My idea of a just society is that of a circle of freedom contained in a larger circle of government. The purpose of government is to protect the inner circle of freedom where people have a right to be left alone.
To be as brief as possible let me just say that the question of creativity and freedom in relation to Torah and Talmud is a immense project. It means first of all dealing with the origins of the idea of freedom being a good thing--and the critiques of Nietzsche and Rousseau against the Rational Enlightenment {that advocated the rule of Reason}. Any possible answer would have to answer this critique of freedom and defense of creativity.
The participants in this debate are John Locke, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Jonathan Swift, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Marx.
Locke was pro freedom. The rest not. Hegel was in the middle. Not I think as people understood him.
Rawls did a noble task of trying to find some middle path, but Habermas blew him into smithereens. Kant did a good job in opening up a path between these paths. But his work is still in great need of elucidation. and how it could apply to Torah also is not clear.
My personal take on all this goes back to the argument between Aristotle and Plato about universals. I am basically with Plato on this which means I go by Socratic ignorance that what we think we know we really don't know at all. And Platonic knowledge--that there are things we do know but we don't know that we know. For me this opens the area of civil society in which people have the right to be left alone and government to led the lives the what to lead and make the contracts and relationships with others that they want to make. Their individuality is realized not as part of a group or a nation but as part of their own family and circle of friends. This is the area of Freedom and free will. In this area there is Divine service.
