The Freedom Trap

by Priyan Max Jeganathan

invites you to look at what's familiar from an unfamiliar angle. To consider how we consider things – and how to do it better.


Has our obsession with freedom distracted us from more important things?


Freedom has crept out of our constitutions and legal systems and into our eating, shopping and live-streaming habits.


There's more and more to be free inconvenience, offence, limits – anything that stands in the way of what we want. And yet, we are – somehow – more anxious, grumpy and divided than ever.


Can a society that's drunk on freedom come back to its senses? What if freedom is a trap? And if it is, what can we do to free ourselves from it?

91 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 1, 2025

Reviews

[Hayden Olberding · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve had the privilege of hearing Max’s teachings on this subject a couple times, and this is a great introduction to the topic at hand. Will the abolition of Western (or shall I say Christian) moral framework make a more “free” society? If our definition of “freedom” shifts in the right direction, we find ourselves bound to consequences of immoral actions rather than bound to the abundance of life found in virtue, and virtue found in the Summum Bonum.

[Christian Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many in the West have fallen victim to the trap of liberty and freedom. Max does a fantastic job of demonstrating what type of freedom we are actually called to and how the freedom trap has distorted our livelihood.

[John Dohanich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Priyan Max Jeganathan nails this book. He writes so eloquently and engagingly. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was honest and convicted me. Max makes great arguments against the wave of hyper individualized freedom. He walks the line between calling for less freedom universal freedom and great strides that democracy has provided. He walked it as well as one could without becoming political and turning off his readers. I would be curious what this looks like with more Biblical examples to draw his illustrations rather than the vast majority of them being modern. I assume this was due to relatability and the fact the current levels of freedom are quite recent phenomena. I absolutely recommend this book.

Max argues that freedom will always have constraints. We must choose what we allow to constrain us. We will worship something.