I first published this series of articles in the German-speaking area under #freie-gesellschaft. I started the attempt to translate this article series also for the English-speaking countries. I have only a limited command of English and have therefore used a translation program. However, many terms are very difficult to translate because there is no clear translation for some words. I hope, however, that at least the meaning of the content will be understandable.
for the English readers I will open the section #free-society
With this contribution we grasp the freedom of the ego and the freedom of the you. I still have to torment the readers a little with the high school teacher-like lecture, but such explanations inevitably have that in view.
After the essential excursion into the realms of ego-consciousness (see part 3) and the constitution of you (see part 4 in #free-society), we return to the topic of freedom. When I speak of freedom in the following, it is not just about something like "freedom of thought". Thoughts are free anyway. It is about the freedom of the socially living ego in its work and speech.
Freedom is a melodious word. It is on everyone's lips. There are people for whom freedom is the highest good. They let it cost them a lot. They put up with a lot of inconvenience. For others it is an unfulfilled or unfulfillable longing.
The attempt to arrest freedom ends - as Kant has shown - in the antinomy of freedom and necessity. To this day, this antinomy has not been refuted and probably cannot be refuted. It is imperative - taking into account the limited possibilities of human cognition. Thus Kant builds a wall before the hurried curiosity: Although our mind may wander beyond our ancestral and clearly defined field of knowledge (which it likes to do by the way), we cannot really recognize freedom. We only ever see necessary connections and processes in nature and in our lives.
The conflict between freedom and necessity can only be resolved when the development of consciousness has reached the point where the two ego aspects physical ego (place of necessity) and non-physical ego (place of freedom) can be distinguished (see Part 3). Only then will freedom and necessity not oppose each other.
With all the unrecognizability of freedom - strange is: we suffer when we feel unfree; we become aggressive when we are unnecessarily bullied; we turn away when someone tries to manipulate us. In barter negotiations, we assume that our barter partner is willing to "give in. He presupposes the same for us, which makes us feel oppressed. We clearly feel when we are hindered in the spontaneous progress of our activities. These are all real experiences. How are such experiences possible - with all the unrecognisability of freedom?
Obviously we carry something within us that causes such experiences. And that is a perceptibly strong force. We call it freedom. But we do not recognize it. And everyone has to ask himself: How can this power have such a significant and lasting effect on us? How can it set whole societies in a state of flux? How can it even destroy the relationship between self and society, even though we see nothing of it?
Freedom cannot be physically fixed, at least not in the sense of an empirically tangible one. It cannot be "touched", even if some scientists seem to think so, when they search for freedom in our heads with highly complicated equipment. Freedom can only be felt in its effects. But it can certainly be experienced - albeit only in reflection - even if it cannot be grasped sensually. In reflection we experience ourselves as free acting beings. The reason for this is often a suffering caused by a factual lack of freedom. The development of the consciousness of freedom is a reactio to an actio, namely to a suppression. Actually, we only become truly free when we are unfree. And from the suffering bondage we infer something like freedom.
It is often argued against the existence of freedom that it eludes any imagination. Nevertheless, it can be experienced by everyone (outside the empirical realm of experience), often only during a painful obstruction of one's own activities, during imprisonment and oppression, during a gauntlet and on the torture chair. This is why freedom is also referred to as a "dungeon flower".
The ego is indeed a part of freedom. But freedom is not a quality of the ego in the sense that we speak of sensually tangible qualities. The ego (as "intelligent ego") lives in freedom. It lives in it, although its freedom cannot be grasped as a real phenomenon. "For freedom is devoid of content. Whoever does not know how to use it has no value for him", Max Stirner already knew (reprint 1972).
Up to this point, we only had the freedom of the ego in mind. But what about the freedom of the you? In order to answer this question, we have to go back to the transfer act described in part 4, through which the ego creates the ego of the other. The fact that the "intelligible you" only comes about through a deliberate act of the ego is significant for the understanding of that freedom which, according to Kant, "belongs to every human being by virtue of his humanity".
The ego, it was said, is the place of freedom. With the Constitution of You, something is happening that has not yet come up. With this also the transfer of the ego's own freedom takes place. The ego transfers itself as a carrier of freedom. The you arrives at its freedom - at least at its gift of freedom - through the act of transfer by which it is created. Through this act it also becomes a place of freedom alongside the ego. The freedom of the ego, which the ego experiences in itself as a natural fact, e.g. on the occasion of suffering under a lack of freedom, transfers it to the you in the course of the ego-transformation. In this way freedom is also granted to the you - at least as a gift of freedom. To a certain extent it inherits its freedom through this act, regardless of whether it already knows about this freedom or not. The freedom of the you is one "borrowed" from the ego (Kant). Because of its limited cognitive faculty in principle, the ego cannot know anything about the freedom of the you. It can only defeat it.
But not only freedom in relation to a certain you is transmitted in the act of transfer, but also freedom in relation to every possible you at all. "It is not enough that we attribute freedom to our will, for whatever reason, if we do not have the same sufficient reason to attribute it to all reasonable beings" (Kant).
The meta-physical collectivization takes place by attributing to each possible you an ego - as a starting point for its free development of life. Through it, the freedom of the ego is transferred to all people - more precisely: to every possible person. It belongs to humanity in its generality. The act of ego-transferation socializes the freedom that the ego originally experiences only in itself (initially as bondage).
Here we have arrived at a quite essential point of human sociality. The generality within mankind has its actual reason not in an abstract fiction or the arithmetic act of adding up - for all, who cannot do anything with the term Arithmetk here a rough explanation https://www.grund-wissen.de/mathematik/arithmetik/index.html - of mankind as a group, but in the free act of will of the I, which makes itself general! The generality of the ego already has its basis of experience in the child, who only always means himself with his ego-saying, but hears that all others also say "I" when they only mean themselves.
But not only that. The freedom of the ego is granted to every human being in the same way through the act of transfer. With the act of transfer, freedom attaches itself to each you in the same way. This equality is based on the identity of me and you brought about by the ego-transformation. Free society does not carry the equality of ego and you in the physical sense, but the equality of ego and you in the sense of the identity produced by the ego-transformation.
At this point it becomes clear that the principles of freedom, generality and equality can only be derived epistomologically from the ego and its experience, namely from its will to produce an adequate you. Only under the precondition of the transferation of the ego to the you can the assertion be justified that every human being is free, and that in the same way, whether he is aware of it or not. At least because of the act of transfer everyone is equally endowed with freedom.
The ego must want the you to have freedom. The I must want that every possible you has freedom. The I must want that you is equal to it in relation to freedom. The same freedom for all is based on the meta-physical collective of the We created from the will of the ego. The ego is both the origin and the refuge of the same freedom for all.
Part 6 continues. So far we had only worked on the basics. Now it starts, but not anymore.
