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Pekan Yona show. Thomas is here and we're doing part
two Hegel Continental Philosophy series.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, indeed, And you know, something that's important to
register in a discussion of Hegel. You know, I always
come back to the point again and again that Hegel's
not just an intrinsically right wing theorist, He's the the
progenitor of historicism, you know, and owing to the epistemic
assumptions of historicism and Hegel's political anthology, like what what
do he insists is the purpose of the state as
well as it's psychological you know, constitution. They can't they
can't be extricated from, you know, things that are discreetly
you know, related to the significance of of of organic
cultural phenomenon and things like that. You know, it's very
anti liberal, okay, axiomatically. So that's the reason why I've
always maintained this inappropriate in conceptual terms to talk about
right and left Hegelians. I mean, it's kind of shorthand
for real phenomena. Yeah, but like left heag Aliens aren't Hegelians,
you know, they're there are people who believe in a
dialectical process in history, but it really has nothing to
do with a Hegelian paradigm other than other than in
the most kind of loosely structured capacities, you know. So
if so, if you're talking about Hegelianism, you're you're you're
talking about a kind of, i'd argue, right wing and
at the very least kind of conservative historicism that views
human populations as the product of a discrete psychology that,
you know, the nuances of which can't be interpreted a
priority or by appeal to you know, abstract universalisms and things.
You know. And that's kind of what I wanted to
get in today to today, like I said before I
went live, And so I'm so shaken off some fatigue
and some symptoms of this virus. I can't seem to shake.
So to the subs, please forgive me if I repeat
myself or if I seem a little bit out of it,
you know, I I I try to make sure that
I I always deliver properly. I believe where we left
off last time was. I believe I I raised the
matter of Carl Schmidt very much, showing a Dette Hegel
and describing the state as being fundamentally born of conflict,
you know, not just conflict external to the you know,
insular population that divises the state for defensive purposes, you know,
contra the external foe. But within the state itself it's
a venue for myriad inflicts, the actual and potential, you know,
within the cultural form that consensus is emergent. And this,
owes to Hegel identifies the the the origin of this
phenomenon as anthropological in nature. It derives from the nature
of a man himself. Okay, man rises above the level
of an animal, owing to logos and owing you know,
of his cap for his capability for a higher reason.
But you know, there's also a process of engagement psychologically
by which man like raises himself to that status of elevation.
And he doesn't do so in isolation or through you know,
merely contemplative processes or something, but really an a mortal
struggle for recognition. You know, every man is conscious. Every
man who you know is is saying and reasoned, you know,
and not and not somehow mentally compromised. You know. He
largely exists for himself and for his own purposes, you know,
and these purposes derived from a consciousness of his uh
freedom to act in ways that gain him recognition. Now
we're not just talking about you know, cloud or fame
or prestige. I mean, obviously people covet those kinds of
things too, and this part and parcel what we're talking about,
but we're discussing a phenomenon. It's rather deeper. You know.
When we say we're hey, looks about recognition, He's really
talking about participation and and things that are you know,
transcendent in historical terms. You know what Aristotle talked about
as you know, the magnanimous man. He has a basically
aristocratic perspective. You know. Well, even men who aren't aristocratic
by nature or magnanimous, you know, they do have this.
They do have this desire to kind of overcome death
through historical living, you know, whether it's that the fame
of a dead man's deeds ring out or you know,
siring strong children, you know who will go on to
you know, participate in the life of the nation, or
you know, excelling at a learned profession or at a
at a trade that requires you know, learning craftsmanship, you know.
And the only way for this kind of recognition of
any significance or for it to really be a mergent
within that paradigm is if others recognize the significance of
these things. Okay, so this process can't occur in isolation.
It requires a historical and thus a cultural situated in this.
