The Freedom League operates as a minor symbol of human liberty, and its mere existence serves to demonstrate the degree to which humanity still values that liberty. In the initial decade or so after the Overlords arrive, when nearly every person alive remembers what it is like to live without them, the Freedom League operates to restore humanity’s autonomy and free will. Though the Freedom League does not represent the majority of human beings, its members are considerable in their number. The protests of the Freedom League revolve either around the fear that the Overlords will disrupt organized religion or the fear that the Overlords’ creation of a world-state will cause smaller cultures to lose their individuality.
Both of these fears are well-founded, and the Freedom League’s predictions come to pass. Despite its foresight, as the years draw on under the Overlords’ rule the Freedom League gradually loses its influence and withers away. The death of the Freedom League, inconsequential to most, signals that humanity ultimately prefers the peace and prosperity that the Overlords have brought to Earth over the traditions, cultures, religions, and comparative freedom that the Overlords have passively destroyed. The dissolution of the Freedom League reveals that human liberty has become a memory of a bygone age, and that most of humanity does not seem to care that it has been lost.
The Freedom League Quotes in Childhood’s End
“Can you deny that the Overlords have brought security, peace, and prosperity to the world?”
“That is true, but they have taken our liberty. Man does not live—”
“—by bread alone. Yes, I know—but this is the first age in which every man was sure of getting even that.”
“I can understand your fear that the traditions and cultures of little countries will be overwhelmed when the world state arrives. But you are wrong: it is useless to cling to the past. Even before the Overlords came to Earth, the sovereign state was dying. They have merely hastened its end.”
The Freedom League Symbol Timeline in Childhood’s End
