Mathematics and Politics - The Two Pans of the Scales of Freedom

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Politics

In politics we have a wider range of options by which to define, deepen, and cement the credibility of our beliefs. We can increase the intensity of personal faith. We can form interest groups that enact fictional corroboration of a faith. We can choose to ignore sources of further enlightenment. We can opt for certain interpretations rather than  taking other renderings into account. We may be swayed by personal interests such that it makes sense to us to think of something as being true that others have grounds to think of as being false.We can posit ideas that are not falsifiable. We can evoke assumptions and "evidence" that no one recognises as (a) dubious or (b) requiring empirical corroboration. We may be immersed in "a culture of assumptions" which we are not able to transcend by critically investigating it. We may have practical reasons and pragmatic justification to ignore truth and operate on false or fraudulent assumptions. We may be positionally disabled to to see the whole which approximates the truth more fully than our perspective does.

Mathematics

By contrast, in mathematics it is hard to define credibility autonomously. One of the main reasons that this is hard to accomplish may be that, unlike in politics, it seems hard to tie mathematical truth to interests. If claiming that 6 + 6 = 14 would serve the interest of certain people, it might be a good idea for them to make that claim, if they were able to maintain and profit from it. In reality, there are no such interests, plus of course there are too many applications of faulty mathematics that hurt the interests of virtually everyone under given circumstances. Do not build a house based on 6 + 6 = 14. 

Ideological Dedication, Freedom and the Two Pans of the Scales of Freedom

Ideologically dedicated theories of freedom will tend to endeavour to give the impression of being similar to mathematics.

Freedom, by contrast, is the realm of conditions which are free from ideological dedication. Freedom enables the evolvement of ideologically dedicated theories (of freedom etc.) and a diversity of other models of reality. This implies coexistence of parallel, competing, and perhaps incommensurable models of reality: a state of peace such that the simultaneous presence of incompatible models of reality is ensured. Again we encounter the two pans of the scales of freedom: encouragement of dissent and pacification. Freedom seeks conditions that bring both pans into balance. 

So if we wish to theorise freedom, we ought to look for these conditions - robust conditions of freedom, as I call them -, rather than reason from first principles.