Breakdown of Vi er enige om at åpen debatt og frihet til å elske hvem man vil er rettferdig for alle.
Questions & Answers about Vi er enige om at åpen debatt og frihet til å elske hvem man vil er rettferdig for alle.
In Norwegian, adjectives normally agree with the subject in number (singular/plural).
- Jeg er enig = I am agreed / I agree (singular)
- Vi er enige = We are agreed / We agree (plural)
- De er enige = They agree (plural)
So with vi (we), the adjective enig must take the plural form enige.
Same pattern:
- Hun er glad. – She is happy.
- De er glade. – They are happy.
The adjective enig / enige needs a preposition before a clause, and here the natural choice is om:
- å være enig om at … = to agree that …
You cannot say *enige at – Norwegian almost always needs a preposition before a that-clause (at-clause).
There is also enig i at, which many consider slightly more correct in formal writing when you agree with a statement or opinion:
- Vi er enige i at dette er feil.
In practice, Norwegians often use enig om at and enig i at quite interchangeably in everyday speech, especially when talking about opinions or principles.
You would not normally use enig med at before a clause. Med is used with a person:
- Jeg er enig med deg. – I agree with you.
The part after om is a subordinate at-clause:
- at [åpen debatt og frihet til å elske hvem man vil] er rettferdig for alle
In Norwegian subordinate clauses (introduced by at, fordi, hvis, når, som etc.), the normal word order is:
subject – verb – rest
So:
- åpen debatt og frihet til å elske hvem man vil = subject
- er = verb
- rettferdig for alle = rest of the predicate
You do not invert subject and verb inside an at-clause.
So:
- riktig: … at åpen debatt … er rettferdig …
- wrong: … *at er åpen debatt … rettferdig …
Here we are speaking about open debate in general, as a general principle, not about one specific, concrete debate.
In Norwegian, when talking about things in a general way, you often use the indefinite singular:
- Åpen debatt er viktig. – Open debate is important.
- Utdanning er viktig. – Education is important.
- Ytringsfrihet er grunnleggende. – Freedom of speech is fundamental.
If you said den åpne debatten, it would typically refer to a specific, known debate:
- Den åpne debatten i går var interessant.
The open debate yesterday was interesting.
So åpen debatt here is the generic, abstract idea of open debate.
Åpen is the basic singular form of the adjective, used with masculine/feminine singular indefinite nouns:
- en åpen debatt – an open debate
- en åpen dør – an open door
Åpne is used for:
- plural: åpne dører – open doors
- definite singular: den åpne døren – the open door
- definite plural: de åpne dørene – the open doors
In your sentence, debatt is singular and indefinite, so we use åpen debatt.
After frihet in the sense of freedom to do something, Norwegian normally uses til + infinitive:
- frihet til å si hva man mener – freedom to say what one thinks
- frihet til å velge – freedom to choose
- frihet til å reise – freedom to travel
So frihet til å elske is the standard pattern.
Other combinations mean something else:
- fri for noe = free from something
- fri for sukker – free from sugar
- for å mainly introduces purpose:
- for å lære – in order to learn
Therefore frihet til å elske is the natural and idiomatic form.
The phrase frihet til å + infinitive describes what the freedom is used for:
- frihet til å elske … – freedom to love …
So å elske is the infinitive “to love”. You could rephrase the sentence in other ways, but they would sound less natural or have a slightly different nuance. For example:
- frihet til å elske hvem man vil – freedom to love whoever one wants
- frihet til selv å velge hvem man vil elske – freedom to choose for oneself whom one wants to love (heavier, more explicit)
Using til å + infinitive keeps the structure natural and compact.
No – Norwegian man here is an impersonal pronoun, not related to gender. It roughly means “one / people in general / you (in a generic sense)”.
- Man bør respektere andre. – One should respect others.
- I Norge arbeider man vanligvis til 67 år. – In Norway, people usually work until 67.
In hvem man vil, man = “one / you / people in general”, so:
- frihet til å elske hvem man vil ≈ freedom to love whoever you want.
It’s gender-neutral. Some people also use en instead of man in the same sense:
- hvem en vil – a bit more old-fashioned/formal or dialectal.
Literally, hvem man vil is “who one wants”, and Norwegian allows you to leave out (omit) a verb when it would just repeat a verb already used:
Fuller, more explicit version:
- frihet til å elske hvem man vil elske
freedom to love whom one wants to love
Because elske is already mentioned directly before, you can omit it after vil:
- hvem man vil (elske)
This is similar to English:
- I can eat what I want (to eat).
- You may do what you like (to do).
So in the sentence, hvem is the object of the understood verb elske.
Here vil means “want(s) / wishes to”, not “will” in the English future tense sense.
- Jeg vil spise. – I want to eat.
- Hun vil dra hjem. – She wants to go home.
In Norwegian, the future is usually expressed with the present tense plus a time expression, or with skal / kommer til å, rather than vil:
- Jeg reiser i morgen. – I’m going / I will go tomorrow.
- Det kommer til å regne. – It’s going to rain.
So hvem man vil = who one wants (to [love]), not “who one will”.
Norwegian has several question/relative words:
- hvem – who / whom (persons)
- hva – what (things)
- hvilken / hvilket / hvilke – which (choosing between defined options)
- som – that / who / which (relative pronoun, usually not after a preposition)
In this sentence we are talking about people in general: “who(m) one wants [to love]”, so hvem is the correct word.
- hvem man vil – whoever one wants (person)
- hva man vil – whatever one wants (thing)
Hvilken would sound like you are choosing between specific, known alternatives, and som does not fit after elske in this structure. So hvem is the natural choice.
The adjective rettferdig (“fair, just”) typically combines with for in this kind of structure:
- rettferdig for alle – fair for everyone
- urettferdig for noen – unfair for someone
For here marks who is affected by the fairness/unfairness.
Til is more about direction, destination, or purpose:
- en gave til deg – a present for you
- gå til skolen – go to school
- for å lære norsk – in order to learn Norwegian
You might also hear rettferdig mot noen in some contexts (more like “fair towards someone” in concrete interpersonal situations), but rettferdig for alle is the standard way to express a general principle that is fair for everyone.
Grammatically, both are possible, but they sound a bit different.
åpen debatt og frihet til å elske hvem man vil er rettferdig for alle.
Here, the whole combination “open debate and the freedom to love …” is treated as one overall principle that is fair.åpen debatt og frihet til å elske hvem man vil er rettferdige for alle.
This treats åpen debatt and frihet … more as two separate things, each of which is fair.
Because the sentence talks about a single general ideal, most speakers will prefer the singular-like sense rettferdig. It sounds smoother and more natural in this abstract, political/moral context.