FREEDOM AND POLITICS: A Lecture

Author(s): HANNAH ARENDT

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Chicago Review, Vol. 14, No. 1 (SPRING 1960), pp. 28-46
Published by: Chicago Review
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HANNAHARENDT

FREEDOM AND POLITICS: A Lecture

I
To discuss the relation of freedom to politics in the brief time of
a lecture can be a book would be as
justified only because nearly
Whether we know it or not, the question of politics is
inadequate.
when we of the of freedom; and we
always present speak problem
can a or ex
hardly touch single political issue without, implicitly
an issue of man's liberty. For freedom, which
plicitly, touching upon
is seldom?in times of crisis or revolution?the direct aim of
only
action, is actually the reason why men live together in
political politi
cal organization at all; without it, political life as such would be
The raison d'etre of is freedom, and its field of
meaningless. politics
experience is action.
We shall see later that freedom and free will (a human faculty
the philosophers have defined and redefined for centuries) are by
no means the same. Even less is it identical with inner freedom, this
inward space into which men may escape from external coercion
and feel free.Whatever the of this be and
legitimacy feeling may
however eloquently itmight have been described in late antiquity,
it is a late and itwas originally the result
historically phenomenon,
of an estrangement from the world inwhich certain worldly
experi
ences were transformed into one's own self. The
experiences within
of inner freedom are derivative in that they
experiences always pre
a retreat from the world, where freedom was denied, into
suppose
an inwardness to which no other has access. This inward space where
the self is sheltered against the world must not be mistaken for the
heart or the mind, both of which exist and function only in interre
the world. Not the heart and not the mind, but in
lationship with
wardness as a of absolute freedom within one's own self was
place
28
discovered in late those who had no own
antiquity by place of their
in theworld and hence lacked a condition which, from
worldly early
to almost the middle of the nineteenth
antiquity century, was unani
a
mously held to be prerequisite
for freedom.1
Hence, in spite of the great influence which the concept of an inner,
non-political freedom has exerted upon the tradition of thought, it
seems safe to that man would know of inner freedom ifhe
say nothing
had not first a condition of as a
experienced being free among others
We first become aware of freedom or its
worldly tangible reality.
in our intercourse with others, not in intercourse with our
opposite
selves. Before it became an attribute of thought or a of the
quality
will, freedom was understood to be the free man's status which en
abled him to move, to get away from home, to go out into the world
and meet other in deed and word. This freedom was
people clearly
liberation: in order to be free, man must have liberated
preceded by
himself from the necessities of life. But the status of freedom did
not follow act of liberation. Freedom needed
automatically upon the

1The derivative character of the concept of inner freedom, as of the

experi
ences the theory that "the appropriate of human is
underlying region liberty"
the "inward domain of consciousness" (John Stuart Mill), more
appears clearly
ifwe go back to their the modern individual with its desire to un
origins. Not
fold, to develop, and to expand, with its justified fear lest
society get the better
of its individuality, with its emphatic insistence "on the of genius"
importance
and but the philosophers of late antiquity are in this
originality, representative
respect. Thus, the most arguments for the absolute of
persuasive superiority
inner freedom can still be found in an essay of the
Epictetus, slave-philosopher,
"On Freedom" (JDissertationes, Book IV, 1). Epictetus begins by stating that free
is who lives as he wishes (?1), a definition which a sentence
oddly echoes from
Aristotle's Politics in which the statement "Freedom means the doing what a
man likes" is put in the mouth of those whq do not know what freedom is
(1310a25 then goes on to show that a man is free, if he limits
sq.). Epictetus
himself to what is in his power, if he does not reach into a realm where he can
be hindered (?75). The "science of living" (?118) consists in knowing how to
between the alien world over which man has no power and the self
distinguish
ofwhich hemay dispose as he seesfit (?? 81& 83).
In this freedom and have for good. If the
interpretation, politics parted only
obstacle to freedom is man's own self or rather his to restrain
possible inability
his self's desires, then he needs no and no in order
politics political organization
to be free. He can be a slave in the world and still be free. The back
political
ground of this theory is clearly indicatedby the rolewhich the ideas of power,
domination, and property in it. to ancient man
play According understanding,
could liberate himself from over other men, and
necessity only through power
he could be free a a home
only if he owned place, in the world.
Epictetus
trans

posed these worldly into within man's own self,

relationships relationships
whereby he discovered that no power is so absolute as that which man
yields
over himself, and that the inward
space where man struggles and subdues him
self ismore more
entirely his own, namely securely shielded from outside inter
ference, than any worldly home could ever be.

29
 in addition tomere liberation the company of other men who were in
the same state, and it needed a common public space to meet them?
a in other words, intowhich each of the
politically organized world,
free-men could insert himself by word and deed.
not every form of human intercourse and not every
Obviously,
kind of community is characterized by freedom. Where men live
but do not form a body politic?as, for
example, in tribal
together
or in the of the household?the factor
societies
privacy ruling their
actions and behavior is not freedom but the necessities of life and
concern for its Moreover, wherever the man-made
preservation.
world does not become the scene for action and speech?as in des
ruled communities which banish their subjects into the
potically
narrowness of the home and thus prevent the rise of a realm
public
freedom has no worldly Without a
reality. politically guaranteed
freedom lacks theworldly space tomake its appearance.
public realm,
To be sure it may still dwell in men's hearts as desire or will or
hope
or but the human heart, as we all know, is a very
yearning;
dark and whatever goes on in its obscurity can be
place hardly
called a demonstrable fact. Freedom as a demonstrable fact and
and are related to each other like two sides of the
politics coincide
same matter.

