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XVI.

“Between master and slave, who is truly freer?”

That professor, young for his position, lectured in casual speech—unfitting for the times.

“Most would say the master, right? But think about it—is the master really freer than the slave?”

Arms crossed, his usual indifferent expression never wavered as he paced the lecture hall, left to right, never still. His slow, oddly rhythmic walk left an impression.

“If you really consider it, the master depends entirely on the slave for their way of life. They rely on the slave’s service, eat food grown and harvested by the slave, use goods processed from nature by the slave. The master’s freedom exists only because they command the slave. In the end, the master can only be a master if the slave exists—so they’re bound to the slave. The freedom the master enjoys is nothing more than an incomplete, dependent freedom, reliant on the ‘other’—the slave.”

His speech was a strange mix of colloquial and literary tones, delivered in a drowsy, lethargic cadence that made listeners fight sleep.

I don’t even remember his face clearly, but his voice lingers sharply in my ears.

“Now, what about the slave? As the laboring subject, they directly shape nature, producing results. Through that process, they gain control over objects, developing independence and self-sufficiency. Then one day, say the slave carves a statue so masterful even the blind could see its worth. The master displays it in the finest spot in the house, orders it dusted and polished daily, even covers it with fine fabric to keep it pristine. Watching this, the slave suddenly becomes aware—and starts questioning reality.”

Still lazily hugging his arms, he tapped the electronic lectern with just his fingertips—tap, tap—a careless gesture.

Looking back, it was just the tired mannerism of a jaded academic, but for some reason, to my early-twenties eyes, it seemed profound.

“I chiseled that statue day and night, nearly killing myself—so why do I have no rights to it? It’s just a product of my labor, so why is it draped in finer cloth than the rags I wear? Why does something I made sit in the mansion’s grandest hall while I sleep in a place filthier than it? Why am I treated worse than the thing I created? Doesn’t that seem fundamentally wrong?”

It’s meaningless to dwell on now, but Jaha liked that professor. Mostly because he rambled about things unrelated to the lecture.

“The slave, who once obeyed without question, now armed with ‘self-awareness,’ fights a life-or-death struggle for the master’s recognition. This is called the ‘struggle for recognition.’ Through this, the slave is reborn as a free subject… But doesn’t this make you wonder? How did the master-slave relationship even begin?”

A smooth stroke of his chin. The crisp sleeves of his suit, sharp at the wrists, contrasted his sleepy face.

“In the beginning, weren’t all humans equal? So why did some become masters and others slaves? This is closely tied to ‘self-consciousness’—which, in essence, is the desire to negate the ‘other.’ To put it simply, it’s the mindset of a thief: you crave recognition from others but refuse to recognize them in return. You deny their autonomy while demanding they respect yours.”

The professor, having stepped down from the lectern, began weaving through the rows of students.

“Ultimately, human ‘self-consciousness’ forms when the ‘other’—who seeks to negate you—acknowledges that ‘you exist for yourself.’ But here’s the catch: the other wants the same recognition for their own self-consciousness. When these clashing desires collide, a struggle erupts. And as you all know, who wins in a fight? The one willing to risk their life.”

He lightly gripped the shoulder of a drowsing student, then let go and continued crossing the lecture hall.

“The moment one side values survival over self-consciousness and waves the white flag, the fight ends. The victor of this ‘struggle for recognition’—the one whose self-consciousness is affirmed—becomes the ‘independent being,’ the master. The one who surrenders self-consciousness to survive becomes the ‘dependent being,’ the slave. Thus, once-equal humans split into masters and slaves.”

As the professor passed by, a chilly whiff of men’s skincare lotion drifted through the air.

“But as I said earlier, the master, dependent on the slave for their entire way of life, develops a dependent consciousness. Meanwhile, the slave—who degraded into a mere ‘thing’ to survive—gains independence through labor, becoming the ‘master of the master.’ Their roles reverse. A dialectical inversion occurs: master becomes slave, slave becomes master.”

Finishing his rounds, the professor glanced at his wristwatch, then gathered his attendance sheet and textbook under his arm—a signal he was about to leave.

“This struggle for recognition, where consciousness and positions flip, is ongoing. In short, there are no eternal masters or eternal slaves in this world.”

After a lecture delivered entirely in casual speech, honorifics suddenly slipped out as he wrapped up.

“The above isn’t my opinion but Hegel’s ‘Dialectic of Master and Slave (Dialektik von Herr und Knecht).’ If you’re curious, don’t bother me—I’m not a philosophy major. Ask a philosophy professor or read Chapter 4 of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. That’s all for today.”