The Cunning of Freedom Quotes

“Despite philosophical fantasizing about self-sufficient individuals, human beings need a deep belonging and the more they are individualized, the more they are eager to assimilate collective identities - even absurd ones - without realizing to what extent their self-proclaimed individual sovereignty is illusory”
― Ryszard Legutko, The Cunning of Freedom: Saving the Self in an Age of False Idols

“All political projects that neglect human nature and disregard the lessons drawn from centuries of political experience have to compensate for their lack of realism by a disproportionately high degree of intervention in both the social fabric and in human minds.”
― Ryszard Legutko, The Cunning of Freedom: Saving the Self in an Age of False Idols

“As regards the modern liberal democrat who represents the class of victors in this process of emancipation, despite his loud bragging about transgressions, too much of his language and presuppositions sound discordant with the idea of freedom -- too much necessity, inevitability, irreversible change, and too many natural God-given drives. His language holds too many references to the tides of history and refers to excessive adapting, yielding, giving in, and indulging. There is also too much easiness in pursuing freedom, too much self-absolution, and too much nonchalance in dismissing all the caveats and counterarguments accumulated over the centuries. He appears more like an actor who takes part in a performance in which he has been ordered to play the role of a free man. He duly obeys the author's and director's orders but is utterly unaware that, by listening to those orders, he has already lost his chance to be his own master.”
― Ryszard Legutko, The Cunning of Freedom: Saving the Self in an Age of False Idols

“There are four things that an aristocrat should contribute to the modern world to countervail its ideological tendencies: the rejection of historical inevitability; the defense of the ethics of obligations; an acceptance of the body/soul dualism with the soul taking the dominant position; and a classical concept of shame. All of them are interrelated.”
― Ryszard Legutko, The Cunning of Freedom: Saving the Self in an Age of False Idols

“The actors in this sexual revolution bore a closer resemblance to Plato's "huge strong beast" that could be easily tamed by clever guardians than Nietzsche's independent Supermen impelled solely by their own inner dynamic.”
― Ryszard Legutko, The Cunning of Freedom: Saving the Self in an Age of False Idols

“[Libertarianism] crumbles because it attempts to square the circle. Two loyalties -- one particular to one's own community, the other to an infinitely open system -- cannot be reconciled.”
― Ryszard Legutko, The Cunning of Freedom: Saving the Self in an Age of False Idols

“In defiance of Berlin, I believe the concept of freedom should open us up to an abundance of weighty philosophical questions about the world and our place within it, rather than discourage us out of fear that we put our freedom at risk by answering these questions.”
― Ryszard Legutko, The Cunning of Freedom: Saving the Self in an Age of False Idols

“I remember how surprised I was to discover that Isaiah Berlin's famous essay on the two concepts of liberty, which once inspired many Polish intellectuals, myself included, was nothing more than a collection of platitudes and falsehoods that further prevented rather than encouraged any serious reflection on freedom.”
― Ryszard Legutko, The Cunning of Freedom: Saving the Self in an Age of False Idols