The Best Relationship

The relationship between the public and private spheres of life is quite similar to the relationship between the self and the other that Hegel presents in Lordship and Bondage. Hegel believes that the goal of life is to gain a higher self awareness. To gain a higher self awareness you have to sublate other consciousnesses. This is like the public and private because, the private is your self awareness, and when you let others, the public, influence your private than your private becomes more meaningful. Thus, it is possible to say that the best way to live one’s life is to let the public sphere have more influence than the private sphere.

The relationship between public and private also can be looked on in a bigger picture that Hegel brings up. Hegel believes that the ultimate goal of everybody’s life is to help god become more self aware. He believes that people can do this by becoming more self aware themselves and therefore becoming more independent and becoming a self autonomous being that god can then sublate and become more self aware. Here the public sphere can be looked on as god and the private sphere is everyone’s individual self consciousnesses. The overarching meaning of life is to allow the public sphere to grow and people do this by acting as autonomous individuals. If everyone just acted on what they thought the society needed than the society would get better to a point and then stop. It would stop because the society is meant to serve the individual and when the individual serves the society the society has no use. This is why people have to have a balance of freedom and responsibility to society so that the society and the self can both grow.

It is better for every part of life if people have a both freedom and responsibilities. It is best when people have more responsibilities because then the greater good gains quickly but still serves the individual’s freedom. Having more responsibilities also is better for the individual because it allows the individual to value his or her freedom more and makes his or her freedom more meaningful. There are people with all different levels of freedoms and duties but the ones that are the greatest overall people have more responsibilities than freedoms. The greatest people allow the public sphere to influence more of their life than the private sphere.