Discourse of Freedom and Contemporary Greco-Protestantism

Abstract

In this article, the author provides an analysis of the “discourse of freedom” as one of the foundations for secular and ecclesiastical liberalism. The discourse of freedom receives the name of a “libertian discourse” (not to be confused with libertarianism — a specific political and ideological current). The libertian discourse is studied within its historical origins associated with the legal codes of ancient Rome and the social philosophy of the Enlightenment. The libertian discourse and the related concept of the “natural law”, hardly evolving and unchanged in the 300 years since its inception, has outlived its historical competitors in the form of historical law, Marxism, etc. This phenomenon of libertian fundamentalism refutes the liberal axiom of permanent social progress and modernization, which also applies to the sphere of knowledge. Since the concept of fundamental (generic) rights and freedoms can be neither scientifically proven nor deduced from the traditional norms and values, it should be classified as a metaphysical (in Karl Popper's sense), fundamentalist and quasi-religious doctrine. This article shows the contemporary transformations of the phenomenon of freedom, which results in the libertian discourse becoming an integral part of power practices, an exclusive right to criticize power and a “subtle discourse of power”. The contemporary function of libertianism lies in restricting the freedom of a political opponent in the name of fighting for freedom and in creating a marketable competitive field of political compensation for the restriction of freedoms (stigmatization). The author points to the struggle between two cultural-historical and religious paradigms with different understandings of freedom — the “Roman” (political, elitist) and biblical (social), emphasizing that this struggle generates two versions of the discourse of freedom in the contemporary political space. The author raises the question of the demarcation of freedom paradigms on the same grounds as the more general question of “paradigms of involvement with the transcendent” and the hybrid mixing of different paradigmatic foundations in the modern interpretation of freedom.