Yet, it is precisely this coincidence of politics and freedom which

we cannot take for in the of our present ex
granted light political
The rise of totalitarianism, its claim to subordinated
periences. having
all of life to the demands of politics and its consistent non
spheres
civil above all the rights of privacy, makes us
recognition of rights,
doubt not only the coincidence of politics and freedom but their very
We are inclined to believe that freedom
compatibility. begins where
because we have seen that freedom has
politics ends, disappeared
when so-called political considerations overruled everything else.Was
not the liberal credo, "the less more freedom,"
politics the right after
all? Is it not true that the smaller the space occupied by the
political,
the the domain left to freedom? Indeed, do we not
larger rightly
measure the extent of freedom in any
given community by the free
to
scope it grants apparently non-political activities, free economic
or freedom of
enterprise teaching, of religion, of cultural and intel
lectual activities? Is it not true, as we all somehow believe, that
with freedom only because and insofar as it
politics is compatible
a
guarantees possible freedom from politics?
This definition of as a freedom from
political liberty potential
is not us our most recent
politics urged upon merely by experiences;

30
 it has a
played large role in the history of political theory.We need
no farther than the thinkers of the 17th and 18th cen
go political
turies who more often than not simply identified freedom
political
with security. The highest purpose of politics, "the end of govern
ment," was the guaranty of security; security, in turn,made freedom
a of activities
possible, and theword freedom designated quintessence
which occured outside the realm. Even though
political Montesquieu,
he had not a different, but a much the essence
only higher opinion of
or
of politics than Hobbes Spinoza, could still occasionally equate
with
political freedom security.2 The rise of the political and social
sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries has even widened the breach
between freedom and for government which, since the begin
politics;
ning of the modern age, had been identified with the total domain of
the was now considered to be the not
political, appointed protector
so much of freedom as of the life process, the interests of
society
and its individuals. remained the decisive criterion, but not
Security
the individual's security against "violent death" as inHobbes (where
the condition of all liberty is freedom from fear), but a security
which should permit an undisturbed development of the life process
of society as a whole. This life process is not bound up with freedom
but follows its own inherent necessity; and it can be called free only
in the sense that we speak of a freely flowing stream. Here freedom
is not even the non-political aim of but a marginal
politics, phenome
non?which somehow forms the boundary government should not
overstep unless life itself and its immediate interests and necessities
are at stake.
not have reasons of our own to distrust
Thus only we, who
for the sake of freedom, but the entire modern age has sepa
politics
rated freedom and politics. I could descend even deeper into the
secu
past and evoke older memories and traditions. The pre-modern
lar concept of freedom certainly was emphatic in its insistence on
the subjects' freedom from any direct share in government;
separating
the and freedom consisted in having the govern
people's "liberty
ment of those laws which their life and their goods may be most
by
their own"?as Charles I summed itup in his speech from the scaffold.
It was not out of a desire for freedom that de
people eventually
manded their share in government or admission to the political realm,
but out of mistrust in those who held power over their life and goods.
The Christian concept of arose out of
political freedom, moreover,

2 See
Esprit des Lois, XII, 2: "La libertephilosophique consiste dans l'exercice
de la volonte. ... La liberte consiste dans la surete."
politique

31
 the and hostility against the
early Christians' suspicion public
realm
as such, from whose concerns demanded to be absolved in order
they
to be free. And does not this Christian definition of freedom as free
dom from we know so well from ancient
politics only repeat what
philosophy, namely, the pholosopher's demand of ^xoA^, of "leisure,"
or rather of abstention from
politics which since Plato and Aristotle
was held to be a for the /?a>s?cwp^rtK?, the
prerequisite philosopher's
life," that now the Christians demanded for all,
"contemplative only
for "the many," what the philosophers had asked for only "the few?"

Despite the enormous weight of this tradition and despite the

even more our own
perhaps telling urgency of experiences, both
into the same direction of a divorce of freedom from
pressing politics,
I think you all believed you heard not more than an old truism when
I first said that the raison d'etre of
politics is freedom and that this
freedom is in action. In the we shall
primarily experienced following,
do no more than reflect on this old truism.

