==BULGARIA==

The notions of slavery and freedom do not mean anything if they are not viewed in context. I shall place these two notions in specific historical contexts in order to prove that slavery is freedom, and that the reverse is equally true.
The historical background in which I shall situate them is, generally speaking, West and Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. I shall also give exam- ples referring to our modern society. I am going to use the terms slavery and freedom in their broadest sense, and my main point will be that freedom does not always mean freedom.
The thing about the Middle Ages is that, although people did not have personal free- dom to choose their ways of life and their ways of individual fulfillment, they felt happy and secure. In the Middle Ages everybody knew their task in society. The craftsman was born a craftsman and died a craftsman. In those days the individual was not important, because the important thing was the social group people belonged to. Everyone was part of the mass and depended on the need of the mass. Nevertheless, this way of life did not make people feel like slaves. They had no right to determine their lives, but they were pleased, because they did not know what such things as "individual" and "personal free- dom" meant. In this sense, people did not consider themselves oppressed. They had their roles in life which they really performed, and this brought them comfort.
In contrast to the society of the Middle Ages, the society of the Renaissance was quite different. Capitalism began gradually to develop and social classes appeared. On the one hand, Capitalism brought freedom, because it created the individual. The individual came to be the centre of everything. One had the right to choose and the right to develop. One might have been born poor, but if one had initiative and ambition enough, one might be integrated into the class of the prosperous. On the other hand, Capitalism brought slavery, because there was always someone who was in the position to command and always someone who had to obey. Now people were given the right to choose, but they did not always have the opportunity to survive. Moreover, Capitalism brought loneliness to those who became rich, because their obsession with money deprived them of such human feelings as love and affection. The freedom of Capitalism was not real freedom. People were free from their previous ways of life, but they were not absolutely free in their present lives, because there still existed circumstances, although different from those in the Middle Ages, which made them dependent.
The Renaissance to make people free individuals, has its even stronger manifestations in the 20th century society. We call our society free society. It is true that, historically viewed, 20th-century people have achieved the greatest amount of instances of freedom. However, it is not the quantitative but the qualitative aspect that should matter most. In my opinion the quality of our freedom seems to be quite an illusive thing. We are as free as we are not. One of the things we consider an example of great achievement of freedom is, the freedom of speech. And so it is if we look only upon the surface of things. It is true that people have the right to say what they think. They believe that nobody can tell them what to think. But the thing which people often forget when they speak of freedom of speech, is that there are "anonymous authorities", which make them obey certain modes of behaviour. These modes of behaviour have to be in accordance with the univer- sally recognised moral norms of society, common sense, and other restrictions on the human mind. People are free to say what they want to say, but they also have to observe the above mentioned restrictions. Otherwise, they run the risk of becoming outcasts in their own society. Therefore freedom of speech is not true freedom. There is no point having such freedom when, if one does not fit into the conventions of society, it might breed social contempt.
So what follows from the historical retrospect is that at times slavery may have the quality of freedom, and that at other times freedom may be closer to slavery. During the Middle Ages, people were socially dependent, but they were, in a way, gratified and free in spirit. During the Renaissance there was individual freedom but very often people were oppressed, lonely and miserable. Nowadays this tendency is strengthened. It seems to me that Jean-Paul Sartre was right to say that we are doomed to be free, and I also see con- siderable grounds in Erich Fromm's suggestion that we should not search for freedom but rather for an escape from it.