Abstract

Considering the paradoxes of freedom/liberty, the author proposes to correlate freedom and liberty as “abstract” and “concrete freedom” in Hegel. The first involves the ability to do what you want, regardless of social rules and customs; the second is freedom, limited and at the same time supported by a set of social norms. The gap between these concepts constitutes the space of actual freedom, creating a tension between the universality of the law and attempts to formulate exceptions to it. There are prohibitions that can only be expected to be violated privately, and even those whose existence cannot even be publicly reported. An important function of such prohibitions is to maintain appearances, and not necessarily only in non-democratic regimes — a modern boss may demonstrate that they are only the first among equals, but in fact they remain our boss. Here relations of domination function through their negation: we are not only obligated to obey, but also obligated to act as if domination does not exist. Perhaps today more than ever, the mechanism of censorship intervenes primarily to enhance the effectiveness of the discourse of power itself. In modern capitalism, hegemonic ideology includes critical knowledge, thereby neutralizing its effectiveness: critical distance in relation to the social order is the very medium through which it reproduces itself. Thus, art biennales, positioned as a form of resistance to global capitalism, actually turn into an act of capitalist self-reproduction. Illustrating the way of liberation through giving up what you desire most, the author analyzes the case of Malcolm X. Choosing X as a surname is a demonstration of a new (lack of) identity, this gesture makes white dominance meaningless, turns it into a game without a partner, without whom the game itself is impossible. True liberation, then, by definition involves symbolic suicide.