II

Freedom as related to is not a

politics phenomenon of the will.
We deal here not with the liberum arbitrium, a freedom of choice
that arbitrates and decides between two given things, one good and
one evil as, for
example, Richard III determined to be a villain.
Rather it is, to remain with Shakespeare, the freedom of Brutus:
"That this shall be or we will fall for it," that is, the freedom to call
into not exist before, which was not
something being which did
not even as an of or
given, object cognition imagination, and which
therefore strictly speaking could not be known. What guides this
act is not a future aim whose the intellect has
desirability grasped
before the will wills it,whereby the intellect calls upon the will since
can dictate action?to a characteristic
only thewill paraphrase descrip
tion of this process by Duns Scotus: lntellectus apprehendit agibile
antequam voluntas Mud velit; sed non apprehendit determinate hoc
esse agendum quod apprehendere dicitur die tare. (Oxon. IV, d. 46,
no. 10.) Action, to be sure, has an aim, but this aim varies and
qu. 1,
the of the world; to
depends upon changing circumstances recognize
the aim is not a matter of freedom, but of or
wrong judgment.
right
seen as a distinct and
Will, separate human faculty, follows judgment,
i.e., cognition of the and then commands its execution.
right aim,
The power to command, to dictate action, is not a matter of freedom,
but a or weakness.
question of strength
32
 Action insofar as it is free is neither under the guidance of the
intellect nor under the dictate of the will, for
although it needs both
the execution of any particular Action springs from
goal. something
which
altogether different (following Montesquieu's famous analysis
of forms of a can
government) I shall call principle. Principles inspire,
but they cannot a result in the sense which is
prescribe particular
for out a the judgment of the
required carrying program. Unlike
intellect which precedes action, and unlike the command of the will
which initiates it, the becomes manifest only
inspiring principle fully
in the act itself,which, however, does not exhaust its
performing
an action, in distinction from its can
validity. The principle of goal,
be time and again; it is inexhaustible and remains manifest
repeated
as as the action lasts, but no are honor
long longer. Such principles
or love of which called virtue, or dis
glory, equality, Montesquieu
tinction or excellence?the Greek del apiareveiv ("always strive to do
or hatred.
your best and to be the best of all") and also fear or distrust
Freedom or its opposite appear in theworld whenever such
principles
are actualized; the appearance of freedom, like the manifestation of
the act. Men are free?as dis
principles, coincides with performing
as
tinguished from their possessing the gift for freedom?as long they
act, neither before nor after; for to be free and to act are the same.
Freedom as inherent in action is perhaps best illustrated by Machia
velli's concept of virtu, the excellence with which man answers the
the world opens up before him in the guise of fortuna,
opportunities
and which is neither Roman virtus nor our virtue. It is best
perhaps
translated by "virtuosity," that is, an excellence we attribute to the
arts (as arts of
performing distinguished from the creative making),
where the accomplishment lies in the and not in
performance itself
an end that it into exist
product which outlasts the activity brought
ence and becomes of it. The of Machia
independent virtuoso-ship
velli's virtu somehow reminds us of theGreek notion of virtue, apery,
or "excellence,"
although Machiavelli hardly knew that the Greeks
used like flute and sea
always metaphors playing, dancing, healing,
to from other activities, that is, that
faring distinguish political they
drew their analogies from those arts inwhich virtuosity of perform
ance is decisive.
Since all acting contains an element of virtuosity, and because
the excellence we ascribe to the performing arts, politics
virtuosity is
has often been defined as an art. This, of course, is not a definition
but a metaphor, and the metaphor becomes completely false if one
falls into the common error of regarding the state or government as

33
a work of art, as a kind of collective masterpiece. In the sense of
the creative arts, which bring forth something tangible and reify
human thought to such an extent that the
produced thing possesses
an existence of its own, exact an art?which
politics is the opposite of
does not mean that it is a science. Political institutions,
incidentally
no matter how well or how
badly designed, depend for continued
existence upon acting men; their conservation is achieved by the
same means that them into
brought being. Independent existence
marks the work of art as a product of making; utter dependence
as a
upon further acts to keep it in existence marks the state product
of action.
The here is not whether the creative artist is free in the
point
process of creation, but that the creative process is not displayed in
and not destined to appear in the world. Hence, the element
public
of freedom, certainly present in the creative arts, remains hidden;
it is not the free creative process which matters
finally appears and
for the world, but the work of art itself, the end product of the
on the
process. The performing arts, contrary, have indeed a certain
with musi
affinity politics. Performing artists?dancers, play-actors,
cians and the like?need an audience to show their virtuosity, just
as men need the can
acting presence of others before whom they
both need a for their "work" and
appear; publicly organized space
both depend upon others for the performance itself. Such a space
of appearances is not to be taken for granted wherever men live
in a once was that
together community. The Greek polis precisely
"form of government" which provided men with a space of appear
ances where with a kind of theater where freedom
they could act,
could appear.
I it neither nor far-fetched if I use
hope you will find arbitrary
theword in the sense of the Greek Not
'political' polis. only etymo
and not for the learned does the very word, which
logically only
in all derives from the
European languages still historically unique
of the Greek echo the experiences of the
organization city-state,
which first discovered the essence and the realm of the
community
It is indeed difficult and even to talk about
political. misleading politics
and its innermost without drawing to some extent upon
principles
the of Greek and Roman antiquity, and this for no other
experiences
reason than that men have never, either before or after, so
thought
of and bestowed so much its
highly political activity dignity upon
realm. As regards our present concern, the relation of freedom to
reason that com
politics, there is the additional only ancient political
34
munities were founded for the express purpose to serve the free?
those who were neither slaves, subject to coercion nor
by others,
laborers, driven and on the necessities of life. If, then, we
urged by
understand the political in the sense of the polis, its end or raison
d'etre would be to establish and keep in existence a space where free
dom as can
virtuosity appear. This is the realm where freedom is
a in words which can be heard, in deeds
worldly reality, tangible
which can be seen, and in events which are talked about and turned
into stories before are remembered and incorporated into the
they
occurs in this
great storybook of human history.Whatever space of
is definition, even when it is not a direct
appearances political by
product of action. What remains outside it, such as the great feats
of barbarian empires, may be impressive and noteworthy, but it is
not
political, strictly speaking.
These conceptions of freedom and politics and theirmutual relation
seem so we as free
strange because usually understand freedom either
will or free thought, while, on the other hand, we impute to politics
the concern for the maintenance of life and safeguarding of its in
terests. Yet even we, as we are with the
preoccupied apparently
concern for life, still know that is the cardinal
courage among politi
cal virtues. Courage is a big word, and I do not mean the daring
of adventure which gladly risks life for the sake of being as thor
alive as one can be only in the face of danger
oughly and intensely
and death. is no less concerned with life than cowardice.
Temerity
which we still believe to be for
Courage, indispensable political action,
and which Churchill once called "the firstof human qualities, because
it is the quality which guarantees all others," does not gratify our
individual sense of vitality but is demanded of us by the very nature
of the realm. For thisworld of ours, because it existed before
public
us and ismeant to outlast our lives in it, can not afford to
simply
concern to individual lives and the interests connected
give primary
with them; as such the public realm stands in the sharpest possible
contrast to our domain where, in the protection of family
private
and home, everything serves and must serve the security of the life
even to leave the
process. It requires courage protective security
of our four walls and enter the not because of par
public realm,
ticular dangers which may or may not lie inwait for us, but because
we have arrived in a realm where the concern for life has lost its
liberates men from their worry about life for the
validity. Courage
freedom of the world. Courage is indispensable because in politics
not life but the world is at stake, a world about which we have to

