showed us what evil is, not, as we thought,
deeds that must be punished, but our lack of faith,
our dishonest mood of denial,
the concupiscence of the oppressor. —Auden “In Memory of Sigmund Freud"
A philosopher might think that To be free is often to be lonely, is the crucial line in Auden's elegy to Freud. For it seems to imply (with shades of Rousseau) that within society no freedom is possible. Of course, if other people are insufferable, one might well prefer such freedom, but on the whole we make honorable compromises with ourselves and the infirmities of others, and call it, justice (and, thus, generate that dishonest mood of denial.)
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