When we place ourselves again on the scale of the cosmos, freedom as we conceive it takes on a particular relief. We are the living that has become conscious of itself, appearing on a small planet, in the spiral arm of a galaxy among hundreds of billions. We depend on extraordinarily precise conditions to breathe, to eat, to maintain our temperature, to remain alive. And yet, at the very heart of this radical dependence, we have forged the idea that we might be absolutely free—free as if nothing bound us to anything, as if we were autonomous entities floating in the void.
This vision has become, in many modern societies, what I call the dogma of freedom: the belief that authentic freedom is that which knows no bounds, no limits, no accountability. According to this dogma, every external constraint is suspect, every common rule a threat. The individual is imagined as a solitary sovereign, and the ideal is to maximize one’s space of action without ever reducing its scope. This dogma is seductive in its promise: it places us at the center, makes us believe that we master our destiny. But it rests on an illusion. For the simplest truth—and the hardest to integrate—is that we are not independent. We are woven into a dense web of interdependencies: biological, ecological, social, cultural. Every breath we take depends on the photosynthesis of plants; every meal we eat is the product of living soil, of a hydrological cycle, of a chain of knowledge and human effort.
To move beyond this dogma does not mean renouncing freedom, but understanding that authentic freedom can only be exercised by recognizing these ties. So long as we remain prisoners of the idea that freedom consists in doing whatever we want, whenever we want, without regard for consequences, we prepare our own downfall. Absolute freedom, applied by each in a world of finite resources, mechanically leads to the destruction of the very conditions that make freedom possible. Freedom is not a pure, rootless state; it unfolds within a context, inside physical and relational limits. It is always relative to an environment and to other living beings—human or not—with whom we share that environment.
To be free, in this perspective, is to have the capacity to choose and to act while taking into account the ties that constitute us. It is to be able to orient our decisions with knowledge of the effects they produce on the common fabric. Situated freedom is not less demanding than the absolute freedom of the dogma: it is more so, for it requires lucidity, discernment, and responsibility. In an interdependent world, freedom cannot be conceived as a private good to be defended against others. It must be understood as a common good to be built with them. This changes the question we ask: instead of “how far can I go?”, it becomes “how far can we go together?”
The ecological transition cannot succeed without this surpassing of the dogma of freedom. So long as we claim, in the name of our freedom, the right to pollute, to overconsume, or to destroy, we are sawing off the branch upon which we sit. Freedom that denies its interdependencies is suicidal freedom. Freedom that recognizes them is durable freedom. A few examples bear this out. Refusing to wear a seatbelt in the name of absolute freedom endangers not only the driver, but also others, and needlessly mobilizes emergency resources. The constraint protects life, and with it, the possibility of continuing to be free. A fisherman may claim the right to take as many fish as he wishes; but if all do so, the stocks collapse and the freedom to fish vanishes for everyone. In a pandemic, temporarily limiting certain behaviors can preserve collective health and allow everyone to more quickly regain freedom of movement.
To move toward a culture of situated freedom is to relearn that our freedom is inscribed in the continuity of life. It is to accept that some limits are not hindrances, but safeguards that ensure the durability of what we value. It also requires developing a fine capacity for discernment: to distinguish the limits that protect freedom from those that truly erode it. This surpassing of the dogma is not an impoverishment of freedom, but an enrichment. It draws us out of an infantile vision—where freedom is confused with the absence of constraints—and leads us toward an adult vision, where freedom is an active commitment to preserve and to nourish the living fabric that sustains us.
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