A Note Found on My Smart Phone

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While initially expecting evidence rejecting a politicised society, my research into the conditions of freedom evinced the surpising insight that a competitive political order is the most central feature of a free society. Thus, freedom is incapable of producing a uniform reading of freedom. First and foremost, she must provide for arrangements to accommodate her intrinsic plurality. I feel I need to stress this finding, considering the anti-democratic mood that seems to engulf people of the most different political leanings, nowadays perhaps more than in a long time. 

[Die Möglichkeit der Massenpartizipation am politischen Wettbewerb ist das wichtigste Merkmal der Freiheit. Die Abstimmungs-Balance, die sich daraus ergibt, dass jeder sich am politischen Geschäft beteiligen darf, definiert den kleinsten gemeinsamen Nenner der Freiheit. Demgegenüber ist es aussichtslos, sich von der Freiheit die Entstehung einer einheitlichen und geschlossenen Ideologie/Denkweise/politisch-weltanschaulichen Ausrichtung zu erwarten.] 

The hopes we have for freedom exhaust themselves when we achieve a successful balance between mass political competition with its tremendous potential for strife, on the one hand, and, on the other, peacable relations among the millions of free citizens competing for a mutually favourable relationship with their government.

Under feasible freedom, the voices of the malcontents testing the possibilities of a free society are likely to be louder and more numerous than those expressing satisfaction with the tumultuous best freedom can achieve.

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Liberty is a composite of values. These values are contested and interpreted differentially by her constituents. Thus, inherently, liberty is perceived in ways that may at best represent a Wittgensteinian family resemblance.