#on freedom

[emilianadarling]

- Timothy Snyder. The first and perhaps most important lesson from On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons for the Twentieth Century (2017)

Snyder's new book, On Freedom, was published in 2024.

[metamorphesque]

there is a moment between jumping from the frying pan into the fire that feels a lot like liberation

[funeral]

Freedom will prove to have been merely an interlude. Freedom is felt when passing from one way of living to another—until this too turns out to be a form of coercion. Then, liberation gives way to renewed subjugation. Such is the destiny of the subject; literally, the 'one who has been cast down'. Today, we do not deem ourselves subjugated subjects, but rather projects: always refashioning and reinventing ourselves. A sense of freedom attends passing from the state of subject to that of project. All the same, this projection amounts to a form of compulsion and constraint—indeed, to a more efficient kind of subjectivation and subjugation. As a project deeming itself free of external and alien limitations, the I is now subjugating itself to internal limitations and self-constraints, which are taking the form of compulsive achievement and optimization.

Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power

[perniciouspuss]

an excerpt from the temple of my familiar by alice walker

[cloak-of-stars-and-flowers]

Giovanni Potage.

“You’ve now been promoted to boy, MINION BOY!”

“You’re my minion now, all my minions are important.”

“Nah, I got, like, ten minions.”

(Pinterest-found images, yippeeeee!)

[timothysnyder]

A year ago, I launched my book On Freedom in a war zone – in Kharkiv, Ukraine, 35 seconds from Russian artillery. Today, I'm launching the paperback in Portland, Oregon. Which is NOT a war zone. There is a difference in the real world between what's a war and what is not, and between truth and lies.

[problematically-vague]

You see, I believe in freedom, Mr Lipwig. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.

Going Postal by sir terry pratchett