Why Hegel Matters

A friend said that she likes it when I write about topical issues, issues that are current and relevant to our times. She also said that she would like to learn more about Hegel from me. So I thought , maybe I can combine the two. I will write an essay on why Hegel is relevant and matters.

I got the idea for my essay from an article I read, “Why Ayn Rand Matters” by Elaine Sternberg. (It seems to be a trend, writing about why things that matter.) As I mention this I am thinking, what a extraordinary connection I have just made because Rand and Hegel are two thinkers whose ideas are diametrically opposed. This connection was inadvertent but no accident knowing my inclination for cultivating opposites. From this opposition I think I can show why Hegel matters.

Rand’s philosophy focuses on the individual. Hegel’s focuses on the collective of humanity. Imagine the conflict that can exists between the two, the rights of the individual butting heads with the rights of the group. This has been a point of friction in Democracy, whether the individual or the group comes first and which prevails. The answer is simple. Both do because both are determined to exist. Thus a compromise must be reached. Hegel’s philosophy allows for compromise whereas Rand’s doesn't. His philosophy makes a social interactive world possible. Rand’s philosophy is suited more for a frontier society of rugged individuals . Hegel’s philosophy acknowledges the interest of both parties. His philosophy realizes that both are necessary to have a vibrant social order. His philosophy bears the conduit for human interaction.

Hegel matters not because we follow his philosophy but because we live it naturally. He captured the metaphysical nature of human existence like no other philosopher. Generally he was right. For instance, he knew that the driving force of History is change. He also correctly pointed out that History is driven by the human struggle for freedom and recognition. And as the years have gone by we have seen how the world has changed as people have succeeded in that struggle. He was right in thinking that the world was uniting, driven by the common needs and aspirations of humanity. One of the most profound things he said is that humankind requires conflict, and its reflection, to remain alive and awake. He didn’t mean violent conflict. He meant the conflict of competing ideas as shown in the dialectic process. He was right about this because all systems of governments that didn’t engage in this type of conflict have collapsed. Remember Communism? It collapsed because it didn’t allow or engage in the conflict of ideas that could have prevented it from growing stale and atrophying. In comparison Democracy has flourished because in revels in the conflict of ideas.

Hegel matters because he had the right idea. No matter how much people deny that his metaphysical world exists, they reside in it. It’s unavoidable. I realized this after reading an article in an American journal entitled “Philosophical Enemies of a Free Society”. In it Hegel was portrayed as the destroyers of the free society principles America was founded on, the ideas of individualism and liberty that people like Rand believed in. It even suggested he was a communist because he extolled socialist ideas. Well, socialism exists in America. The fact that people rely on each other for their wellbeing is socialism. The existence of community based amenities like public transit, water treatment plants, hospitals and democratic institutions is socialism. Ironically, the idea of liberty is also Hegelian because it wouldn’t exist without the human struggle for it. Liberty has never been offered on a platter. Why, without really knowing it Rand was a Hegelian because she wrote about that very struggle and the conflict of ideas. Deep down we are all Hegelians.

Perhaps Hegel was wrong about his “end of history” theory. But Francis Fukuyama didn’t think so in his book “The End Of History”. Hegel said that History would end when the struggle for human freedom and recognition was complete. That struggle is not complete. But Fukuyama believed that with the collapse of Communism, the last great obstacle to universal freedom and recognition, that struggle was virtually over. Democracy and its liberating ways had triumphed. Fukuyama believed that though the struggle wasn’t over, Democracy would eventually bring this struggle to its conclusion. Hegel’s theory may yet come to fruition because with the triumph of Democracy the mechanisms to achieve his “end of history” are now in place.




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