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Freedom

Axis: freedom is won by renouncing externals, by self-mastery, by independence
of means — or nobody truly wants it.

Freedom through renouncing externals

  • Epictetus (epictetus) — free is only he who neither desires nor avoids what depends on others: freedom comes through renouncing externals. Grounding: svoboda-cherez-otkaz-ot-vneshnego, ot-dihotomii-k-svobode.
  • Montaigne (montaigne) — he who has thought death through is free; keep a back shop — an inner room untouched by crowd or fortune. Grounding: uchis-umirat-chtoby-byt-svobodnym, sokhrani-zadnyuyu-lavku.
  • Schopenhauer (schopenhauer) — not happiness but freedom from pain: minimize dependence on possessions and on the opinion of others. Grounding: ne-schaste-a-svoboda-ot-boli, chest-i-mnenie-drugih.

Freedom through self-mastery and measure

  • Goethe (goethe) — freedom without self-mastery is ruinous: "none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free"; the recognition of limits sets free. Grounding: svoboda-i-samoobladanie, svoboda-bez-samoobladaniya-gibelna, priznanie-granits-osvobozhdaet.
  • Smiles (smiles) — self-denial gives freedom, and a nation's liberty rests on the character of its citizens, not on institutions. Grounding: samootrechenie-daet-svobodu, ot-samopomoshchi-k-svobode-nacii.
  • Laozi (laozi) — freedom is naturalness (the self-so): less interference, fewer prohibitions — and things right themselves. Grounding: ziran, wuwei, pravlenie.

Freedom through independence of means

  • Franklin (franklin) — frugality is freedom: debt makes the debtor a slave to the creditor. Grounding: berezhlivost-eto-svoboda, debt-and-liberty, tsepochka-nezavisimosti.
  • Ford (ford) — the machine frees from drudgery and want; financial independence from the banks is the freedom of the business. Grounding: mashina-osvobozhdaet-dlya-zhizni, finansiruj-iz-ceha-a-ne-iz-banka.
  • Nietzsche (nietzsche) — the free spirit is liberation from herd valuations; freedom for what, not from what: rank obliges. Grounding: svobodny-um, put-svobodnogo-uma.

Freedom is not wanted

  • Le Bon (lebon) — the crowd thirsts for a leader and for servitude, not for freedom: dissolved in the mass, the individual surrenders his will to the first comer. Grounding: tolpa-zhazhdet-vozhdya-i-rabstva, v-tolpe-lichnost-ischezaet.

Axis of dispute: Epictetus against Ford and Franklin — inner freedom against
freedom through means; Goethe against Nietzsche — self-mastery within limits
against a will that tears limits apart; Le Bon against them all — the empirical
diagnosis: freedom is not wanted.