For Hegel, all of human history represents moments in the differentiation of God. God created the Earth as His antithesis, his exact opposite. History is him attempting to reach a personal understanding of who He is in His entirety by first defining what He is not (i.e., the earth). This dialectic relationship is a core idea in Hegel’s take on the world. Everything becomes a game of balancing these natures which are both distinct and interrelated at the same time.
The relationship between and individual and their society is divided as well. God manifests himself in the social structures which govern a person, as well as in the universality of individuals in the society (their relationship/ interdependence on each other). The individual also exists, and is related to the particular or particular manifestations of the universal populous. This universality provides what some people refer to as our moral compass, telling you what you should and shouldn’t do on the basis your interrelatedness with everyone else. One easy example is a speed limit, which is a nuisance but is followed (more or less) because it is better for one’s self interests to live in a society where everyone follows the speed limit then in one where everyone drives as fast as they want. The universal imposes itself over the particular situation, causing one to choose the more socially “correct” path of following the speed limit.
Therefore, the social and the universal have power and influence over the individual and the particular, while at the same time being grounded in them. This relationship is not necessary for the individual to function, but as all humans exist within the confines of one society or another, this relationship is essential to the achievement of an individual’s real or rational freedom. For Hegel, real and meaningful freedom is achieved through the recognition and enacting of rational and “moral” actions. Therefore, an individual can only achieve meaningful freedom through a society.
Soo this is really good and it took me like 20 min to think of something to comment on because this whole thing is so dead-on...
ReplyDeleteI just think it might be interesting to note that God grants "freedom", but the pathological freedom that actually makes us slaves of our instinct or desires or whatever. So where is God in the particular freedom before the individual connects itself to society and achieves real/rational freedom and why are we granted pathological freedom? is it just to make us aware that we need society? And how is God finding self in our particular freedom?
great job brynna!
ReplyDeleteone thing to maybe mention about Hegelian individual relationships is that the individual in some ways holds power over God. even though Hegel may not intend it to do so, the relationship he draws between the lord and the bondsmen can be related to god and the individual. without the individual god would hold no power, as well as not be able to sublate and self actualize.
also the relationship of the individual to another individual is to balance each other out in beliefs and ideas. this is so god can see what he truly is between contrasts of ideas.
good job though, thanks for writing the one for this week.
Miles,
ReplyDeletethat is an interesting comment about the similarities between the master and the slave relationship to the relationship between God and the earth. When you look at it that way though, it seems like Hegel's entire take on Everything is wrong, because in the relationship between the master and the slave, the slave furthers his process of self actualization through his interactions with the concrete world while the master remains in a constant state of indeterminacy. The master receives nothing because he sees the slave only as a thing and therefore gives up nothing of himself and never engages in real sublation. If the relationship between God and the earth parallels the master-slave interaction then God's attempt at self-actualization is futile and never ending. If God sees us only as a means to his end (i.e. his self actualization), then it would follow that the process of self actualizing God is an attempt at turning the relationship between master and servant into a legitimate relationship which can never happen. Therefore He can never reach the state of a self-actualized God and the entirety of history would be moving towards something which could never exist. That could be interesting...
Molly,
for me, Hegel's idea of freedom presents itself as a paradox because the freedom is a freedom to do and think whatever, but it always leads us to the purpose of helping God self-actualize, so it seems that it would serve the purpose of driving us to society. I think Hegel was also the one who said that we as humans are social animals and never exist outside of a social context so for him the question would be rather moot anyway. (but that might have been Marx who thought that...)
As far as what God gets out of our freedom though, we must to be free in order to help God self-actualize himself because as Hegel says in the Lordship and Bondage passage, "The first (self-consciousness) does not have the object before it only in the passive form characteristic primarily to the object of desire, but as an object existing independently for itself." (Hegel, 230) If we were not free, we would be controlled by God himself and therefore would not be able to sublimate with Him and then negate Him. If we were unable to participate in the relationship with an equal level of "freeness" the whole attempt would be worthless and God would come away with nothing.