Free minds, not hair. | 101 comments (101 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Submission versus freedom (none / 1)

Re: German Romantic/Idealist philosophers - what do you like about them from a political standpoint?

by MarekNYC on Tue Jan 16th, 2007 at 06:50:42 PM EST
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Re: Submission versus freedom (none / 1)

I sincerely hope you don't find this appealing.

by MarekNYC on Tue Jan 16th, 2007 at 06:52:28 PM EST
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Re: Submission versus freedom (none / 1)

German idealism began with Kant and ended with Hegel. German romanticism was a reaction against Kant that influenced Hegel.

What I like about them from a political standpoint is that they gave us the politics of European modernity. Kant gave us the idea of perpetual peace, which the EU is based upon. Hegel is the philosopher of the welfare state: his Philosophy of Right provides a justification for it, as well as providing a critique of free-market capitalism. The Philosophy of Right is based on the idea that the ultimate human ideal is freedom.

Since you say you hope I don't find this appealing, I take it that your perceptions have been influenced by attacks on Hegel by people like Popper and Hayek. Since the 1980s, such attacks are viewed by specialists in the English-speaking world as nothing but junk scholarship. (Germans never took them seriously, of course.)

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns

by Alexander on Tue Jan 16th, 2007 at 08:12:22 PM EST
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Re: Submission versus freedom (4.00 / 2)

Fair enough. What I was alluding to was some of the German concept of the nation that emerged in that milieu at the beginning of the nineteenth century, e.g. the Fichte text I linked to.

Not sure if I buy your vision of Hegel as an apostle of freedom - welfare state, maybe, but a bit too state oriented - freedom = being a good, obedient citizen of a good state, and I'm far from being an expert on Hegel, but e.g.:

The state, as the actuality of the substantial will - an actuality which it has through the particular self-consciousness when elevated onto a universal level -s that which is in and of itself rational. This substantial unity is an unchanging end-in-itself in which freedom gains its supreme right, just as conversely this final end has the highest right vis a vis the individuals whose highest duty it is to be members of the state
[...]
The state in-and-for-itself is the ethical whole, the actualization of freedom. It is the absolute end of reason that freedom be actual. The state is the spirit which dwells in the world and consciously realizes itself in the world [...] WHen reasoning about freedom one must not start from the individual self-consciousness, but only from the essential nature of self-consciousness, for whether one knows it or not, this essense still realizes itself as an independent power in which the single individuals are only elements: it is the course of God through the world that constitutes the state. (Philosophy of Right: 258)

He also believed that the monarch/executive is a ideally a mystical immanent idea of the state, is chosen by birth, and should only be limited by legal formalism as determined in an unalterable constitution, derides the idea of democracy, and sees the hereditary landowning nobility as specially suited for serving as the mediator between the state and the people. Rather than democracy he wants the legislature to be made up of corporate representatives, preferably not elected by a majority vote of whatever unit they represent - the ultimate in special interests. But above all he was a loyal Prussian monarchist of his time, thinking in the categories such a person would. The way I see it seeing him as the philosopher of freedom is at least as anachronistic as seeing him as the avatar of totalitarianism, whatever superficial similarities you might find e.g. the criticism of capitalism - which didn't exist in anything approaching the modern form, or the corporatist thinking, which merely reflected the way society was organized at the time, rather than the reactionary fascist attempt to create something that is neither liberal democracy nor communism. But what do I know - early nineteenth century political philosophy really isn't my thing.

by MarekNYC on Tue Jan 16th, 2007 at 09:21:45 PM EST
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Re: Submission versus freedom (none / 1)

Sorry: I didn't notice that the "this" was a link. I don't know what you find problematic about the German concept of the nation of the time. I don't know exactly what you mean by that, but I skimmed through the Fichte text, and didn't find anything especially offensive. (Maybe I missed something.) As I'm sure you know, "Germany" at the time consisted of many states, most of them small, and as the intro to that text says, Fichte wrote that piece in response to the French occupation. Intellectuals of the time were trying to develop a nationalist consciousness, and in the revolutions of 1948 that was combined with a yearning for democracy. I am not going to defend Fichte in general, however: I believe that Hegel criticized him for advocating a police state.

