It’s a mangled quote from Marx: “Freedom is the consciousness of necessity”. In the Soviet Union this phrase was a staple of state ideology, and a popular folk mockery of it went like “freedom of speech is the conscious necessity to stay silent”.
Interesting, I wasn’t aware of that. Nevertheless I didn’t detect any purpose of social commentary in the way the Strugatskys used it. Instead, I posted this as a comment because it gels well with Eliezer’s take on free will.
The alternate future Earth of “Escape Attempt” is a communist utopia. Many (most?) of their other works are set in the same world. Some of them describe it in more detail, like “Midday, XXII”.
I haven’t read Noon: 22nd century, but the other works I did read either steered clear of discussion of communism (like Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel or Definitely Maybe) or more or less subtly criticized it (Inhabited Island, Roadside Picnic, Beetle in the Anthill).
It’s a mangled quote from Marx: “Freedom is the consciousness of necessity”. In the Soviet Union this phrase was a staple of state ideology, and a popular folk mockery of it went like “freedom of speech is the conscious necessity to stay silent”.
Interesting, I wasn’t aware of that. Nevertheless I didn’t detect any purpose of social commentary in the way the Strugatskys used it. Instead, I posted this as a comment because it gels well with Eliezer’s take on free will.
The alternate future Earth of “Escape Attempt” is a communist utopia. Many (most?) of their other works are set in the same world. Some of them describe it in more detail, like “Midday, XXII”.
I haven’t read Noon: 22nd century, but the other works I did read either steered clear of discussion of communism (like Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel or Definitely Maybe) or more or less subtly criticized it (Inhabited Island, Roadside Picnic, Beetle in the Anthill).