Freedom originally meant friendship and relational mutuality, not self-optimization
Evidence
As the entrepreneur of its own self, the neoliberal subject has no capacity for relationships with others that might be free of purpose. Nor do entrepreneurs know what purpose-free friendship would even look like. Originally, being free meant being among friends. ‘Freedom’ and ‘friendship’ have the same root in Indo-European languages. Fundamentally, freedom signifies a relationship. A real feeling of freedom occurs only in a fruitful relationship – when being with others brings happiness. But today’s neoliberal regime leads to utter isolation; as such, it does not really free us at all. Accordingly, the question now is whether we need to redefine freedom – to reinvent it – in order to escape from the fatal dialectic that is changing freedom into coercion. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 15
Categorization
- DEFINE: Etymological insight that ‘freedom’ and ‘friendship’ share an Indo-European root reframes freedom as intrinsically relational.
- ADDENDUM: Supports the theme in my composing work on relationships and community as genuine foundations of selfhood against instrumentalized achievement.
- XREF: connects to: Freedom originally meant friendship, not isolation — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 15
Related
- Freedom originally meant friendship, not isolation (similarity 0.90)
- Freedom is a relational fight that must be renewed, not a possession (similarity 0.81)
Broader Connections
- Freedom originally meant friendship, not isolation
#corroborates(0.92) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 15