Jocko Willink likes to say that “Discipline Equals Freedom“.
From twitter, I stumbled on the following quote that puts that three word phrase in some perspective:
Conservative discipline – aka the idea that one must never drink, never do drugs, never have a one night stand – that discipline- is self righteous indignation. It’s artificial pain created to substitute for the real pain of progress.
— 🧐 AmirSiddiqui 🥃 (@AmirSymmetry) November 22, 2018
I read that as saying that “conservative discipline”, so called, can be a negative thing. The author defines conservative discipline as never doing certain things. It’s an absolutist discipline, one that I subscribed to for much of my life.
The way I saw it, if I was too weak to handle moderation in some area of life, then I needed to be “immoderate”. I needed to completely abstain, to avoid the potential negative effects. This is discipline – conservative discipline.
And if you automatically apply that attitude towards others, I can see how it is self-righteous indignation. It is assuming that they are also too weak to handle moderation, and so must also abstain. And if they don’t, they are not as disciplined.
Thus why the author describes it as “absolutist”.
True discipline might better be defined as the discipline that allows moderation. In other words, the discipline that gives freedom. A truly disciplined mind and body can tolerate some alcohol. In fact, the healthier (i.e. more disciplined) you are, the easier it is to handle a drink, or three.
The same is true of drugs, at least some of them.
And the more disciplined, truly, that a life is, the more it can handle deviation from norms and rules designed to keep people safe.
Those norms and rules are most easily applied to children and teenagers.
Everyone recognizes that as humans develop, there needs to be some absolutist discipline during the younger ages. It keeps children and teens who aren’t truly disciplined safe until they have the true discipline to handle reality.
So we tell our three year old to stay out of the street. But when they are eight, and can handle the discipline of looking both ways, they get the freedom of crossing the street on their own.
Other freedoms may come later in life, as other types of discipline are developed.
The most powerful of these comes in adulthood, when you gain the discipline required to decide whether you will approach an area of life with absolutist discipline or the true discipline that allows the freedom of moderation.