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About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write.
Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground.
 
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Daily Cascade #1099098 added October 11, 2025 at 12:48pm
Restrictions: None
The Fight for Values
Prompt:
Eleanor Roosevelt: "At all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want — for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war".
Do you agree or disagree with Ms. Roosevelt about the value of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want?
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I surely do. Especially the first two. The third one "freedom from want"--although I can sense her meaning here--I think "want" is an iffy word. Granted, "want" may have had an added meaning in Elenor Roosevelt's time and could be substituted for "need."
I say this, because like the silly me, most of us want stuff that we don't really need or maybe only emotionally need. Anyway, most of such "want"s can die in minutes, sometimes.
Now that I've substituted "need" for "want," I certainly agree with what she's saying. Also, there are many other values that may be close in importance to these values, but I guess I'll stick to the quote's three values for brevity's sake.
Granted that these three values are very important, what makes "freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want" especially to fight for as values? Yes, I would fight for them like Eleanor, but I would probably choose tact and peace over war. This is because I would worry that gross and aggressive action could have damaging results not only to people but to the value itself.
Then, what if values clash?
Come to think of it, most difficult decisions are choices about the relative weight of a value. I mean. how can you choose to fight for one value versus another! Case in point, how can you trade a value like “freedom” with “security”? Not tradeable, isn't it? And I agree, these two aren’t tradeable...mostly.
The thing is, what happens when this choice involves your entire family's or town's or nation's security? Then, possibly your fight will have to go underground and you would fight underhandedly while still having some security. Is this also a choice? I really don't know the answer to this. I only hope and pray that none of us and nobody in the world will have to face such difficult choices.
The nicest part of the quote, however, is its last section, "for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war."
I certainly wish we could avoid all wars and fight for our values in peace, without screaming and scraping at one another.
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