On Freedom

growing up in the us, the author, timothy snyder, remembers being a child during the bicentennial celebrations of 1976. he was taught that, back in 1776, the liberty bell in philadelphia was rung in celebration of the declaration of independence. it was the first chapter in a story he’d be told from that day on: that america was the land of the free.

eventually, he learned that the liberty bell wasn’t rung at all in 1776. in fact, it served as a potent symbol for oppressed americans – slaves seeking their own freedom through the underground railroad and women fighting for their right to vote.

in his 20s, snyder studied abroad and learned more about freedom when visiting eastern europe and russia, just as the soviet union was collapsing. studying political science and economics, and talking to locals, he began to get a sense of the important role history plays in determining the future. what are the conditions for freedom, and what are the conditions for oppression? in this chapter, we’ll get at the answers to these questions and more.

when considering the definition of freedom, or what it looks like in the real world, there tend to be two perspectives. let’s call them positive freedom and negative freedom. 

negative freedom occurs when barriers are removed. for example, when certain restrictive laws are taken away, or when we’re liberated from oppression, we supposedly experience more freedom.

in 2023, the author visited villages in ukraine that had been freed from russian occupation. while these places are no longer under immediate threat, snyder questions whether the people are genuinely free. 

for instance, in yahidne, survivors of the russian invasion emerged from a cellar after a brutal occupation. but just because these people are no longer imprisoned underground does not mean they’re truly free. real freedom requires more than the absence of violence; it depends on a support system – family, volunteers, a trustworthy government. it requires having a future where children can safely play, where the community can rebuild lives and not just homes.

these are just some of the reasons why negative freedom – "freedom from” something – isn’t true freedom. true freedom is positive freedom, which is about creating the right conditions for people to thrive, to pursue their purpose in life, and to live in dignity.

freedom can’t be inherited or granted by a government. instead, it must be built and maintained by people, for people. it's not just the absence of oppression, but a positive presence of good structures – physical, moral, and social – that allow us to realize our potential.

in this light, ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky’s decision to stay in kyiv is a good example of what true freedom looks like. many people assumed zelensky would flee when russia invaded. in doing so, he’d have exercised his freedom to escape, or so they thought. but zelensky displayed a positive freedom that’s not only about the absence of barriers but about presence, commitment, and will. that’s closer to real freedom: not escaping something bad, but embracing your ability to stay and fight for what’s right.

in the sections that follow, we’ll look at the five essential elements to freedom. they are: sovereignty, unpredictability, mobility, factuality, and solidarity. then, in the last section, we’ll look at how a government can support these principles and help to promote a free society.

the first essential form of freedom is sovereignty. this is a foundational aspect as it establishes both an essential understanding of yourself and others. in this case, sovereignty is not just a kind of autonomy or freedom from external forces, and it’s not just about self-awareness. it’s about understanding what makes each and every one of us human.

the author’s understanding of personal sovereignty comes from the german philosopher edith stein, who emphasized the importance in recognizing ourselves through others. stein makes an important distinction in her writing: when she talks about a human “body” she doesn’t use the german word “körper,” which other authors use. instead, she uses the word “leib” to emphasize the fact that we are living, subjective bodies.

but stein also made the important distinction that we can only truly understand ourselves when we step back and recognize others as leib and not körper, and see them as they see us. this, in other words, is empathy. only when we understand others as we understand ourselves, can we start to break free from the isolated, individualistic notion of negative freedom that limits us. we will only know ourselves better when we acknowledge the humanity in others, which gives rise to a shared sense of freedom.

negative freedom is an “us versus them” proposition. it’s the idea that we're only free when other people aren’t blocking us. this perspective leaves us disconnected and vulnerable to manipulation. positive freedom allows for connection and shared understanding, which leads to a more genuine sense of autonomy. to put it simply: we are most free when we understand ourselves as part of a larger human experience.

and yet, throughout history, we’ve been told that others are not leib but körper. hitler, stalin, and other leaders have found power in dehumanizing others – in making people believe that we can be free if we get rid of others. negative freedom is focused on protecting what we already have and often rooted in nationalism and defense. but this road ends in violence and reveals itself to be just another form of oppression.

when we deny others their humanity, we ultimately diminish our own freedom, as empathy is essential for recognizing our place within the larger, shared human experience. freedom is not an individual project, but a cooperative one that spans generations.

the second form of freedom is unpredictability. this too is essential as you can only imagine what it would be like if your every action was predictable and your future predetermined. freedom is the understanding that the future contains unknown possibilities.

václav havel was a czech dissident, playwright, and eventually the president of the czech republic. havel’s unique perspective on freedom came through his experiences living under democracy, nazi occupation, and later, communist rule. he witnessed the erosion of moral values under communism and how cynicism bred compliance. as people accepted the idea that "everything is shit," they stopped resisting and became predictable to authorities.

