (that is, by majority vote) — see also the rule of law and the protection of minorities.

John Locke is regarded as one of the key founders of liberalism. The list of notable liberals on Wikipedia reads almost like an excerpt from the registers of Masonic lodges. Not least Voltaire, with his famous saying ‘I do not agree with what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it,’ defended the liberal principle of tolerance and freedom of expression.

John Stuart Mill formulated in his best‑known work On Liberty: “The only purpose for which mankind, individually or collectively, is warranted in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self‑protection. The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”

Liberal” is therefore a term shaped by politics and, in turn, shaping political thought.

“Not everything in society is political. But (almost) anything can become politically relevant if it can be connected to one of society’s fundamental principles. The organised interests of major associations — trade unions, industrial federations, or churches — are always political, because they stand in a direct relationship of exchange with the institutional, normative, and procedural dimensions of politics.”^[1]

Both fascism (including National Socialism) and communism fought political liberalism as one of their principal enemies.

Freemasons find this familiar. So what, then, is liberal Freemasonry?

If one — as sometimes happens — uses the term ‘liberal Freemasonry’ to lump together everything ‘not recognised by the United Grand Lodge of England,’ and thus effectively labels ‘liberal Freemasonry’ as irregular, one ends up including groups around the world that have nothing whatsoever to do with the concept of ‘liberal.’ These include obediences which, by their own definition, are orders — structured as such in a strict and pronounced hierarchy, allowing senior officials to hold office for life, and so forth.

Hierarchical, exclusive systems are, by their very nature, far easier to survey, more readily governed, and more clearly controlled. But is ruling — apart from the ‘mastery of the self’ — truly a fundamental Masonic concern?

Let us reverse the approach: how does ‘liberal Freemasonry’ define itself? I do not need to look far beyond our own environment. One of the foundational texts of the Grand Orient of Austria is ideally suited for this purpose: Freemasonry Today from 1984.

„Freemasonry cannot be exhaustively defined; its fundamental consensus must be interpreted and lived in ways that are current and socially relevant at different times and in different places. One may describe the fundamental consensus of Freemasonry as the striving for human maturity and for tolerance.

Freemasonry is not practised merely by contemplating the past; nor is it exhausted in ritual, and it is incompatible with retreating into an ivory tower. It is an unceasing search for new tasks and inseparably linked with the attempt to find answers — for only what moves is alive.

The full breadth of interpretive possibilities within this fundamental consensus unites the individual, highly differentiated links of the Masonic chain. Masonic work is carried out in the lodges, which, as small groups and communities of dialogue, engage with the problems of their time.

Within the framework of the fundamental consensus, the lodges are autonomous. As a rule, only the individual or the creative small group can act outwardly in a Masonic sense. The lodge, as a place of unreserved intellectual engagement and emotional sincerity, provides the opportunity to test ideas both theoretically and practically, and it supports the individual in their work.

Constructive criticism and self‑criticism are the foundations of all Masonic work; they encompass every area of our perceptible inner and outer world — including the individual Freemason. Only in this way can we free ourselves from internal and external constraints. In any case, only those should be admitted to a lodge who are capable of and willing to participate in dialogue, to question their own thinking and actions, and to recognise and overcome prejudices as such.

The principles of Freemasonry should not be a restrictive framework, but a solid foundation for all possible developments. Responsibility exists only toward human beings, not toward institutions.

Know yourself – Master yourself – Refine yourself.

Freemasonry must always begin with work upon oneself, with the aim of exploring the question: “What must one be in order to be a human being?”“

Despite sharing the same origins and a similarly long tradition, the ‘Anglo‑Saxon’ branch of Freemasonry requires a profession of faith in a personal God. The French regard this as dogmatic and static, and liberal Freemasons everywhere can agree with this assessment. Since 1877 — as a direct consequence of postulates such as the dogma of papal infallibility — the Grand Orient of France has committed itself to absolute freedom of belief and conscience. It professes, without any restriction, an adogmatic, liberal, and humanitarian Freemasonry, and guarantees this explicitly in its statutes.

Under the roof of tolerance, it should be possible for all of us to live together peacefully, to work together, and to face the challenges of our time jointly.

Liberalism also stood at the cradle of the formulation of human rights:

 „All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should meet one another in a spirit of brotherhood.“^[2]

In Articles 18 to 20 we read of every human being’s freedom of conscience and freedom of ritual, the freedom to seek and receive information, and the freedom of peaceful assembly; and in Article 30, of the prohibition of acts aimed at the destruction of the aforementioned rights and freedoms.

Freedom of conscience is inherently a fundamental principle of Freemasonry. Only where this principle has been upheld has Freemasonry been a source of intellectual, moral, and spiritual enrichment for humanity. Only upon this principle can Freemasons — conscious of the continual evolution of the times — draw closer to the chain of universal brotherhood.

How was it again at the beginning?

Liberalism laid the foundation for the emancipation from inherited dogmas that sought to justify unfreedom. Liberalism, the Enlightenment, and Freemasonry are therefore very close relatives (to avoid the debate about which came first). According to Kant, Enlightenment is the emergence of human beings from their self‑imposed immaturity. Immaturity needs no definition; it is self‑imposed because it stems from the convenience of not using one’s own understanding to question everything.

Freemasonry must always begin with work upon oneself, with the aim of exploring the question: ‘What must one be in order to be a human being?’

For this reason, the motto of the Enlightenment, Aude sapere, is the watchword — or even the name — of more than one lodge.

Almost a concluding sentence: the fundamental idea of Freemasonry was liberal. Consequently, liberal Freemasonry is not an oxymoron. The contradiction lies in dogmatic determinations that, both formally and substantively, contradict the fundamental idea of Freemasonry.

Freemasonry is meant to unite what is divided and, as a school of humanity, to educate human beings toward maturity and responsibility.

If one uses words in their deeper meaning, then Freemasonry — if one insists on a rhetorical foreign‑language term for it — is a pleonasm

This is the reason why, within the Grand Orient of Austria, we have gradually moved away from the designation ‘liberal Freemasonry’ toward another term that characterises the core of our nature more accurately and, if possible, remains free of political connotations. Since such a term — one that cannot again become the target of criticism — is evidently difficult to find, we do what we have learned from Masonic symbolism: we interlace several symbols or concepts so that a new entity emerges.

The Grand Orient of Austria understands itself as adogmatic, liberal, and pluralistic.

Sr.·. Renate H., Old-GM, Lodge „Sapientia Cordis“

^[1] Der deutsche Politologe U. v. Alemann, 1989
^[2] Allgemeine Erklärung der Menschenrechtedurch die Vereinten Nationen (1948), Art.1, zit. nach Rechtsanwalt Heinz Strack: „Theorie des Rechtsstaate“, Bauhütten-Verlag, Hamburg 1970, S. 233 



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