People have fought and died in its name, and new dangers supposedly pose a threat to it every day – but freedom itself is fraught with indelible contradictions. In this exclusive preview ahead of the publication of his new book Freedom: A Disease Without a Cure, firebrand philosopher Slavoj Žižek exposes the tensions in how we understand freedom today.

Freedom is one of those deceiving notions that appear self-evident, but the moment we try to dissect them we get caught in ambiguities and contradictions. I think the best illustration of these ambiguities is the situation imagined in the expression “Buridan’s ass.”

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All real decisions are undecidable, only the decision itself make reasons for it palpable.

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