The “truth” of the struggle emerges only in and through defeat. … to pass from alienation to reconciliation, we do not have to change reality, but rather the way we perceive and relate to it. … reconciliation works-not as a positive gesture of resolving or overcoming the conflict, but as a retroactive insight into how there never really was a serious conflict, how the two opponents were always on the same side … in spite of the fact that Revolutionary Terror was a historical deadlock, we have to pass through it in order to arrive at the modern rational State. Here also, then, one has to do something (offer an apology, enact a reign of Terror) in order to see how it is superfluous. … It only becomes possible to" “see how the Terror is superfluous and destructive after one has gone through it. … For us to be "truly” and “radically” free would entail that there be no positive content involved in our free act-if we want nothing “external” and particular or given to determine our behavior, then “this would involve being free of every part of ourselves”. … When a determinist claims that our free choice is “determined,” this does not mean that our free will is somehow constrained, that we are forced to act against our will. … What is “determined” is the very thing that we want to do “freely,” that is, without being thwarted by external obstacles.

http://ift.tt/2dbtqKA