People claim to want freedom. In good faith attempts are made to set up political freedom. People also proclaim metaphysical freedom. They struggle to free slaves. They make liberty a supreme value. The loss of freedom by imprisonment is a punishment that is hard to bear. Liberty is cherished…….

It is not true that people want to be free. They want the advantages of independence without the duties and difficulties of freedom. Freedom is hard to live with. It is terrible. It is a venture. It devours and demands. It is a constant battle, for around us are always traps to rob us of it. But in particular freedom allows us no rest. It requires incessant emulation and questioning. It presupposes alert attention, ruling out habit or institution. It demands that I always be fresh, always ready, never hiding behind precedent or past defeats………

Love presupposes freedom and freedom expands only in love. This is why deSade is the supreme liar of the ages. What he showed and taught others is the way of slavery under the banner of freedom. Freedom can never exert power. There is full coincidence between weakness and freedom. Similarly, freedom can never mean possession. There is exact coincidence between freedom and non-possession. Freedom then is not a merry childish romp in a garden of flowers. It is this too, for it generates great waves of joy, but these cannot be separated from severe asceticism, conflict, and the absence of arms and conquests. This is why those in a situation of freedom suddenly lose their heads or soon want to return to bondage.

Better slavery with a guaranteed minimum wage.

Primarily we want comfort and security in every area: police security, safety on the roads, security from sickness, unemployment, loneliness and old age. All this in exchange for freedom. In effect freedom can give us everything except security by demanding that we be. Security is always inevitably bought at the cost of freedom no matter whether it be granted by a private master, by an insurance company, or by the state, which enlarges and bureaucratizes itself through various forms of protection we ask from it.

It is undoubtedly better for a dog in a kennel to have a chain of two yards than one foot, but this is not the freedom of La Fontaine’s wolf.  And his FABLE is always true..

The Subversion of Christianity
by Jacques Ellul published 1986

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Something to keep in mind the next time someone lays down some cheap talk about “freedom.”