Abstract

A group of ‘post-modern’ scholars such as Giddens, Beck and Bauman propose ‘individualization in risk society’ as a significant phenomenon in today’s world. An individual, who has won freedom in the end of a long struggle, is forced to take full responsibility for his/her decision, which leads him/her to progress or decline. Every single decision made is risky; however, one does not have anybody to rely on or even to express solidarity with. ‘Self-improvement’ syndrome in Korean society today is related to the phenomenon of ‘individualization in risk society’. An individual drives himself/herself to the never-ending practice of ‘self-improvement,’ which aims at satisfying criteria in the employment market better than anyone else and maintaining the state of full-employment. Under the libertarian economic order, with freedom from any yoke of family, church and any kind of community, individuals are forced to ‘enjoy’ the freedom for improving their life on their own toward their own well-being. However, many individuals often feel that such ‘freedom’ is beyond their capacity. This article is an attempt at finding out a way of making a good use of that freedom, which to many has become a burden. Foucault’s concept of ‘ethics,’ Butler’s reading of Foucault, Hanson’s concept of dao, and the Confucian concept of learning support the attempt of this article. Rethinking the term, ‘self-improvement’ in the context of early East Asian ethics, we find out a different angle from which to view freedom and ‘self-improvement’. In short, return to the literal meaning of ‘self-improvement’ is a way of an individual’s good use of freedom in risk society. Regaining the power of interpreting ‘self-improvement,’ individuals will recover their freedom over their life. Freedom is not the given condition for ‘self-improvement,’ but the result out of an individual’s struggle for holding the power over self-construction.