havel believed that this predictability – what he called "unfreedom" – was the enemy of true freedom. when life becomes an echo chamber of conformity, people stop making real choices, and their authenticity disappears. unpredictability is what keeps people from becoming just another cog in the machine; it’s one of the differences between a lieb and körper. 

havel lived long enough to see the rise of digital predictability. even before the internet, he worried that technology could reduce our individuality by categorizing and herding us into the most probable states. this, havel warned, would only increase conformity and diminish freedom, much like the communist systems of his time.

while technology can also be used to achieve certain goals, like fighting political battles, we often fall victim to its manipulative designs. 

today, computers and smartphones pull us into a digital world, our focus fragments, and our sense of time, connection, and even self starts to dissolve. instead of thoughtful engagement, we often become slaves to the dopamine-fueled feedback loops of social media, slowly losing our sense of agency. we become predictable and easy to control, both by algorithms and those who design them.

it’s not just a theoretical issue. technology erodes our freedom when it influences our behavior and our thinking. instead of vibrant, unpredictable individuals, we risk becoming mere bodies in a system designed to classify, control, and manipulate us. the cogs in the machine.

we need a conscious resistance to this trend. we need to reclaim our human capacity for freedom by being thoughtful and intentional about how we use technology – before it fully consumes us. unfreedom wants submissive and predictable bodies. freedom wants unpredictable and sovereign human minds.

sovereignty and unpredictability brings us to the third form of freedom: mobility. mobility is vital because it’s about the ability to explore your own path and move toward your own future – to live a life not driven by imposed structures or historical inevitabilities.

this was the basic idea of the american dream. but when the american dream worked, it did so through the social policies that emerged after the great depression. the dream was built on positive freedom: combining decent wages and strong institutions to ensure that people had real choices in life.

but the dream crumbled when capitalism was falsely seen as the ultimate source of freedom – an idea that flourished in the 1980s under ronald reagan. reagan's administration promoted negative freedom. liberty meant the removal of things like government interference, the welfare state, worker’s unions, and antitrust laws. all of these policies made social mobility harder.

the statistics tell the story. in the mid-twentieth century, americans were almost guaranteed to earn more than their parents. by the 1980s, however, that likelihood dropped to 50 percent. meanwhile, the wealth generated by the american economy increasingly pooled at the very top. this tiny group, the 0.01 percent, now controls as much wealth as half the us population combined. they enjoy unprecedented power and they pay lower taxes than most working- and middle-class americans.

when wealth is so unevenly distributed, it becomes demoralizing. people start to feel immobilized, as if there are no alternatives, no future worth striving for. this is reinforced by the politics of inevitability, which suggest that the current mode of capitalism is the only freedom available to us, and that inequality and suffering are unavoidable.

worse still is the shift from inevitability to eternity politics, where leaders don’t offer a hopeful future but instead trap us in nostalgic myths about a supposedly better past. this is where authoritarian figures like vladimir putin and donald trump come in, convincing people that progress is a threat and that only they can restore lost greatness.

history can, however, help us escape these traps. a true understanding of the past reminds us that nothing is inevitable, that there have always been multiple possibilities, and freedom depends on recognizing and embracing those alternatives. without this historical perspective, we risk getting stuck in the politics of inevitability, eternity, or even catastrophe, all of which close off the future and our sense of freedom along with it.

from sovereignty, unpredictability, and mobility, let’s move on to the fourth form of freedom: factuality. understanding the facts of our existence – whether in science, history, or society – gives us the leverage to shape our own futures by making informed choices. factuality is how we know we’re not being manipulated or led astray.

the politics of negative freedom often function by ignoring facts and favoring dangerous oversimplifications. karl marx proposed that freedom would come by eliminating property. hitler proposed freedom through the elimination of a race of people that were holding society back. in modern america, politicians propose that freedom will come through the elimination of government interference. all of these harmful ideas ignore the complexities of the world and the basic facts of science and life.

in stalinist russia, history and facts were constantly being rewritten, and often contradicting each other, in order to suit the political party line. this practice inspired the author george orwell to coin the term “doublethink.” similar dynamics are at play in today’s russia and even in parts of american politics.

in his book “mein kampf,” hitler wrote about the powerful political tactic of creating a “big lie” – a lie so immense and outrageous that it becomes hard for followers to believe anyone would deceive them on such a scale. consider donald trump’s big lie following the 2020 election, when he claimed he had won despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. this falsehood not only incited a violent insurrection on january 6, 2021, but also created a “doublethink” environment where contradictory beliefs about that day could coexist among his supporters.

trump’s big lies threaten the very foundations of democracy in america. by undermining trust in the electoral process he risks leading the country toward dictatorship.

