What is the nature of freedom?Today we introduce three philosophers who think about "freedom", Adorno, Popper, and Han Byung-chul. The philosopher Adorno said that there is no freedom in the pure sense, and the reason why we want to pursue freedom is because we perceive unfreedom, and we want to break free from it, and it is dangerous to pursue freedom in purity.
He went so far as to say that free will is a false question, and that the only meaning of free will lies in its negation, in the reflective negation of all kinds of concrete repressions. Freedom is not an affirmative statement, its essence is negation.
The bird flies out of the cage, it is free, and the bird uses this freedom to negate the bondage of the cage.
Adorno said that the concept of "freedom" first appeared as a "negation". The British philosopher John Locke put forward the idea that all men are free and equal in his "Treatise on **". But Locke did not talk about freedom independently, and his "Treatise" provided a theoretical defense for the victory of the "Glorious Revolution" in England at that time, and the rise of the bourgeoisie to power.
The "liberty" advocated by Locke was the rebellion and resistance of the emerging bourgeoisie he represented against the British ruling class at that time.
Therefore, the essence of "freedom" is resistance and resistance to oppression, enslavement, and oppression, freedom is relative and negated, and freedom should not be an end, but only a means.
The essence of freedom is negation, and this view is held not only by Adorno, but also by the philosopher Popper, who proposed two paradoxes in his book The Open Society and Its Enemies, the paradox of freedom and the paradox of democracy. Popper said that an open society is characterized by a belief in reason and freedom, a sense of responsibility among its members, the ability to govern themselves, and the responsibility for their own free choices. In simple terms, the principles of an open society are critical, democratic, liberal and tolerant. Popper's democracy, freedom, and tolerance are not the same as what we usually understand. Popper explained his ideas in the form of "paradoxes".
Popper argues that if freedom means that everyone can do whatever they want without restrictions, then some people will be "free" to dominate and even enslave others, and that the freedom of one person will prevent the freedom of others, and eventually freedom will become the source of unfreedom, which is a paradox: as long as freedom itself is unrestricted, it will be defeated by itself. So, Popper argues, we have a misunderstanding of freedom, and we tend to see the affirmation of freedom and ignore its negative power.
This negativity manifests itself in two aspects, one is the negation of the other, and the other is the negation of the self. Earlier, we introduced Han Byung-chul's "Burnout Society" and "The Disappearance of the Other", which also touched on the negation of freedom. For example, in interpersonal relationships, we all want to have freedom, we all want to be in charge of ourselves, and we all want to be in control of the relationship, but this will make freedom more impossible, and we will endlessly fall into the game of subjectivity. Because the affirmation of one's own freedom implies the denial of the freedom of others, the other's will gradually disappear from our field of vision if we expect freedom excessively.
On the other hand, the affirmation of self-freedom will also strengthen and exaggerate the ability of the self, and this exaggeration of the ability of the self will become a shackle to the self over time. We will subtly tell us that if we do not have freedom, whether it is the freedom of wealth, the freedom of work or the freedom of consumption, we will tend to think that we are not capable or have not worked hard enough, because at this time the other person can no longer be a reason for failure.
Therefore, Han Byung-chul regards the negation of freedom as a kind of self-discipline and self-exploitation. This kind of self-confrontation and exploitation will cause great mental internal friction, which will bring about many mental illnesses of frustration, anxiety, and depression.
Today we introduced the thinking of three philosophers on freedom, what they all have in common is to see the negation of freedom, 2023 Post Sprint Contest How to correctly view the relationship between freedom and self is actually a very important understanding, okay, that's all for today's content, more exciting content, please like and collect and follow me, we will see you in the next issue.