In Defense Freedom-From, or "Negative Freedom"

The demand of the other impeding on our self-interest is not complex in idea, but becomes complex in the quantity of boundaries we need to set and times we need to speak and identify what is causing the distress. The complexity is in the quantity of that, and the necessity of the quantity of that versus the non-action of not doing that which makes us succumb to the forces of the malignant other.

Mutual recognition can only happen universally; concretely, you run into the problem of particular self-interest. In universal terms there are no real “malignant” others, this is always flourish to the real, which is the universal equality of agency. To assert this universal equality as real rather than your particular self is a transcendental act. There is a dialectic tension when this occurs as one can not fully transcend out of their particularity and into the universal equality, one can only treat the equality of all peoples as Real as one’s own interests, which may put one’s self over the other.

In this reconciliation, we find a direction, a vector. That vector is away. In socialist theory a sloppy critique of this vector is made that sees this as a pure negative, something which is naive in character or “liberal” (not “progressive” but “liberal capitalist”).

None-the-less, the direction of freedom follows the vector against unity, elements finding freedom from each other. Things coming together and staying together immediately brings the question of the freedom-from. Even when freedom-from does not become the main vector and unity of two forces becomes the main vector, unity must stem from the non-necessity of freedom-from. This is to say what is sometimes called “negative freedom” is in fact what is necessary to confirm any possible positive freedom, and not the other way around.

The gifts of unity and the occasional neccessity of unity are not the same thing. We can not choose on an individual level, for instance, if we think Denmark should exist or not. Denmark will exist as a unity beyond our wishes. It is the same with some positive freedoms which we get benefit from, which is to say unities of differing parties. This includes all families, communities, any group of two people working together. This can (and will inevitably) also in one person working with multiple ideas in themselves as well.

Freedom-from is the ground on which Positive Freedom can be built. Any positive unity can not be valid and totally seperate from the questions of both 1) Negative Freedom and 2) Unbreakable Unity. For 2), Unbreakable Unity, this is not the same thing as a moral good, while there can be moral goods within it. Necessity is not the morality within, but rather the unshakability of the institution or unity, the sturdiness of the structure, whatever the purpose.

Freedom-From is the question of revolution and it is also the point of most anxiety, detachment, non-relation, “attachment issues” in a colloquial sense. To be able to stand the necessity and accept it is one thing, but to work with it is another thing. More to come regarding that particular vector…