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That is why the ' Enlightenment' ideas should not have been thrown out the window.
I would suggest you read people like Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Etienne de La Boétie, maybe even Voltaire. Those were all French (or French speaking) but they all have been translated into English for a good reason: it's worth reading them even if you are not lucky enough to read French.
They, as well as many other thinkers btw, they have reflected on what it meant to be free while they were living in a not free society. And considered what it could mean to be free and to live with other free people.
Way too grossly summarized: it means to respect the other, to have empathy for the other, to know the only true ground to building a society and working together while remaining free is not through a religion or the 'family' (family being an ad hoc association between people, dixit Rousseau) but it is in the the realization we can do a lot more work by freely/willingly working together than working alone. And then it follows that no matter how absolutely free we may decide we are we should be fine with putting limits to our own freedom as a way to make sure other people will also put limits to their (and not threatens ours), making sure we don't end up considering all other persons as mere... resources that re waiting for us to exploit them.
That's why it's important, as free persons, to recognize certain limits to our individual freedom (and power) including agreeing a common set of values, moral and educative, that we all agree to follow and to enforce them upon all of us equally (oneself included). Like... to not enslave your neighbor (no matter the color of their skin, faith, or whatever else).