no. 25 | georg wilhelm friedrich hegel
I am in good company when I say that I don't even pretend to understand a fraction of Hegel's works; philosopher Bertrand Russell exclaims in the "History of Western Philosophy" that Hegel is the most difficult philosopher to comprehend. Yet Hegel's emphasis (or obsession?) on historical scholarship and his philosophy of dichotomies, dialectics, and absolute idealism cannot be ignored by any student of philosophy.
Most students first meet Hegel through the works of Karl Marx (or at least through works about Marx). Hegel's three-step dialectical method (thesis-antitheses-synthesis) served Marx's purpose for his own philosophic endeavours. Unfortunately for Marxist purists, the terminology of the dialectic is more "Hegelian" than "of Hegel" - this would late be expanded on by Fichte and exploited by Marx. I did not have this faux encounter with Hegel, rather, I first came across Hegel while reading Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy." The historical dialectic certainly captured my attention; the more I thought about it, the more it made sense on a micro-philosophical basis. At the time I glazed over the rest of Hegel's concepts. Over the next couple of years he would appear, usually in reference to Marx, every now and again in classrooms, texts, and discussions.
It would not be until my final year of undergraduate studies that Hegel became a powerful influence in my philosophical thinking. Granted, it was not the famed historical dialectic that re-captured my attention, but his master/slave dichotomies (which is a triadic dialectic as well). The master/slave dichotomy is interesting because of its ramifications on identity and language - two of what are arguably the most critical tools for the scholar of religion. I will not get into a philosophy lesson here, but the master/slave struggle essentially shows mastery through slavery and the slavery of mastery. A master loses sovereignty simply by carrying out the duties of a master since the master needs the slave for his/her own recognition (there is no master without slaves). However, what sort of recognition can the slave really offer, if the slave is, in fact, lesser than the master (i.e. can a lesser fully recognize something greater)? The pinnacle of Hegel's argument arrives when he states that it is through the fear of death, a fear encapsulated by the position of the slave, that humans may experience their own authenticity/essence/existence.
So why is this so influential in my own thinking? It is mainly the idea of perverted symbiosis in our day-to-day lives that attracts me to Hegel's thinking. Those figures that are in positions of power, political or otherwise, may only attain power, and more importantly, hold power, if others below them accept the position. Furthermore, people of power often lose their "humanity" in the eyes of others. Those in the public eye may be spoken about as if they are not human, and so we often here the self-identifying cliche by Hollywood stars and government officials, "I'm just a regular person."
