Types of Freedom

“Oh yes, we shall be in chains and there will be no freedom, but the time will come when, from the depths of our despair, we shall rise up once again in joy, without which man cannot survive and God cannot exist, for joy comes from God and is His greatest gift.”

Dmitry Karamazov, in Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

In Brothers Karamazov one of the key protagonists, Dmitry Karamazov, finds he is well prepared for his likely sentence to Siberia because of the internal freedom given to him by faith.  During the years of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe Orthodox priests in solitary confinement were amazingly able to transform solitary confinement into a spiritual journey.

In his recently published book The Cunning of Freedom:  Saving the Self in an Age of False Idols, Polish academic, political philosopher and politician, Ryszard Legutko wrote about the inner freedom of authenticity, the positive freedom of the virtues and the negative freedom of the liberal.  Inner freedom is the ancient and classical freedom of metaphysical man, homo metaphysicus:

“Metaphysical man is driven by the pervasive conviction that the goal of his existence transcends physical and societal limitation and though beyond his immediate grasp, it will determine his destiny.  Even the miseries that result from his finite nature, the failures, the fragility of life, the fear of death, point in this direction.”

Legutko therefore identifies three forms of freedom in European thought, first negative liberty – the dominant one of our contemporary era is the freedom from controls and restrictions.  Positive liberty is about the freedom to live consequent upon the virtuous life, so that a man is free insofar as he achieves his telos of virtue and is no longer enslaved to his passions.  Thirdly is the inner freedom of authenticity.  The last two freedoms are closely related, while the positive freedom achieved through virtuous living is in tension with the liberal idea of freedom, which in effect enslaves us to our passions.

If we were to live in a world different from our own, where the cultural idea of freedom were positive rather than negative, then the inner authenticity of the person would also be strengthened.  The liberal man, who is free to live his life as an individual following the drives of his passions is likely to be unable to withstand the situation where his appetites are unsatisfied and he must instead endure suffering.  Because his freedom has meant nothing more than following his passions or appetites, when the liberal is threatened with the totalitarian state he will discover he does not have the inner resources of the inner freedom that positive liberty, with its emphasis on freedom through the virtues nurtures.

Yet as with Dostoevsky’s Dmitry Karamazov, a character distinctly lacking in virtue, inner freedom is still attainable directly through faith and then comes virtue afterwards.  Instead of living virtuously authenticity of the inner life could just as easily be the result of a shock or a crisis.  Such a situation often occurs when one has lived according to one’s passions selfishly for too long and life takes a terrible turn in consequence.  To survive inwardly though still requires an underlying faith in something greater than oneself, even if one has avoided participating in that until the great shock or crisis comes.  The liberal does not believe in anything greater than himself or his own choices.

The strength of character and virtues resulting from the positive liberty of virtue ethics will always defend the person when his temporal benefits and distractions are removed, as Boethius discovered many centuries ago.  It is at that point, the point of arrest and the GULAG that one will know whether one’s freedom was merely of the negative type - that freedom of liberal ideology, mere individualism, or the true freedom of the metaphysical man.

When we reduce the situation to its extreme the concept of inner freedom based on a vertical spiritual participation versus the negative freedom of the liberal to follow his animalistic or even unnatural appetites is revealed.  The liberal will be far more vulnerable and have no inner depth, if he only lives for his passions.  The man whose freedom is about participation vertically in the higher realm will survive, as has been evidenced by the men who survived the prison camps of the Twentieth Century, such as Viktor Frankl.  Those who were not metaphysical men, such as Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn survived by becoming such during the shock of their imprisonment and from their encounters with imprisoned Orthodox Christians.

This reveals which freedom is true and which is actually a sham and no more than a form of enslavement to the things of the world.  It also has some worrying implications.  We celebrate liberal freedom in the West with our consumerist society that encourages all types of irresponsibility and sexual deviance as freedom.  And yet when deprived of our things, our fetishes, our appetites are we still really free?  The man living in Stalinist Russia, with few of our choices, survived through the strength of inner freedom.  It is a disconcerting thought that brutal oppression rather than the free society might create an inner freedom.  Is it any wonder that Christianity today flourishes in Russia and is in decline in the West full of things and opportunities to focus us on our passions?

It would be helpful to remember the etymology of passion, linked as it is to the Greek word for passivity.  When we are driven by our passions something has control of us other than ourselves.  Through attainment of the virtues we are freed from our passions.  Passions being indulged are not evidence of freedom, as the liberal believes, but slavery.  Living the liberal life denies the possibility of transformation through transfiguration.  On the other hand not only the virtuous man, but the prodigal son recognises the higher freedom.

The free man is the one who has the inner strength through faith to look hard labour in Siberia steadfastly in the eye and still he will remain joyful. 

As Dmitry Karamazov exults the day before his trial in the novel:

“If they drive God off the face of the earth, we shall welcome Him down below!  It is impossible for a convict to be without God, even more impossible than for someone who is not a convict!  And then the time will come to pass when we, the underground people, will join in a solemn hymn to God, who is the source of joy!  Praise the Lord and His joy!  I love Him!”