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195

This liberation is formal, since the particularity of purposes remains the underlying content. |198| The tendency of the social condition toward the indeterminate multiplication and specification of needs, means, and enjoyments — which, just like the distinction between natural and cultivated need, has no bounds — luxury — is an equally infinite increase of dependence and distress, which has to do with a matter offering infinite resistance, namely with external means of the particular kind of being the property of the free will, and hence with what is absolutely hard.

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2 responses to “195”

  1. Eduard Gans (Additions) Avatar
    Eduard Gans (Additions)

    Diogenes in his whole cynical shape is really only a product of Athenian social life, and what determined him was the very opinion against which his manner altogether acted. It is therefore not independent, but arose only through this social element, and is itself an unruly product of luxury. Where, on the one side, the latter stands at its height, there, on the other side, need and degradation are just as great, and cynicism is then produced through the opposition of refinement.

  2. Hegel (Simple) Avatar
    Hegel (Simple)

    § 195: Luxury and distress

    This liberation is only formal. For the content remains one’s own wishes.

    What happens when needs keep multiplying?

    Luxury arises. And with luxury, dependence grows. The more someone needs, the more he depends on others. For the things he needs belong to others. This is a hard limit.

    Two sides:

    Where great luxury reigns on one side, great distress reigns on the other.

    An example from Athens:

    Diogenes wanted to live entirely without needs. The story goes that he lived in a barrel. But he too was a child of his city. He lived against luxury, and so luxury was his measure. He himself was a crude product of luxury.

    Summary: The endless growth of needs leads to luxury. With luxury, dependence grows. Where there is great luxury, there is also great distress.

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