What Is Freedom? Bounded by Place: A Japanese Philosopher Answers
What is freedom? Takahiro Mitsui, a Japanese philosopher born in 1991, writing every Friday from inside Japan and outside academia, answers in his own essays: freedom has been preached from so many sides that we are convinced we know it, yet it is bounded by place, and what remains in every place is freedom in the heart, the Japanese jiyu, to arise from oneself. Not political science but a way to live free, from outside the West, by a thinker alive today and still young.
For those who feel free and cramped at once
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Freedom is bounded by place, 2026-03-04): freedom has been preached from so many sides that we are convinced we know it, yet it took native root in one part of the world and is bounded by place; the question that remains in every place is whether there is freedom in one's own heart.
Freedom has been preached from so many sides that we are convinced we know it.
That is, a freedom universal to humankind can never be realized by any method tried so far.
Since what is essential is whether there is freedom in the heart of each person, we cannot say there was no freedom in the historical context of East Asia.
Did democracy ever exist in Japan?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A democracy no one has found, 2026-02-13): Japan is counted as a democracy, yet he finds the ideal of democracy nowhere in it, and traces how the words for democracy were changed in the Meiji and Taisho years.
Think about it calmly and the link cannot hold, yet no one asks, and to this day Japan is counted as a democracy.
The ideal of democracy cannot be embodied without being native to a place.
In short, the premise is that the people give everything for the state.
Jiyu: to arise from oneself
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Freedom is bounded by place, 2026-03-04): in Japanese, freedom is written jiyu (自由), to arise from oneself, and he takes this older word as the place to turn when the age falls into confusion.
In Japanese, freedom is written jiyu (自由).
The characters mean "to arise from oneself," to live by one's own heart and truth as one's ground.
That is, it was not originally a matter of seeking freedom in what is outside.
In my view, freedom is a freedom that an individual who has not been socialized creates within.
The more the age falls into confusion, the more strongly I feel that there is nowhere else for us to go but jiyu, "to arise from oneself."
No one takes responsibility
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A country where no one takes responsibility, 2025-08-06): Japan's three turning points are the Meiji Restoration, defeat in the Second World War and the collapse of the bubble economy, and the problem lies in the decisions made at each, with those in charge evading their own responsibility.
These are symbolic events; in reality, it is not the events themselves that are the problem, I think, but the posture taken at each moment—which is to say, the decisions themselves.
Put simply, if all of society ignores a problem, it is as though the problem never existed.
Everyone bows to an invisible code far more binding than statutory law, while zealously demanding that same subservience from their peers.
Not against others: on oneself
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Revolution is carried out on oneself, 2026-06-03): however many words we spend we end up back in the same spot, because certainty narrows the world; revolution is never against others but carried out on oneself.
The trap of dualism, "right and wrong," "good and evil," is always our own problem, and never a problem of others, society, government or the world.
We were taught that conviction gives strength, but it turns over and becomes a cage that shuts us in.
Essays to read
- Freedom is bounded by place — What is freedom? Freedom bounded by place was exported as universal and felt as coercion, Takahiro Mitsui holds; jiyu, to arise from oneself, remains.
- A democracy no one has found — Is Japan really a democracy? Japan is counted a democracy, but Takahiro Mitsui finds its ideal nowhere; even Taisho's essence was giving everything to the state.
- A country where no one takes responsibility — Who takes responsibility in a system where no one decides? Takahiro Mitsui maintains it drifts toward a defeat it cannot name while exchange dies out, after three turning points: the Meiji Restoration, defeat in 1945, the bubble's collapse — the structure behind NO ONE DECIDED.
- Revolution is carried out on oneself — Why can we not understand each other no matter how much we talk? Certainty narrows the world, Takahiro Mitsui maintains, and revolution is never against others but on oneself.
- Control by polite request — How does Japan control people without force? Mutual watching and polite requests keep Japan orderly without force, Takahiro Mitsui explains, and one misstep can be the end.
- Project 2049, Vol.0 (free in full) — begin here; Project 2049 continues every Friday