35
decide how it is going to look and to sound and in what shape we
want it to outlast us.
Those therefore who, in think of freedom
spite of all theories, still
when hear the word will not believe that the
they "politics," political
is the sum total of interests and that therefore it is the
only private
task of to check and balance their conflicts; nor are
politics they
to hold that the role of to that of a
likely government is similar
In both instances, politics is with freedom.
paterfamilias. incompatible
Freedom is the raison d'etre of politics only if it designs a realm
which is and therefore not merely but
public distinguished from,
even to the realm and its interests.
opposed private

Ill

Obviously, this notion of an interdependence of freedom and

stands in contradiction to the social theories of the modern
politics
age. Unfortunately, it does not follow that we need to revert
only
to older traditions and theories. Indeed, the greatest diffi
pre-modern
in an of freedom to
culty reaching understanding of the relation
arises from the fact that a return to tradition, and
politics simple
to what we are wont to call the not
especially great tradition, does
us. Neither the of freedom as it first arose
help philosophical concept
in late a of
antiquity, where freedom became phenomenon thought
which man could, as it were, reason himself out of the world,
by
nor the Christian and modern notion of free will have any
ground
in tradition is almost unani
political experience. Our philosophical
mous in freedom men have left the realm
holding that begins where
of political life inhabited by the many, and that it is not experienced
in association with others but in intercourse with oneself?whether
in the form of an inner since Socrates, we call
dialogue which,
or a conflict within the inner strife between what
thinking, myself,
I would and what I do, whose murderous dialectics disclosed first
to Paul and then to the and of
Augustine equivocalities impotence
the human heart.
For the of the tradition has
history problem of freedom, Christian
indeed become the decisive factor.We almost automatically equate
freedom with free will, that is, with a unknown
faculty virtually
to classical For will, as discovered it, had so
antiquity. Christianity
little in common with thewell-known to desire and intend
capacities
that it claimed attention after it had come into conflict with
only
them. If freedom were but a of the
actually nothing phenomenon
36
will, we would have to conclude that the ancients did not know
freedom. This, of course, is absurd, but if one wished to assert it
he could argue that the idea of freedom played no role in the works
to reason for this
of the great philosophers
prior Augustine. The
fact is that, in Greek as well as Roman antiquity, freedom
striking
was an the quintessence of the
exclusively political concept, indeed
city-state and of citizenship. Our philosophical tradition, beginning
with Parmenides and Plato, was founded explicitly in opposition to
this and this citizenship. The way of life chosen by the phi
polis
was understood in opposition to the fiio* itoXltlkos, the
losopher
political way
of life. Freedom, therefore, the very center of politics
as the Greeks understood it,was an idea which almost
by definition
could not enter the framework of Greek philosophy. Only when
the and especially Paul, discovered a kind of free
early Christians,
dom which had no relation to politics, could the concept of freedom
enter the became one of the chief
history of philosophy. Freedom
when itwas as occur
problems of philosophy experienced something
between me with and outside of the
ring in the intercourse myself,
intercourse between men. Free-will and freedom became synonymous
notions,3 and the presence of freedom was experienced in complete
solitude "where no man might hinder the hot contention wherin I
had engaged with myself," the deadly conflict which took place in
the "inner dwelling" of the soul and the dark "chamber of the heart."
Book VIII, ch. 8)
(Augustine, Confessiones,
In view of the extraordinary potential power inherent in thewill
will and will-power are indeed almost identical notions4?we tend
to the historical fact that the phenomenon of the will origi
forget
not manifest itself as I-will-and-I-can, but, on the contrary,
nally did
in a conflict between the two, in the experience that what I would
I do not.What was unknown to antiquity was precisely that I-will

