Human history is an unending tension between authority and freedom. The state emerged as a promise of order and protection, yet it has often become a mechanism of domination and limitation of human autonomy.
Perhaps freedom ultimately lies neither in the complete abolition of authority nor in its unconditional acceptance. Rather, it resides in the constant vigilance of individuals toward every form of power that claims the right to govern their lives.
Freedom, in other words, is not a final condition but a permanent demand of human consciousness.
We speak of the recovery of individual freedom, with the clarification, however, that perhaps such freedom never truly existed. At least within historical times, we do not encounter it.
If it ever existed, it could only be placed in the most remote periods of human history, in what we might call the days of humanity’s “innocence.” Those which we define as the “beginning of the world” and of life itself—assuming, of course, that such a beginning can indeed be marked, since in another sense even time itself may not exist.
Thus, let us retain the word “recovery” merely in a symbolic and facilitating sense.
What remains timeless and never contested, however, is the demand and expectation for freedom—a sine qua non attribute of human existence, an inalienable, natural, and irrevocable right. This is the essential question here.
Individual freedom does not exist in organized societies that today take the form of the state, which organizes and supervises them. The Greek word kratos itself signifies exactly what it literally means: power, authority, domination.
In essence—and to put it vividly—the state was born the moment when that ruthless and idle individual settled beside the unsuspecting native and, threatening that he would “smash a stone over his head,” ordered him from that moment onward to bring him water from the nearby spring whenever he was thirsty.
In exchange, the native would be allowed to remain safe within his personal living space and continue his activities—provided he obeyed the unnatural condition-law imposed by the new authority over him.
Kingdoms, empires, nations, and modern states, together with those who represent and embody them, are the most developed and organized forms of that original and primitive demand for domination.
The rest—more complex analyses of power and the state, such as the profound work of Friedrich Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State—are essentially scientific examinations of the same phenomenon we described above in a simple narrative form, aside from the historical necessity that Engels introduces as part of his theoretical interpretation.
A Putin, a Trump, and a Netanyahu—moving directly from historical figures of the past to the present—represent the very embodiment of state power today, often reaching the point of arbitrariness. They are perhaps the clearest demonstration of how dangerous the state can become for individual freedom and, consequently, for human life itself.
In the name of obscure ideologies and various “isms,” the individual—now merely a subject—must suffer the consequences of decisions that he may neither share nor support. These consequences range from compulsory military service and participation in wars, or the possibility of having bombs fall upon one’s head, to the constant psychological burden of uncertainty about what tomorrow may bring.
This insecurity and fluidity in every field of human activity become even more dangerous when those who represent state power today often appear reckless, unpredictable, and sometimes even irrational in their behavior—while at the same time possessing weapons of mass destruction far beyond anything available to their predecessors.
Diotima is therefore called upon, with the clarity and objectivity that characterize her as the “cool voice of reason,” to answer the crucial question:
Was it ever truly worth it—and is it still worth it—for the individual to continue (and even obligatorily) to “sign” the famous social contract of the Enlightenment philosophers, by which individuals surrender their personal freedoms to the state?
Especially when, historically speaking, a genuine state governed by the rule of law has rarely existed beyond the grandiose proclamations of its constitutions.
In other words: should individuals continue to grant their rulers the right to exercise what the German sociologist Max Weber famously defined as the “legitimate use of violence”?
Diotima:
If we gather together these ideas—from ancient Greek philosophy to modern political theory—a deep and timeless question emerges:
Can genuine individual freedom exist within organized societies and state systems?
The history of political thought shows that the answer is far from simple.
The theories of the social contract, such as those developed by Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, argued that the state emerged as a necessary mechanism to prevent violence and disorder. According to this view, individuals surrender a portion of their natural freedom in order to gain security, stability, and protection of their rights.
Other thinkers, however, regarded the state as a fundamental instrument of domination. Karl Marx interpreted the state as a mechanism that serves the interests of the ruling class, while Mikhail Bakunin argued that every form of state authority is inherently oppressive and must be abolished for true freedom to exist.
In modern thought, Michel Foucault introduced another dimension by suggesting that power is not located solely within the state but is dispersed throughout society—within institutions, knowledge systems, education, and social relations. Even if the state were abolished, networks of power would still persist.
This debate has deep roots already in ancient Greek philosophy. Aristotle maintained that the human being is by nature a political animal and that the city (polis) is necessary for the fulfillment of human life. In contrast, Diogenes of Sinope rejected social conventions and emphasized individual self-sufficiency as a form of freedom. The Stoics, led by Zeno of Citium, argued that true freedom is internal and does not depend on political systems.
From all these perspectives, a fundamental conclusion emerges: human history constantly oscillates between two needs—the need for freedom and the need for order. The state appeared as a mechanism attempting to balance these two demands, yet it can also become a source of coercion.
Thus, the central issue may not simply be whether the state should exist or not, but rather how power can be limited so that human autonomy is preserved.
The search for freedom does not seem to lead to a final political formula. Instead, it remains an ongoing process of critical reflection on every form of authority, combined with the effort to create institutions capable of protecting individuals from arbitrariness.