truth is vital for understanding events like trump’s attempted coup and living authentically rather than being manipulated by lies. misinformation spreads easily and quickly in the digital age, which can drown out factual, local reporting.

when people turn to algorithms for their news they end up in a divisive landscape that fosters an “us vs. them” mentality. we need to reclaim the pursuit of truth, viewing it as a human value that can’t simply be legislated or defined away. as james baldwin wrote, truth is a form of freedom that, while difficult to quantify, is essential for the pursuit of a just society. as we’ll see in the next section, truth also depends on a certain amount of solidarity.

the last form of freedom is solidarity – embracing the fact that freedom cannot be a selfish pursuit. without solidarity we end up with a fractured society of racism, inequality and the politics of despair. when some people achieve success while others remain stagnant, it breeds resentment rather than progress.

when the czech president václav havel said, “no freedom without solidarity,” he was pointing out that true freedom necessitates cooperation and shared responsibility. it obliges us to act in ways that enable others to be free as well.

solidarity is powerful. the american civil rights movement and the voting rights act of 1965 are perfect examples of how it can increase freedom and equality. the 1980s polish labor movement (known as “solidarity”) shows us how collective action ultimately shaped a new, freer political landscape in eastern europe.

solidarity is one of the best defenses we have against the lure of economic efficiency, which puts profit above all else and reduces human beings to mere instruments for achieving the goals of those in power. efficiency has been used throughout history to justify dehumanization. its lineage can be traced from the american industrial revolution, to russian gulags and nazi concentration camps, to the oppressive conditions under which many workers operate today.

libertarianism has also become a threat to solidarity and freedom. generations ago, libertarians considered liberty as the ultimate value. but american libertarianism has turned that into an ideology that worships the so-called “free market.” as such, it has become entrenched in a digital culture that promotes an oversimplified binary mindset: “free market” good, “government” bad. 

this reductionist thinking has continued to pit entrepreneurship against social justice. but these ideals can coexist and even enhance one another. a fair foundation that allows for social mobility is essential for fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. the better our public services, from education to healthcare, the more empowered individuals are to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors.

solidarity is rooted in the understanding that we are interconnected. collectively, we are the ones with the freedom and the power to create a society where health, life, and dignity are prioritized over profit. by recognizing our shared responsibility we can hope to build a future where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

in this final section, we’re going to look at some of the meaningful ways in which a government can support positive freedom. while it is our responsibility to work together to realize our values – to bridge the gap between what is and what we want to be – the government plays a necessary role in fostering freedom.

to address factuality and unpredictability, we need ethical standards in technology and data management. through policy reform we can help ensure that technology can serve human needs, not the other way around.

a comprehensive charter for fair transparency in digital spaces could require traceability of all online content to real people, along with accessible code explanations. it can hold companies accountable for what is published on their platforms, as well as promote user agency, requiring opt-in data sharing and the ability to access and correct personal data.

our mobility and sovereignty also requires healthy societal structures, such as affordable public universities, voting rights for all citizens, unimpeded access to health care, and programs that support the development of renewable energy sources such as fusion power. 

the us also loses $1 trillion each year to tax evasion. that’s a lot of money that could go toward increasing mobility and making the country more equitable. you need only go back to the tax code of 1980 to find a more just and sensible way to tax the wealthiest citizens.

and when it comes to solidarity, there is hope to be had. despite the persistent clash between the left and right in american politics, we can highlight some underlying values that can unite.

the philosopher leszek kołakowski believed that we should adopt a blend of conservative, liberal, and socialist views. each perspective contributes to a holistic approach: seeing freedom as a central part of life is a liberal stance; seeing freedom as being about virtues is a conservative stance; and recognizing the importance of structures in securing freedom speaks to socialism. these three philosophies are complementary, and their strength – as well as our strength – lies in collaboration.

reflecting on his own children, the author expresses hope for a better future. he believes in our potential for change. as simone weil once said, while miracles may seem elusive, they ultimately depend on our willingness to act. by understanding the true nature of freedom, we can forge a better future for ourselves and generations to come.

in this chapter to on freedom by timothy snyder, you’ve learned that…

there are five forms of freedom: sovereignty, unpredictability, mobility, factuality, and solidarity. sovereignty is the understanding that we are all human beings deserving of the same rights and respect. unpredictability is to live a life where your future is not predetermined, to not be a cog in the machine. mobility is to be able to chart your own course, both physically and socially. factuality is the ability to make informed decisions based on true facts and knowledge. solidarity is the freedom to work together, to make positive change that lifts everyone up equally. with these forms of freedom in mind, governments can better support freedom by regulating the manipulative powers of social media and create social programs that promote mobility and help people flourish.

okay, that’s it for this chapter. we hope you enjoyed it. if you can, please take the time to leave us a rating – we always appreciate your feedback. see you in the next chapter.