You know, it's also a process that's inherently competitive. You know,
each every man, even if he's even if he's basically
moral and basically fair minded and has a developed sense
of equity and things of this nature, he's still going
to want his own acts and deeds and character to
accomplish recognition without being forced in turn, you know, to
recognize equivalent merit and others. You know, and this, in
very basic terms, you know, is the kind of conflict
intrinsic to the human condition, so such that man is
a social animal, and human sociality again is what makes
this process possible, and thus it's what it is to
be a human being in actiomatic terms. You know. Yeah,
there's religious vocations and things where people deliberately remove themselves
from this paradigm, but that itself is kind of overcoming,
you know, and transcendent activity precisely because they're taking themselves
out of a psychological state and a kind of social
situatedness that is at base intrinsically human and normative, you know.
And to accomplish this process uh of recognition, you know,
men will risk their their like, their wealth, their reputation,
and even their life. So it becomes a mortal struggle
and it can only end in inequality because at some point,
the dominant caste, and this can take various forms, you know,
in terms of the peculiar characteristics that define it. You know,
will submit to the superior prestige or deed's warranting recognition
or mode of life that defines the cultural environment. You know,
there will always be a ruling class. And that ruling
class only is extant because the competitors to it have
submitted to it, you know, and have ceased waging this
struggle whereby you know, they demand an equality of recognition,
or more properly, perhaps they cease trying to overcome their masters.
You know, there's always a willful aspect of submission in
the paradigm between masters and slaves. Even if you accept
the postulate, the Aristotilian postulate, that there is such a
thing as you know, natural slavery. You know, so in
other words, every man emerges from this struggle by necessity.
Every man emerges from this fight for recognition as either
a master or a slave. So human reality is essentially social,
you know, and human sociology, owing to logos, is intrinsically political.
So this submission to the mastery of another and the
accomplishing or the realization of peace within the parameters of
this sort of ethical and aesthetical and cultural consensus, you know,
based on a shared historical experience and ancestral memory. This,
this is the be this is this is the beginning
of states. Okay, the state, the primordial state is the
boundaries within this process has been accomplished. However, both the
manster requires is more than just mere acknowledgment from his
social inferiors. And similarly, you know, the slave requires for
his life to hold meaning, you know, more than just
an acknowledgment of the supremacy of the master cast and
you know, thus an entitlement of his cast no bliss
oblige in general terms, you know, even if there's even
if the moral and ethical value of the labor of
the slave is acknowledged, and even if his stoic submission
to the authority the master, while still retaining his own
dignity as a man, is acknowledged. You know, he's still
as a man and as a human being singularly belongs
for recognition in his own right had to be situated
within a higher or at least a perennial conceptual reality
or form of life like Material compensation cannot sate this
desire nor facilitated. But even if the slave is manumitted
and later becomes rich, you know that that doesn't sate.
First of all, that's an exception anyway, But regardless, it
doesn't say this, uh, this desire that the only thing
that can facilitate that is uh recognition by another free consciousness.
The paradigm then within the state between the classes. Is
it based psychological you know again, I know I said
it before, but this is fundamentally important to understand the
Hegelian ontology. And it is the state which facilitates the
recognition and establishes the setting of it. And this desire
is stated collectively and individually by living historically okay, and
taking part in the communitarian and historical life of the nation,
and living perennially within the historical consciousness that is timeless
and linear okay, and transcends death and generational and temporal boundaries. Now,
what's essential to Hagel is that the state basically has
to it's got it's got to actively reconcile these things.
It's not enough to just you know, create a system
whereby tensions between casts are just mitigated such that you know,
there's not sanguinary hostilities emergent. And that it's not enough
that the states simply you don't protect property rights and things,
you know, by enforcing you know, the positive law or
what have you. The uh, it's it's it's got to
facilitate this kind of reciperocity of recognition at which the
master enslave both aim in vain without. The state, on
the other hand, to or in addition to the state
needs to be a teacher and inculcate, but the master
enslave with a belief in their own historical situatedness and
their own belonging, you know, to the police or the
racial community, the voke, or the or the nation, you know.
