Beyond Negative Freedom and the Working Class Subject: Another Kind of Madness

Abstract Presented with the (non) choice of either assimilating into bourgeois society and, thus, annihilating themselves, or being annihilated by society, the working class subject may choose, neither, engaging, instead, in an act of negative freedom. By engaging in an act of negative freedom, the working class subject destroys all possibility of rehabilitation, thus, determining their fate. The act alone provides a means by which to mark the outer limits of what they are willing to tolerate. Through the act, the subject is altered, their world is changed. Furthermore, before engaging in the act, they do not know what will happen to them. They are, in other words, stepping into the abyss of unknowing. In this article, I will explore the concept of negative freedom in relation to the working class subject: how engaging in such an act marks their fate, separating them from bourgeois society while, also, setting them free. At the same time, due to its inherent withdrawal from civil society, negative freedom veers dangerously near nihilism, thus, reducing their act to one without meaning.