The Negation of Absolute Freedom in One's Self via Ethical Subjectivity

Warning: This Post Contains German Idealism in the Hegelian Tradition.

Freedom contains a measure within it as a concept, which is freedom’s strength. This measure within Freedom however is not a measure which any one agent enacting freedom contains within themselves, which is why the concept of a Geist Absolute is necessary to understand the Real and Rational qualities of Freedom.

A gang member can stab another gang member in front of a police station, but the measure of their strength is not determined entirely inside of them. Whether or not the gang member is arrested is a determination of their Actual strength. Because they would have the freedom then, if not arrested, to stab without repurcussion, their Actual freedom is determined by ethical systems which are outlines outside of them.

Actual Ethics in the world determine freedom, and freedom can be both against and with the grain of the Ethical. This is to say, freedom can never be said to be purely good or bad, as freedom both involves using and flaunting ethics.

The application of Actual Ethics through force is what determines the limit of freedom and guides freedom along the lines of an interpersonally determined, rationalistic sort of “game.” The game is the determination of the limits of Freedom via the Institution of Ethics.

At the core of freedom lies the rational and real system of ethics in their world, as well as their non-relations and antitheses. The Absolute, which contains multiple systems of ethics, as well as their relations and non-relations, can be turned to in order to understand what is rational and real within the notion, which is to say the combination of what-is (being) and the thing or quality which is appearing (essence).

This can be understood in noting what Ethics are demanded, and what Ethics are actually enforced.

Authority is just as much as part of Freedom as is the Free Subject, who is Absolutely Egoistic in their own self-interest. Actual Authority denotes the limits of the Free Subject via limits outside of the Free Subject themselves. So long as the Free Subject takes back into themselves authority, the Free Subject can be said to contain ethics within their consciousness, but only via Authority is the Ethics actual, which is to say the power to create limits of freedom.

Psychoanalytically, we can talk about the many games which are played with the limits of authority and ethics and freedom, as well as their differences, but it is worth remembering that Absolute Egoism of any one subject is limited by something which is not within themselves, but if they have taken into themselves a measure of ethics, may be in line to some degree with the Absolute, which is to say the Absolute Rationality of the Egoism of all of humanity as they assert both Freedom and Limits to that freedom, with all the artistic flourish of flirting with that line both personally and interpersonally.

In the Hegelian system, which is to say the development of the Spinozan system of a Unified God-Consciousness, or things in relation to the oneness of the Absolute, things contain within them a multiplicity of relations to one another, but primarily relate to a unified Oneness, which within it contains non-existence and difference. Freedom and the Authority of Actualized Ethics which limits the Free Subject and produces the Good, as well as their Actual manifestations in the world, can be grasped by the Free Subject in order to produce a conscious relation to The Absolute.

The Free Subject (Absolutely Egoistic) becomes a Conscious Ethical Subject via its recognition of Freedom, Ethical Authority, and their (The Free Subject’s) relation to these two categorical elements. The Free Subject can become a scholar of Ethical Consciousness by investigating Freedom and its Ethical Limits in the world at present and throughout history.