And it's got to inculcate people with these values to
such a degree that they'll put aside not just the
discrete private ego and the desires therein as well as
you know, the kind of wider cast based identity contra
the other within the social organism. But it's got to
it's it's it's gotta make people truly believe, you know,
in the efficacy and value of the labor of the other,
as well as an understanding that it war. You know,
each man is ah who can take up arms. There's
a an ethical equality there among all who are willing
to lay it on their lives, you know, to preserve
the historical life of the nation, you know, and h
this is why the subject matter of the state is
war in peace, not just because in existential terms and
practically speaking, it's a defensive structure, you know, whereby the
historical community can only exist within its parameters without being
subsumed or destroyed, you know, by those outside of it, who,
by asserting their own desire for recognition and historical imperative,
would repudiate you know, their their way of life violently.
But there's also, you know, a profoundly psychological mechanism at
work here. You know, what reconciles what the glue of
civil society again is the common enterprise of warfare, actual
and potential, and the obligation of citizenship, you know, upon
incoming upon every every class, you know, in common which
I mean, yes, there's command and obedience is nowhere more
sharply expressed than you know, in in in a nation's
military forces. But you know, all men die the same
in battle, you know, and the command element and the
conscript or enlisted element, you know, they rely on each
other in the most critical ways, you know, and that
breaks down what would otherwise be an intractable hostility. And
this is why the state can only derive from a
common psychological experience of ancestral memory. Okay, And this is
why it's key, you know, As I said, I think
before we went live, Hegel's axiomatically anti liberal. You can't
talk about a liberal Heglienism, and you can't talk about
Hegel's account of what precedes you know, the formal political
organization and anthropological terms in terms of abstract hostulits, you know,
because the only tie that binds the only thing that
facilitates peace within the parameters of the state, I mean,
the only thing that rationalizes the state in and of
itself is this kind of shared ancestral memory and this
experience of a common history, you know. And this is key.
And again I think also before it went live, you know,
for the guys who reached spangled, right, I know, I
know a lot of the young guys do. And that's great.
The debt that he owes that Hegel cannot be overstated.
Hegel's the progenitor of historicism, you know, in a way
that's even more pronounced than other you know, modern disciplines
of political theory and you know, historiographical analysis and things.
So if people need an answer to why is Hagel
important from a partisan perspective, well that's why. The uh.
And there's two the two aspects of the human being
as a political agent that the state must account for
and reconcile and permit to flourish. Yeah, within constructive parameters.
Hegel identified these two tendencies a subjective liberty and objective liberty.
Subjective liberty is the natural state of a man, and
it's most perfectly expressed capacity. That is. Subjective liberty is
an individual will and consciousness, pursuing its particular goals, its
creative impulses, you know, its desires for recognition and transcendent,
you know, a life of a sort beyond this mortal coil.
Objective liberty is the substantial general will. You know, essentially
the demands of citizenship and the things that facilitate the
realization of those demands. For example, at war, you know,
the general will deriving from aspects of shared psychology born
of historical memory. The reconciliation of these things is what
Hegill called the serene totality, which is the union of
the particular and the universal within the unity of the state.
You know, ideally, if the state is performing its function,
it guarantees not just the posterity of the people, you know,
of the demos of the voc what have you, but
it facilitates the unity and the flourishing of the discrete
individual will and the particular interest therein and allows those
things to find full expression in the fact of the
citizens' duties to the state indirect proportion, you know, to
the individual rights he is allowed. I mean to unpack
that a little bit. You know. Basically, what Hegel's getting
at is that the sacrificesn't coming upon the discrete subjective ego,
you know, born of will and passion. The state as
the instantation of a reason. You know, the aspects of
those things that demands the sac are perfected by way
of objective liberty, and the channeling of these energies into
enterprises that can only be fulfilled by the general will. Okay,
so you're not really talking about deprivations of you know,
discrete liberty and action, or you're not really asking the
individual man to forfeit some sort of potentiality within himself,
because it's only within the state that these things can
be you can find full can come to full flourish.
And again we talked about last time. Hegel's not talking
about the state as sound like bureaucratic, like like secular rapparatus,
nor is it some kind of ending itself. You know,
this is critical. Hagel would have viewed a state like
a managerial state like we have is totally illegitimate and pointless.
