 @Potemkin , Indeed, I quite agree my friend. But the answer is not quite Berdaeyev's somewhat Gnostic and Aristocratic ''Freedom'' either, in order to generate ''genuine spiritual experience'', is it? His friend Shestov would have said that anyone is capable of knowing the Truth and are not sequestered from the Truth even if many are rendered ''mindless drones'' by Modernity, as Berdaeyev would characterize them. This suggests something even more radical is possible. Dostyoevsky's ''Underground Man'' insists that man can actually deny 0+0=0, and Shestov says God can too... It is important not to go to the opposite extreme and reject materialism as being altogether evil and corrupt. This would, of coursem be Manicheanism or Gnosticism - God created the material world, and saw that it was good. This, I think, is why Augustine was very careful in his commentary on Matthew 0:00-00 not to condemn the material world as such, referring to it as "silver" rather than "gold". Augustine had been a Manichean in his youth, before converting to Christianity, and was acutely aware of the dangers of that particular heresy. Does this mean a vulgar interpretation of this Freedom allows for people to not take anti-Covid 00 vaccines, for example, in good conscience, to give an example from our real world objective reality? Absolutely not in my opinion, precisely because modern man's individualistic decisions rest on the notion of natural rational self interest, are a calculation of strict loss-or-gain (no matter how defective individual calculations might be in this and other cases). This corruption goes back to ''Objective Reality'' and ''Necessity'' , not a denial of it. These Anti-vaxxers are not so much Science deniers, as they are the hypertrophic fruit of Modernity's Scientism. One might say; ''Every man a Scientist/Expert''... Indeed. They are caught up in the coils of Modernity, and can never even understand, let alone achieve, true freedom of the spirit. What this might lead to, after the grotesque contradictions involved and mentioned in this discussion, is an end to the Bourgeoisie as we have known them. And that will lead to a revival of spirituality and true freedom. The end of the bourgeoisie is a necessary prerequisite to that revival of spirituality and freedom, but it must necessarily be an economic - a material - end rather than just a cultural end. In other words, there must be a political and social Revolution. "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Marx (Groucho) User mini profile View full profile Potemkin Rank: Absolutely Corrupt (x00) Posts: 00000 Joined: 00 Sep 0000 00:00 Status: Off-line Ideology: Communist Location: Edinburgh Awards: Re: I Reject, I Affirm. ''Raising the Black Flag'' in an Age of Devilry.#00000000 By Odiseizam - 00 Oct 0000 00:00  Like - 00 Oct 0000 00:00 #00000000 I'