The Freedom Manifesto

October 15, 2007
In this intermittently amusing but excessively long sequel to How to Be Idle: A Loafer’s Manifesto
, British author and editor (the Idler
) Hodgkinson states upfront that his goal is to present a philosophy for everyday life based on “freedom, merriment and responsibility, or anarchy.” Asserting that before the Reformation, “England was one non-stop party,” he wants to overthrow modern Puritans and return to an approach to life that is basically “having a laugh, doing what you want”—and he provides alternatives to the many ills of the modern world such as those listed in the book’s title. The main problem is that many of Hodgkinson’s topics end up being played for easy laughs—in one chapter titled “Forget Government,” the message is “Stop Voting,” while in another on “Submit No More to the Machine, Use Your Hands,” his main advice is “Use a Scythe.” When he does try to move beyond laughs and explain how his philosophy can cause “a radical redefinition of human relationships” based on “local needs” instead of “global capitalism,” he never quite explores how this would happen in the real world, relying instead on grand statements (in a chapter called “Stop Working, Start Living”) such as “A spade, a saw and a chisel, that is all you need to be free.”