You know, the state is only legitimate again, so far
as it is allowing the realization of these of these things,
you know, and that it's tailored to facilitate these things,
and that it's premised on, you know, the posterity of
the historical community that did encompasses you know, in other words,
it's it's it's a true you know, like folk community
if you want to think about it in those terms,
you know, because that comes up again and again, especially
from you know, people who are culturally anglophoned, who have
this kind of natural enmity towards political authority, which is
well situated considering the state of things since nineteen thirty
three and arguably since you know, the eighteen forties or so.
But that's not what Hegel's talking about, the UH. And
it's interesting here because Hegel compares and can trast ath
Ends in Rome in ways that are critical in my opinion.
You know, Hegel's you or the Greeks, much as you
know they deserve to be praised, and much as high
culture was perfected and have their capacities. You know, in
Pericles Athens, the Greeks failed on grounds that their cultural form,
their psychological and moral orientation, their political ontology, it didn't
permit or acknowledge subjective liberty and the freedom that attends
it any in any meaningful way. The Greeks lived very organically,
spontaneously and immediately, you know, Spanglan made the point that
in these Athenian freezes, you know, it's always it's always
a sensuously present body, you know, of like a warrior,
of like a farmer, or of like you know, a
beautiful woman. But they're always standing in front of nothing.
You know. It's like there's that there's not there's not
like a historical past and future in the way we
think about it. And this is key because again, you know,
and to understand Hegel's you know, read through Cynidies and
read about the trial of Socrates. Like the Athenian ideal
was basically living up to what your function is, you know,
as a yaleman, you know, as a slave, you know,
like as a as a craftsman. You know. Education should
be for military service and the demands of citizenship, you know,
and the household should be you know, essentially a school
of command and obedience. You know. There's no thought given
to the the subjective. What gives rise is the subjective liberty,
you know, and the desire for recognition and and the
flourishing of these impulses and imperatives. You know. To be
a good Athenian is to be in the habit literally
be habituated of living and dying for the fatherland with
like without reflection, you know. So there's no place for
subjectivity in any capacity, you know, and anybody who claimed otherwise,
you know, well that's that that'd be viewed as a
lowly you know, it would be viewed as related to
personal well being and you know, that kind of thoughts
don't be worthy of a slave. Or alternatively, it'd be
viewed as a subversive, you know, and as a subtle
way of attacking public morals, you know, which is exactly
why Socrtys found himself. I mean, I think, I don't
know what you're with, Crell. I think Socrates was not
a good guy. But the reasons why he ended up
going to the gallows were fairly dubious, you know, and
even his critics acknowledged that, you know, the uh. But
you know, but at the same time, you know, Hagel
acknowledged that there was a lot to be said for
the Athenian civic culture and that it did, you know,
inculcate men with uh what was inarguably, you know, like
heroic and noble ambition. You know, So he doesn't throw
the baby out with the bath water, but you know,
the uh. And this is significant Rythm tomming around a bit,
But this is significant to Higer's critique too, because Hidger
mirrored a lot of that critique. Hidger made the point
that the Greeks believe the natural world, you know, revealed
itself to man on grounds that you know, being in
the way it was interpreted, uh from the pre Socratics
through Plato was basically that like man is like part
of the natural world, you know, is intrinsically capable of
accepting these revelations. But through logos, you know, the world
opens up to him to exhibit a deeper reality than
beasts could perceive. You know, but dicene, as Heidegger referred
to it, it's it's still fundamentally passive, you know, in
this capacity. What's critical to Hegel and Heidegger in contrast,
is that you know, they rejected entirely Man on grounds
of logos. He finds themself situated within a discrete political ontology,
and owing to that fact, he experiences being as a
rational and great agent. You know, he's not He's not
just situated within nature and owing to his elevated capacity
or reason, you know, he's noticing a revelation that you know,
a wolf or a dog or a bear can't you know.
