518
PARTISAN REVIEW
where between vegetable and animal , and bore him, with the passage
of centuries , towards intimacy with the atoms and the stars .
This, perhaps, is the most unsettling paradox of the many that
crowd our history : freedom , the nourishing source of all the best that
has befallen man and of his most ardent desire, is at the same time
an abyss into which he may tumble and destroy himself. It has hap–
pened many times and, judging by the countless examples history
provides, will happen again.
And nonetheless, for all its dangers , and despite the disasters to
which its use and abuse may lead us, there is no doubt that individ–
uals and nations choose freedom, when they have the opportunity to
do so . And when they lack that choice, they are prepared to undertake
the greatest sacrifices to achieve it . There are of course exceptions,
but not many . The enemies of freedom usually are enemies only
temporarily, for just the time it takes to realize, once it is gone, that
the resulting impoverishment and gloom of life turn out to be too
high a price for those supposed benefits of trampling freedom under–
foot : tranquility and order, for example , as in the case of authoritarian
dictatorships; the abolition of classes and the establishment of collec–
tivist egalitarianism, in the totalitarian case; or the imposition of a
single dogma , in the case of religious dictatorships.
Are the Iranian people satisfied with the theocratic despotism
of the Shiite imams , which has now inflicted more deaths and suffer–
ings on that country than the corrupt autocracy of the Shah? Appar–
ently so. How else could we explain the stability which that regime
seems to enjoy, or conceive of the ardent zeal with which we see the
young boys and old men of what was ancient Persia now flinging
themselves into the senseless butchery that is the war with Iraq? Re–
ligious faith , when lived fanatically , can perfectly well dispense with
freedom , and can even impart emotional fulfillment and an illusion
of happiness that freedom is unlikely to give.
If
we define happiness
as a state of absolute accord between what man feels and the reality
he lives, then indeed there can be no doubt : an enslaved people can
be happier - or less unhappy - than a free people.
If
happiness means
living without doubts or uncertainty, without the obligation con–
stantly of questioning reality or having to choose between dissimilar
options; if it means submission to a doctrine or faith which plays the
part of conscience and removes man's individuality so that he fulfills
himself within that doctrine and acts only within it, returning to the