3 Leibniz sums up and articulates the Christian tradition when he writes:

only
"Die ob unserem Willen Freiheit zukommt, bedeutet nichts
Frage, eigendich
anderes, al ob ihm 'Willen' zukommt. Die Ausdriicke 'frei' und Villensgemass'
dasselbe." zur Metaphysik I, Bemerkungen zu dem car
besagen (Schriften
tesischen Zu Artikel 39.)
Prinzipien.
4 in the famous about will in his Confessions, stresses
Augustine, chapters
the great power inherent in will: .. . et paretur "it com
already Imperat statim,
mands . . . and is the "monstrosity" that man might com
immediately obeyed";
mand himself and not be obeyed arises from the fact that 'to will' and 'to com
mand' are the same?in tantum imperat, in quantum vult, et in tantum non fit
quod imperat, in quantum non vult. ("Insofar as the mind commands, the mind
wills, and insofar the thing commanded is not done, it wills not." Book VIII,
ch. 9.)

37
 and I-can are not the same?non hoc est velle, quod posse. (Augustine,
ibidem) For the I-will-and-I-can was of course very familiar to the
ancients.We need only remember how much Plato insisted that only
those who knew how to rule themselves had the right to rule others
and be freed from the true that self
obligation of obedience. And it is
control has remained one of the virtues, if only
specifically political
because it is an of virtuosity where I-will
outstanding phenomenon
and I-can must be so well attuned that coincide.
they practically
Had ancient philosophy known of a possible conflict between what
I can and what I will, itwould
certainly have understood the phe
nomenon of freedom as an inherent or it
quality of the I-can, might
have defined it as the coincidence of I-will and I-can;
conceivably
it not have of it as an attribute of the I-will
certainly would thought
or I-would. This assertion is no we wish to
empty speculation; if
check itwe need only to read whose thought followed
Montesquieu,
so the who therefore
closely political thought of the ancients, and
was so aware of the of the Christian and the
deeply inadequacy
of freedom for He
philosophers' concept political purposes. expressly
distinguished between philosophical and
political freedom,
and the
difference consisted in that demands no more of freedom
philosophy
than the exercise of the will (Vexercice de la volonte),
independent
of circumstances and of attainment of the set.
goals the will has
Political freedom, on the contrary, consists in able to do what
being
one to will (la liberte ne pent consister qu'a pouvoir faire ce
ought
que Von doit vouloir). (Esprit des Lois, XII, 2 and XI, 3) For
as for the ancients itwas obvious that an
Montesquieu agent could
no called freewhen he lacked the to
longer be capacity do?whereby
it is irrelevant whether this failure is caused exterior or
by by in
terior circumstances.
I chose
the example of self-control because to us this is a
clearly
phenomenon of will and of will-power. The Greeks, more than any
other have reflected on moderation and the to tame
people, necessity
the steeds of the soul, and yet never became aware of the will
they
as a distinct
faculty, separate from other human capacities. Histo
men first discovered the will when
rically, they experienced its im
potence and not its when said with Paul: "for to will
power, they
is present with me; but how to that which is good I find
perform
not." It is the same will of which that it
Augustine complained
seemed "no monstrousness [for it] partly to will, partly to nill;" and
he out that this is "a disease of the mind," he also
although points
admits that this disease is, as itwere, natural for a mind
possessed of
38
 a will "For the will commands that there be a will, it commands not
. . Were
. the will entire, it would not
something else but itself.
even command itself to be, because itwould
already be." In other
words, ifman has a will at all, itmust always appear as though there
were two wills present in the same man,
fightingwith each other for
power over his mind. (Confessiones, VIII, 9) Hence, thewill is both
powerful and free and unfree.
impotent,
we set to
When speak of impotence and the limits will-power,
we
usually
think ofman's
powerlessness
with respect to the surround
some to notice that in these
ingworld. It is, therefore, of importance
testimonies the will was not defeated some
early by overwhelming
force of nature or circumstances; the contention which its appearance
raised was neither the conflict between the one nor
against the many
the strife between body and mind. On the contrary, the relation of
mind to body was forAugustine even the
outstanding example for the
enormous power inherent in the will: "The mind commands the

