Freedom and civilization / by Bronislaw Malinowski.

  • Bronisław Malinowski
Date:
1944
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Freedom and civilization / by Bronislaw Malinowski. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to the most significant and glorious victories. People have fought for this ideal and died for it gladly. Martyrs and heroes of humanity have perished at the stake and faced their ordeals of martyrdom for the sake of freedom of conscience, of religion, of national independence and of scientific conviction. Yet even here freedom has always appeared as a double- faced goddess: for martyrdom means religious persecution, and a fight for liberty implies tyranny. Tyrants, inquisitors and dic¬ tators had also their own ideals, at times even an ideal of freedom which they were trying to impose on humanity. Thus at every stage of evolution and history, in every specific case under con¬ sideration, there is a need of dispassionate, well-briefed inquiry into where freedom resided and from where oppression came. The word freedom is, therefore, not a mere counter or token of speech. It is a word as moving in poetry as it is powerful in the domain of live battle cries. Many have sacrificed, and at this very hour are sacrificing, the fundamental freedom of existence for the sake of freedom. Others give up their own personal free¬ dom and languish or perish in prison or concentration camp, so as to testify to the value of freedom. The freedom from want, the freedom of security, the strongest emotional freedoms of friendship and family bonds have to be surrendered to this sub¬ lime yet ruthless ideal. The fundamental problems of ethics, sociology and psychology revolve around this concept. At times it is almost felt that to define such a word is nothing short of sacrilege. Yet this is neces¬ sary, for the word is also capable of indefinite perversions. It is our duty to show where these perversions lie and how they can be detected and refuted. The alternative is simply to surrender to confusion and perversion. Any attempt to discover a satisfactory concept of freedom makes clear the fact that we do not suffer from a dearth of
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