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History: The Realm Of The Absolute
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History: The Realm Of The AbsoluteOnce we have decided that truth is progressive rather than static, once we have accepted that truth moves through various levels of painful struggle with itself, like a spiral staircase that appears to go in circles but really does get higher and higher, it becomes easy to see why Hegel sees history in the same way. There is possible, he says, a “birds-eye” view of history which transcends day to day events and grasps the journey itself. Although we cannot really be seeing it from such a perspective, the perspective itself is there, to be reasoned by a retrospective glance across history thus far. Struggles which seem to serve no purpose at the time of their occurrence (wars, political intrigue and the like) make complete sense as far as their purposes are contemplated later in history. This type of thinking is called “teleological,” meaning that it is end-oriented, that it concerns itself with why things must happen as they do. For Hegel, they happen that way because history, like dialectical truth, follows a rational course. The Fall of Rome, which must have been a miserable event for its “guests,” was necessary for the rise of Christianity, which was necessary for the birth of the Enlightenment, and so on. It is useless to speak of these events, any of them, as things that “should not have happened that way,” since once you accept the assertion that history follows a rational path, you also see that things always happen as they should. They could not possibly happen as they shouldn’t. Morally, this suggests two things: First, “heroes” or as Hegel calls them, “world-historical individuals,” who are remembered as the key actors making history (Caesar, Moses, Ghengis Khan, Peter the Great) are “above” the scope of conventional morality. They may do things in the course of influencing history that are abhorrent, whether by the standards of our time, or even theirs. But these transgressions are irrelevant, because the trajectory of history must move as it should, and these individuals make it happen. The will of rational history is manifest in their behavior, regardless of whether that behavior can or cannot be called ethical. Second, we often see states of affairs in our own present time spans (poverty, tyranny, moral permissiveness, and so on) which make us outraged and which inspire us to fight for justice. No problem, says Hegel; our outrage is simply a sign that history will eventually change to embrace that which is moral. Soon, if it is rational that there be no poverty, there will be no more poverty. Rather than using that outrage to fight against poverty now (which by virtue of its existence is, in some way, ‘ necessary,” whether we see such reasons or not), we ought to accept that things are the way they are. This is the philosophical basis of Hegel’s conservatism. Its political manifestation goes a step further when Hegel gives more reasons why one should not fight against the existing order: The state, Its political manifestation goes a step further when Hegel gives more reasons why one should not fight against the existing order: The state, says Hegel, is as perfect as it is possible for a state to “at this time” be. It is the synthesis of the individual and the collective; it represents the highest attainable stage of history. To fight against it is to fight history itself, and this makes about as much sense to Hegel as trying to empty the oceans with a teaspoon. Objections From Left To RightThese sweeping conclusions were bound to meet with considerable resistance, even from those who respected Hegel’s genius of method. The conservatism he preaches is seen by many as just about the most dangerous conservatism possible--dangerous because it presents the existing state of affairs as inevitable rather than merely desirable. The scary thing about Hegel’s conservatism, critics argue, is that you can give all the reasons in the world why some existing state of affairs is wrong, repugnant, useless, destructive, unjust, or unacceptable, and a Hegelian will simply reply: “Maybe so, but that’s all we’ve got; it’s the best we can do. But don’t worry, friend, things will get better...eventually.” Such thinking, it is said, completely discourages any kind of improvements in the present system, as horrible as it may be. But is this objection based on the only possible understanding of Hegelian thinking? Probably not, since it is, to put it gently, “undialectical.” The more “dialectical” approach to this question would be to stop looking at human will as somehow subject to the whim of history and instead see it as a manifestation of history itself. Karl Marx did just that; his solution to Hegelian conservatism was to point out that throughout history, when the existing state of affairs is proven to be enough of an insult to the needs and dignities of humanity, groups of that humanity rise up, willfully but necessarily, to change things. Slavery became feudalism, feudalism became capitalism, and, according to Marx, capitalism will eventually become something else too. In each case, individuals thought they simply had moral objections to the societies around them. What was actually happening was the movement of history, the synthesis of individual will and the teleology of progress. So it is not necessary that individuals stop struggling against what they perceive to be unjust; what is, however, necessary is that enlightened individuals see seemingly undesirable states of affairs as containing the seeds of eventual change. Being patient is not the same as being complacent. Other thinkers, many of them more “conservative” in a traditionally intellectual sense than Hegel (a political conservative but an intellectual radical), see another problem, this one in the nature of dialectical logic itself. They argue that some contradictions have no syntheses. One is, for example, dead or not dead. One exists or does not exist. One is male or female, and so on. The “logic” of the dialectic is not true “logic” at all, they say, but simply a “phenomenon” of finding more things about reality. Hegel probably would agree. But be would answer that the dialectical process is just that--a process, whereby things obtain meaning through a progressive interplay between them. While it is true that abstract logic and certain scientific states of existence do not lend themselves to synthesis, Hegel would say that the most important things do lend themselves to a dialectical account: things like political questions, ethical questions, historical struggles and the progress of philosophy itself all represent the overcoming of absolute opposites. And more importantly, as we find that we can say more things about particular phenomena, we also find that many seemingly irresolvable contradictions work themselves out. In some way, one can be “dead and not dead,” perhaps through sickness or through their apparition as a ghost. Perhaps death itself is “existing and not existing,” or perhaps things which exist only in the imagination “exist and do not exist.” In any event, one sees that only by thinking about things further than an initial cursory glance does it become manifest that opposites can be, and are, overcome. 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