body, and the body obeys instantly; the mind commands itself, and
is resisted." (ibidem) The in this context the exterior
body represents
world and is by no means identical with one's self. It iswithin one's
self, in the "interior dwelling" (interior domus), where Epictetus
still believed to be an absolute master, that the conflict between man
and himself broke out and the will was defeated. Christian will,
power was discovered as an organ of self-liberation and immediately
found It is as the I-will immediately the
wanting. though paralyzed
I-can, as though the moment men willed freedom, they lost their
to be free. In the
capacity deadly conflict with worldly desires and
intentions from which will, power was to liberate the self,
supposed
the most seemed able to achieve was of
willing oppression. Because
the will's its to generate
impotence, incapacity genuine power, its
constant defeat in the with the self, inwhich the power of the
struggle
I-can exhausted itself, the turned at once into a will
will-to-power
I can only hint here at the fatal consequences for
to-oppression.
of this of freedom with the human capacity
political theory equation
to will; itwas one of the causes even we almost auto
why today
with or at least rule over others.
matically equate power oppression
However that may be, what we understand by will and
usually
has out of conflict a a
will, power grown this between willing and
out of the of an
performing self, experience I-will-and-canwctf,
which means that the I-will, no matter what iswilled, remains sub
to the self, strikes back at it,
ject spurs it on, incites it further of is
ruined it.How far the will to power may reach out, and even
by
39
 if it to conquer the whole world, the
somebody possessed by begins
I-will can never rid itself of the self; it always remains bound to
it and, indeed, under its to the self distin
bondage. This bondage
the I-will from the I-think, which also is carried on between
guishes
me and in whose dialogue the self is not the object of
myself but
the activity of thought. The fact that the I-will has become so
that will and will-to-power have become practically
power-thirsty,
identical, is perhaps due to its having been first experienced in its
at
impotence. Tyranny any rate, the only form of government which
arises directly out of the I-will, owes its greedy to an ego
cruelty
tism absent from the Utopian tyrannies of reason with which
utterly
the to coerce men and which conceived
philosophers wished they
on the model of the I-think.
I have said that the firstbegan to show an interest in
philosophers
the problem of freedom when freedom was no
longer experienced
in and with others but inwilling and the intercourse
acting associating
with one's self,when, will. Since
briefly, freedom had become free
then, freedom has been a
philosophical problem of the first order; as
such it was to the and thus has become a
applied political realm
aswell. Because of the from action
political problem philosophic shift
to from freedom as a state of manifest in action
will-power, being
to the Hberum arbitrium, the ideal of freedom ceased to be
virtuosity
in the sense we mentioned before and became sovereignty, the ideal
of a free will,
independent from others and eventually prevailing
our current notion
against them. The philosophic ancestry of political
of freedom is still in
quite manifest eighteenth century political writers,
when, for instance, Thomas Paine insisted that "to be free it is suffi
cient [forman] that he wills it," a word which Lafayette applied to
the nation state: "pour qu'une nation soit libre, il suffitqu'elle veuille
l'etre."5 with
Politically, this identification of freedom sovereignty
is the most and of the
perhaps pernicious dangerous consequence
of freedom and free will. For it leads either
philosophical equation
to a denial of human if it is realized that what
freedom?namely
ever men are never or to the
may be, they sovereign?, insight that
the freedom of one man or a group or a can be pur
body politic only
chased at the of the freedom, i.e. the of all others.
price sovereignty,
Within the it is in
conceptual framework of traditional philosophy,

5 modern the most con

Among political theorists, Carl Schmitt has remained
sistent and the most able defender of the notion of sovereignty. He recognizes
clearly that the root of
sovereignty is the will: Sovereign is who wills and com
mands. See his Verfassungslehre, Miinchen 1928, pp. 7 ff., 146.
especially

40
deed very difficult to understand how freedom and
non-sovereignty
can exist to put it another way, how freedom could have
together or,
been to men under the condition of
given non-sovereignty. Actually,
it is as unrealistic to non
deny freedom because of the fact of human
as it is to believe that one can be free?as an
sovereignty dangerous
individual or as a if one is sovereign. The famous sover
group?only
eignty of political bodies has been an illusion which, more
always
over, can be maintained only by the instruments of violence, that is,
with means. Under human conditions, which
essentially non-political
are determined the fact that not man but men live on the earth,
by
freedom and are so little identical that cannot even
sovereignty they
exist Where men wish to be as individuals
simultaneously. sovereign,
or as must submit to the of thewill,
organized groups, they oppression
be this the individual will with which I force or the
myself "general
will" of an organized group. Ifmen wish to be free, it is sov
precisely
must renounce.
ereignty they

IV

Since the whole us in the horizon of

problem of freedom arises for
Christian traditions on one hand and of an
originally anti-political
tradition on the other, we find it difficult to realize
philosophic
that there may exist a freedom which is not an attribute of the will
but an accessory of doing and acting. Let us therefore go back once
more to to its
antiquity, i.e., political and pre-philosophical traditions,
not for the sake of erudition and not even because of the
certainly
of our traditions, but a freedom
continuity merely because experi
enced in the process of and of course,
acting nothing else?though,
mankind never lost this never
experience altogether?has again been
articulated with the same classical clarity.
This articulation is rooted in the curious fact that both
ultimately
theGreek and the Latin language possess two verbs to designate what
we call 'to act.' The two Greek words are apx^v: to
uniformly
to lead and, to rule, and irpaTreiv: to carry
begin, finally, something
The Latin verbs are agere: to set
through. corresponding something
inmotion, and gerere which is hard to translate and somehow means
the and supporting continuation of past acts which result
enduring
in the res gestae, the deeds and events we call historical. In both in
stances, action occurs in two different stages; its first stage is a
which something new comes into theworld. The Greek
beginning by
word apxeiv which covers beginning, leading and even ruling, that

