Genuine freedom requires accepting permanent tension rather than seeking rest
Evidence
Finally, the oppressor has a good case for showing that respect for freedom is never without difficulty, and perhaps he may even assert that one can never respect all freedoms at the same time. But that simply means that man must accept the tension of the struggle, that his liberation must actively seek to perpetuate itself, without aiming at an impossible state of equilibrium and rest; this does not mean that he ought to prefer the sleep of slavery to this incessant conquest. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 97
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader project of distinguishing the freely-recognizing from the bad-faith types; the ‘tension of the struggle’ vs ‘sleep of slavery’ is the free person’s stance against the serious man’s comfort.
Related
- Freedom exists only by being conquered from original spontaneous existence (similarity 0.82)
- Freedom that withdraws into self-interest denies its own nature (similarity 0.81)
- Genuine freedom requires historical perspective and perseverance, not spontaneity (similarity 0.80)
- Denying that one freely chooses ends makes one enslaved to those ends (similarity 0.80)
- Freedom is meaningful only as engaged by free choice of ends (similarity 0.79)
- Liberation appears immediately necessary only to the oppressed (similarity 0.79)
- Freedom requires temporal continuity, not isolated instants of choice. (similarity 0.78)
- Freedom is won by constant pursuit, not granted or gifted. (similarity 0.78)