This is not a middling distinction. It's Keith understanding the
difference between classical philosophy and you know what what became
the continental tradition, a living organism capable of higher reason,
no news, a rational soul. This axiomatically finds expression through
fellow feeling within the poulas and between people's constituting the
demos the body politic in the Hedigerian view, And and
that's a Hegelian point too, you know, there is no
the police doesn't even merge because of this kind of
like accidental revealing within you know, the conceptual horizon of
man's being owing to logo us. Whereby then, you know,
the better men realize, you know, we've got to we've
got to educate men to be heroic, you know, and
and and and abide you know, with the fatherland who
clars of them? No, there's a very man is an
active agent, you know, and through higher reason he creates
he literally creates this paradigm so that you know, all
higher values and recognition can it come to fruition, you know,
And that is the process of state craft. Literally, that
is the origin of the state. The Uh that was
a bit tangential, but I think it's important Hegel bring
it back. Hegel contrasted Athens with the Rome he started
as he started the room he started. Room's frailty is
essentially a consolation of mirror causes within the body politic
contra the Athenian situation. In Rome, individuality, the subjective individual will.
It was absolutely recognized, both abstract we and externally, but
in so doing, the stage as an organic whole was dissolved. Rome,
like late America is more in common with Rome than
people think. And I know that that's like a cliche comparison,
but people think about it in terms of things like
excess or conspicuous consumption or you know, neo imperialism. They're
approaching it the wrong way. A lot of Lass causes.
Storians are wise to this incidentally, like even if you
don't accept that perspective, the the Roman political ethos, it
basically degraded all individuals to the level of private persons,
like formally equal with one another, you know, within the class.
They found themselves, you know, possessed of formal rights in common.
But the only thing that held them together was this
kind of like abstract commitment to you know, your liberty,
your rights as are Roman. You know, there was nothing
at all organic about the constitution. There was no concept
of you know, an ethical consensus born of an organic
historical experience. There was nothing concrete in the moral life
of the Roman nation, later the Roman Empire other than
these kinds of abstract postulates relating to at least nominally
individual rights and concerns, you know, so consequently and taken
to logical extremes, the abstractness of quality, and they're purported
absolute moral imperative of facilitating the free expression of individual
wants and desires, the demand for recognition, but again in
an aistorical way, related to wish fulfillment more than anything,
and actively opposed to any communitarian imperative. You know. This
is the Roman state and states like it, like in
my opinion, the American regime. This creates a repository of
active nihilism, you know, and there's a very real danger
of all such states deteriorating into terror, like the state
itself become an instrum mentality of terror. Owing to the
fact that the very the aforementioned abstractness and inability to
define equality well at the same time suggesting that formal
equality are these kinds of formal rights, individual rights attending citizenship,
you know, are is the is not just the highest
imperative of the state, but also the only tie that
binds between these discreetly situated individuals, that basically renders all
put of good perspectives outside of those promulgated by the
minority cadres who caused the state itself. That basically renders
everything else oppositional to the state, like every other modality
of thought. I mean, that's where we're at now, you know, obviously,
I mean we're people aren't being slaughtered on masks like
in Jacob and France or the Soviet Union. But that
that doesn't mean that couldn't happen. You know, history doesn't
repeat itself and only idiots say that it does. But
there are there, there are predictable outcomes within you know,
common paradigms, you know, owing to the limited number of
variables that can possibly constitute you know, political life at scale.
You know, So this is this is a real thing,
and it's not it's not just some cliche of like
old right types or of you know, midw libertarian guys.
Like they're actually right about that when they when they
point out that this, like the cult of equality, is
more susceptible to becoming a terroristru mentality than you know,
a more conventional mode of of government. That's that's very true.
You're running the people, and it's not just post war
liberals who you know, abide this kind of Alan Bloom,
Carl Popper's stupid on purpose sort of you know, superficially persuasive,
but you know, kind of intellectually impoverished, uh viewpoint held
out as as as pragmatic. It's not just guys like that.