41
 is, the outstanding qualities of the freeman, bears witness to an experi
ence inwhich to new
being free and the capacity begin something
coincided. Freedom, as we would say today, was in
experienced
The manifold of apx^v indicates the follow
spontaneity. meaning
those could new who were
ing: only begin something already rulers
household heads who ruled over slaves and
(i.e., family) and had
thus liberated themselves from the necessities of life for
enterprises
in distant lands or in the in either case, they no
citizenship polis; longer
rule, but were rulers among rulers, moving among their peers whose
as their leaders in order to
help they enlisted begin something new,
to start a new
enterprise; for only with the help of others could the
apxcov, the ruler, beginner and leader, really act, ttpcltt lv9 carry
through whatever he had started to do.
In Latin, to be free and to are also interconnected,
begin though
in a different way. Roman freedom was a the
legacy bequeathed by
founders of Rome to the Roman their freedom was tied to
people;
the their forefathers had established
beginning by founding the City,
whose affairs the descendants had to manage, whose consequences
had to bear and whose foundations had to All
they they 'augment.'
this are the res gestae of the Roman Roman his
together republic.
as asGreek
toriography therefore, essentially political historiography,
never was content with themere narration of
great deeds and events;
unlike or Herodotus, the Roman historians always felt
Thucydides
bound to the of Roman con
beginning history, because this beginning
tained the authentic element of Roman freedom and thus made their
to relate,
history political; whatever they had they
started ab urbe
condita, with the foundation of the the guaranty of Roman
City,
freedom.
I have that the ancient concept of freedom
already mentioned
no role in Greek
played philosophy precisely because of its exclu
Roman writers, it is true, rebelled occasionally
sively political origin.
the
against anti-political tendencies of the Socratic school, but their
strange lack of philosophic talent apparently prevented their finding
a theoretical
concept of freedom which could have been adequate
to their own to the
experiences and great institutions of liberty present
in the Roman res publica. If the of ideas were as consistent
history
as its historians sometimes we should have even less
imagine, hope
to find a valid
political idea of freedom inAugustine, the great Chris
tian thinker who in fact introduced Paul's free will, its
along with
into the of Yet we find in
perplexities, history philosophy. Augustine
not as liberum arbitriumy
only the discussion of freedom though this
42
discussion became decisive for the tradition, but also an entirely dif
notion which characteristically appears in his
ferently conceived only
treatise, inDe Civitate Dei. In the City of God, Augustine,
political
as is more from the
only natural, speaks background of specifically
Roman experiences than in any of his other writings, and freedom
is conceived there, not as an inner human disposition, but as a char
acter of human existence in theworld. Man does not possess freedom
so much as he, or better his into the world, is with
coming equated
the appearance of freedom in the universe; man is free because he is
a was so created after the universe had come
beginning and already
into existence: [Initiumjut esset, creatus est homo, ante quern nemo
fuit. (Book XII, ch. 20). In the birth of each man this initial beginning
is re-affirmed, because in each instance something new comes into an
which will continue to exist after each individ
already existing world
ual's death. Because he is & beginning man can begin; to be human and
to be free are one and the same. God created man in order to intro
duce into the world the faculty of beginning: freedom.
The strong anti-political tendencies of early Christianity are so fa
miliar that the notion that a Christian thinker was the first to formu
of
late the philosophical implications of the ancient political idea
freedom strikes us as almost The seems
paradoxical. only explanation
to be that was a Roman as well as a Christian, and that
Augustine
in this part of his work he formulated the central
political experience
of Roman was that freedom
antiquity, which qua beginning became
manifest in the act of foundation. Yet, I am convinced that this im
if the
pression would considerably change sayings of Jesus ofNazareth
were taken more in their We find
seriously philosophic implications.
in these parts of theNew Testament an
extraordinary understanding
of freedom and the power inherent in human freedom;
particularly of
but the human which to this power, which, in
capacity corresponds
the words of the is capable of not
gospel, removing mountains, is
will but faith. The work of faith, its iswhat the
actually product,
a word with many in the New
gospels called 'miracles/ meanings
Testament and difficult to understand. We can the difficulties
neglect
here and refer to those passages where miracles are not
only clearly
all miracles, those men
supernatural events?although performed by
no less than those a divine agent, a natural
performed by interrupt
series of events or automatic processes in whose context con
they
stitute the
wholly unexpected.
If it is true that action and are the same, it
beginning essentially
follows that a capacity for miracles must likewise be with
performing
43
 in the range of human faculties. This sounds stranger than it actually
is. It is in the nature of every new beginning that it breaks into the
world wholly unexpected and unforeseen, at least from the
viewpoint
of the processes it moment it comes to
interrupts. Every event, the
us as were a miracle. It
pass, strikes with surprise though it may well
be a to consider miracles in contexts as
prejudice merely religious
occurrences. It may be better not
supernatural, wholly inexplicable
to our whole existence rests, as itwere, on a
forget that, after all,
chain of miracles, the into being of the earth, the
coming develop
ment of life on it, the evolution of mankind out of the animal
organic
For from the of processes in the universe and their
species. viewpoint
statistically overwhelming probabilities, the coming into being of the
earth is an "infinite as the natural scientists would say,
improbability,"
a miracle as we call it. The same is true for the formation of
might
life out of or for the evolution of man
organic inorganic processes
out of the processes of life.Each of these events appears to us
organic
a
like miracle the moment we look at it from the of the
viewpoint
processes it interrupted. This viewpoint, moreover, is no means
by
or it is, on the contrary, most natural and
arbitrary sophisticated;
indeed, in ordinary life, almost commonplace.
I chose this to illustrate thatwhat we call 'real' in
example ordinary
has come into existence
experience through the advent of infinite
it has its limitations and cannot
improbabilities. Of course, simply
be applied to the realm of human affairs. For therewe are confronted
with historical processes where one event follows the others, with
the result that the miracle of accident and infinite oc
improbability
curs so that it seems strange to speak of miracles at all.
frequently
However, the reason for this is merely that historical
frequency
are created and human initiative.
processes constantly interrupted by
If one considers historical processes as
processes, devoid of hu
only
man initiative, then every new in it, for better or worse,
beginning
becomes so as to be
infinitely unlikely well-nigh inexplicable. Objec
that is, seen from the outside, the chances that tomorrow will
tively,
be like yesterday are so overwhelm
always overwhelming. Not quite
of course, but so as the chances are that no earth
ing, very nearly
would ever rise out of cosmic occurrences, that no lifewould
develop
out of no man would ever out
inorganic processes, and that develop
of the evolution of animal life.The decisive difference between the
"infinite improbabilities,,, on which life and the whole
earthly reality
of nature rest, and the miraculous character of historical events is
obvious; in the realm of human affairswe know the author of these
44
 "miracles"; it is men who perform them, namely, insofar as they
have received the twofold gift of freedom and action.

