What does Freedom mean?

In a world that is already substantially totalitarian - in terms of the high level of thought-monitoring and thought-control - and where trends are towards more totalitarianism; it is necessary to be clear about the nature and purpose of freedom.

Firstly - what freedom is Not:

Freedom is neither freedom-from; nor is it freedom-to...

Because freedom-from influence is merely what people mean by 'random' - while freedom-to do something refers to this-worldly and material factors, which are always and inevitably constrained.

We need to be clear that freedom is freedom of thought; and freedom of thought means what it says - freedom in thinking (not in doing, which is never free).

And freedom from influence is missing the point - because the point is Not to be free of any influence; but to understand where free thinking comes from: what is its origin?

The origin of free thinking is the self: specifically the real self; and the real self is that which is capable of creating thought. Creation means that thought comes neither as merely a consequence of outside influence, nor randomly, nor a combination of determined and random -- but instead creation is the thinking of a thinking-entity; the thinking of a being capable of creative thought...

So, the real self can be imagined as a complex, coherent, autonomous entity with attributes such as character, motivations, inbuilt knowledge, instincts, a capacity for reason... and so forth. the self is what we find, by introspection , behind everything.

The real self therefore has divine attributes - because this kind of entity is precisely what is meant by a personal deity: a god the origin of purposes.

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So, if this is freedom - then why is freedom good?

The answer is that freedom is not good except for Christians (and even then, only for Christians of a certain kind). For everybody else, freedom is merely a means to an end; and expediency...

Why is freedom a good for Christians, specifically? Because Christianity can only be chosen, and because obedience (law-following) is not enough: Christianity teaches that motivation for action is primary, which entails freedom.

Why is totalitarianism bad? Because (by maximal monitoring and control) it tries to stop freedom of thinking, and thereby tries to stop people being Christian. As well as censoring, and filling the mind, and creating continual distractions; this ultimately aims to induce people to choose inversion of The Good.

Inversion of Good is (mostly) reversal of what might be termed Natural Law - that is the universal, innate, spontaneous ideal morality of mankind (typically, this is asserted even by people who do evil things - they regard their own motivations as good).

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If we are reasonably clear as to the nature of freedom, and if we subscribe to a transcendental world view (that is, a world view extending beyond emotional gratification during mortal life), and if this view is Christian - then we can understand that totalitarianism is always and necessarily evil.

There cannot be a Christian totalitarianism, therefore all totalitarianisms are anti-Christian (even/ especially when they falsely self-identify as Christian).