It's you know, it's it's there's people who are more
reasonable and learned, you know, and in a common who
present a critique of Hegel as well as it's being
this kind of authoritarian brute. That's that's the wrong way
to that's the wrong way to take characterize Hegel. Hegel's
adamant that it's it's it's an absolute moral imperative that
the state recognize the liberty inherent to mind is capable
of higher reason, you know, derive of logos. And you know,
he considered it an absolute imperative that the state recognized that,
you know, logos is the source of discreete is discrete
and individual ambitions, you know, within human minds. But by
no means does this suggest that this must or should
you know, lead the procedural democracy, you know, and those
things aren't mutually exclusive, are somehow inconsistent. You know, hey,
let me the point, Like, look like this idea that
every single person has some share stake in deliberating or
deciding on political matters, you know, on grounds at all
individuals are members of the states, So that's it's urns
are their concerns, you know. He he said that, he
said that that's abject nonsense, you know, Like again, like
really all the state owes to people in this regard
is uh an acknowledgment, you know, of of the liberty
inherent to logos in the minds of people so capable,
you know, that doesn't confer upon any given man like
a right to have a say in affairs of state craft.
The individual person, he should only be taken into account
politically so far as he occupies a definite place within
the political organism, say, for example, he's a general, or
you know, he's got an obvious aptitude for state craft,
you know, or he's got a unique skill set that
confers upon him a kind of augury about power political affairs.
You know, always a brilliant analyst, you know, and Hagil
he won't even further, he said, the possible, you know,
the potentiality, at least in abstract terms, for each man
to potentially become member of the governing class or you know,
or like a higher judiciary or anything like that. You
know that that still doesn't confer upon him a right
to be heard or for authority to you know, somehow
deferred his opinion as if it has some sort of merit.
You know, if in fact he has aptitude for such things,
you know, he will rise to that office. And you know,
a natural authority will accrue based on his service as
a competent representative. But it does violence to reason and
good government is derivative of a reason to entertain this
delusion that there's some sort of general right to be
heard on political affairs, you know. And again like that,
the uh, this balancing between the general will and the
subjective mind, you know, the grave, grave violence is done
to this, you know, kind of necessary unity and balancing
of these essential aspects to suggest any sort of any
any sort of egalitarian ethic needs to reign in terms
of procedural democracy. You know. So that's kind of that
should put to bed any notion that you can reconcile
the Gaelian theory with with any any kind of like
liberal theory of government, you know, And this is why
Hegel's kind the consummately europe modern European philosopher, you know,
before every every European theorists, modern European theorist state craft
prior to the day of defeat, because because there are
no more like European theories of state craft of ninety
forty five. I mean, that's that's not a part of
the take. Like does not they don't exist, you know,
You've got you've got these like cargo cull iterations of
of the the of the American regime, you know, in
occupied countries, and then you have this kind of bizarre
managerialism in the UK that isn't really premised on anything,
you know, other than other than a loose and diluted
mythology that you know, they they they have some legacy
moral authority on grounds that you know, they they were
an American lackey during during the Zionists and Communist war
in Europe. Yeah, that's what all I got for Hegel.
I'm gonna speak more on this, but then we've we'd
be here all night I'm probably gonna think I'm probably
gonna have have just some concluding thoughts on the next
episode on Hegel and then we'll, like I said, I
wanted to do a theology episode because it's it's essential.
I mean, that's important stuff anyway, but I think it's
critical to include that in any discussion account. And I'll
put aal theory, you know, we'll talk about a quietness
and then we'll cover Martin, Luther and Calvin. And yeah,
that's what I was thinking for the next episode. If
that's it real, sounds good? All right?
Speaker 1: Let everyone know where they can find you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm retooling my website with with the help of
a dear friend of mine who assistant me with things
relating to it. You can access it now, although Barren
Mind is a work in progress. It's Thomas seven seven
seven dot com. It's number seven ho as seven seven
seven dot com. Otherwise, right now, you should visit my substack.
That's where most of my content is, you know, especially
pod content and longer form stuff. It's real Thomas seven
seven seven dot substack dot com. And from there there's
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Speaker 1: All right, so the next episode
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you man.