From these last considerations, it should be easy to find our way

back to contemporary It follows from them,
political experiences.
that the combined danger of totalitarianism and mass is not
society
that the former abolishes freedom and civil rights, and that
political
the latter threatens to engulf all culture, the whole world of durable
to abolish the standards of excellence without which no
things, and
can ever be
produced?although these dangers are real enough.
thing
them we sense another even more dangerous threat, namely
Beyond
that both totalitarianism and mass society, the one by means of terror
and ideology, the other by yielding without violence or doctrine to
the general trend toward the socialization of man, are driven to stifle
initiative and as such, that is, the element of action and
spontaneity
freedom present in all activities which are not mere laboring. Of these
two, totalitarianism still seems to be more dangerous, because it at
earnest to eliminate the of "miracles" from
tempts in all possibility
the realm of or?in more familiar exclude the
politics, language?to
of events in order to deliver us to the automatic
possibility entirely
we are surrounded our historical
processes by which anyhow. For
and political life takes in the midst of natural processes which,
place
in turn, take place in themidst of cosmic processes, and we ourselves
are driven
by very similar forces insofar as we, too, are a part of
nature. It would be sheer to for miracles,
organic superstition hope
for the in the context of these automatic
"infinitely improbable,"
can be
processes, although even this never completely
excluded. But
it is not in the least it is even a counsel of realism, to
superstitious,
look for the unforeseeable and unpredictable, to be for and
prepared
to "miracles," in the realm where in fact are
expect political they
Human freedom is not a matter of meta
always possible. merely
but a matter of fact, no less a auto
physics reality, indeed, than the
matic processes within and against which action always has to assert
itself.For the processes set intomotion to become
by action also tend
automatic?which is no act and no event can ever
why single single
once and for all deliver and save a man, or a nation, or mankind.
It is in the nature of the automatic processes, to which man is sub

ject and by which he would be ruled absolutely without the miracle

of freedom, that can to human life; once histori
they only spell ruin
45
cal processes have become automatic, they are no less ruinous than
the life process that drives our organism and which biologically can
never lead but from birth to death. The historical sciences
anywhere
know such cases of and declining civilizations only too well,
petrified
and they know that the processes of stagnation and decline can last and
go on for centuries. Quantitatively, they occupy by
far the largest
space in recorded history.
In the history of mankind, the periods of being free were always
relatively short.
In the of petrification and automatic de
long epochs
the of freedom, the sheer to
velopments, faculty capacity begin,
which animates and inspires all human activities, can of course remain
intact and produce a great variety of great and beautiful things, none
of them political. This is probably why freedom has so frequently
been defined as a non-political phenomenon and eventually even as
a freedom from current liberal
politics. Even the misunderstanding
which holds that "perfect is incompatible with the existence
liberty
of and that freedom is the price the individual has to pay for
society"
security, still has its authentic root in a state of affairs inwhich political
life has become and action impotent to interrupt
petrified political
automatic processes. Under such circumstances, freedom indeed is
no as a mode of with its own kind of "vir
longer experienced being
tue" and virtuosity, but as a supreme which only man, of all
gift
creatures, seems to have received, of which we can find traces
earthly
in almost all his activities, but which, nevertheless, can
develop fully
where action has created its own worldly space where freedom
only
can
appear.
We have always known that freedom as a mode of being, together
with the where it can unfold its full virtuosity, can be
public space
be Since our acquaintance with totalitarianism, we must
destroyed.
fear that not the state of being free but the sheer of freedom,
only gift
that which man did not make but which was to him, may be
given
too. This fear, based on our of the newest form
destroyed, knowledge
of government, and on our that itmay yet prove to be the
suspicion
of a mass on us under
perfect body politic society, weighs heavily
the present circumstances. For more may on human
today, depend
freedom than ever before?on man's to turn the scales which
capacity
are in favor of disaster which auto
heavily weighted always happens
and therefore to be irresistible. No less than
matically always appears
the continued existence of mankind on earth may this time
depend
upon man's to miracles," that is, to about the
gift "perform bring
and establish it as
infinitely improbable reality.
46