“Freedom in the West, in order to manifest itself, requires a void—and succumbs to it. The condition which determines it is the very one which annihilates it. This freedom lacks foundation; the more complete it is, the more it overhangs an abyss, for everything threatens it, down to the principles from which it derives. Man is so little made to endure or deserve it, that the very benefits he receives from it crush him, and freedom ultimately brings him to the point where he prefers, to its excesses, those of terror. To these disadvantages are added others: a liberal society, eliminating mystery, the absolute, order, and possessing the true metaphysic no more than a true police, cast the individual back upon himself, while dividing him from what he is, from his own depths… . Imagine a society overpopulated with doubt, in which, with the exception of a few strays, no one adheres utterly to anything; in which unscathed by superstition, certainties, everyone pays lip service to freedom and no one respects the form of government which defends and incarnates it… . You are disappointed after promises which could not be kept; we, by a lack of any promises at all… . ”
Emile M. Cioran
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