It is a relief to me that you do not say anything unreasonable about Hegel. (Thus, my fear that you were infuenced by Popper and/or Hayek in this regard was evidently mistaken.) Now, to understand the passages you quoted, you have to realize that Hegel had a social, as opposed to individualistic, concept of freedom. That means that it contains the liberal concept of freedom (absence of coersion by state or church etc.) but adds on further requirements. This is where reason comes in. (Liberalism is unable to articulate the notion of freedom I discussed in my original post by the way, no better than Islam can, because it rejects the concept of reason, starting with Hume. Remember his "Reason is and always must be the slave of the passions"?) To be free, I must know that the institutions of the society I live in are rational. This is an extremely powerful idea. For one thing, if you find the institutions aren't rational, then they must be made rational. (After Hegel's death, there was a split into the Left and the Right Hegelians; the Left Hegelians, of whom Marx was one, picked up this thought. The Right Hegelians simply assumed society was rational, so that the problem was simply to demonstrate this. Critical theory (of the Frankfurt School type) derives from this idea, too.) The purpose of The Philosophy of Right is to show that the state is rational.

Notice by the way that by Hegel's notion of freedom, Americans are not free: and it is not just because we have an unelected president. It is because the American state is not rational. It is not rational because the Constitution is designed in such a way that states with small populations are disproportionately represented in the Senate and Electoral College. Since sparsely populated states are more rural, and rural areas are more conservative, that means that a conservative minority is able to block legislation desired by a progressive majority. Thus, the will of the American people is constantly and repeatedly blocked: a people that lives under such conditions is not free. But by the liberal notion of freedom, they are. Thus, Hegel's notion of freedom turns out to be more left-wing than the liberal one.

I think you know by now what I will say in response to Hegel's being in favor of monarchy and against democracy. In the Preface, Hegel states that any philosophy reflects its time. The state of the early 19th century is an absolutist state; the state of the 20th century is a democratic state. (Since the British, unlike the Continental Europeans, did not go through a period of absolutism, it appears that the English-speaking world wants to have its experience with absolutism in the 21st century.) I don't know if Hegel really privately was against democracy, but if he advocated it in print, he would have gotten into trouble (or the book wouldn't have passed the censors). When it came to disputes between reformers and proponents of the status quo in Prussia, Hegel was always on the side of the reformers.

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns

by Alexander on Tue Jan 16th, 2007 at 11:00:51 PM EST
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Re: Submission versus freedom (none / 1)

t is because the American state is not rational. It is not rational because the Constitution is designed in such a way that states with small populations are disproportionately represented in the Senate and Electoral College. Since sparsely populated states are more rural, and rural areas are more conservative, that means that a conservative minority is able to block legislation desired by a progressive majority.

Why would Hegel mind that? He explicitly argues that representatives should be of specific groups - towns, professions, etc., size having nothing to do with it. He finds the idea of majority rule risible because in his view you can't get a rational result from it.

You can't get out of that by dismissing those ideas you dislike as a product of his time - all his ideas are of his era, and trying to graft an affection for democracy onto Hegel seems a bit strange - the whole state structure which he sees as the embodiment of political freedom simply collapses if you do so.

Liberalism is unable to articulate the notion of freedom I discussed in my original post by the way, no better than Islam can, because it rejects the concept of reason

No. That's just wrong. There's a very strong utilitarian aspect to liberalism. Unless you mean the idea that there are certain basic freedoms that should be treated as fundamental - e.g. freedom of conscience. But even those are often justified on rational grounds. The difference between a Hegelian vision and the liberal one lies in the attitude to the state - Hegel embodies it with a quasi divine status, liberalism doesn't and is focused on the individual. That can reach the exact same ends you like - a welfare state - without tossing away the rights of individuals.

Ironically, given where this discussion started, Hegel's support for liberal style freedom was at its strongest with respect to religion - his view on that was precisely the American one you reject, which is why he argued for rights for even those religions hostile to the state (Quakers) or largely outside the society of which the state is an emmanation (Jews). He's at his most illiberal when it comes to how to organize and run the state, not with respect to liberal freedoms. You on the other hand seem to be rejecting that, calling for secularism to be the religion of the state and imposed by the state on individuals.

by MarekNYC on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 01:54:38 AM EST
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Re: Submission versus freedom (none / 1)

Wow. It's hard to do justice to your points at this late hour.

With respect to your first objection, that Hegel said that size should have nothing to do with political influence, I would say that Hegel was assuming that the "players" in the political process had a sense of civic virtue. In America today, it is clear that the players do not have this sense: a sense of or concern for the common good. Given that, one has to tactically fall back upon the idea of simple majority rule (expecting that the law will protect the rights of the minority, of course), given that on major issues, the American majority is progressive (even though you would never learn that from the corporate media).

Your next objection makes the point that "There's a very strong utilitarian aspect to liberalism." I don't see the import to that: from a Hegelian point of view, liberalism and utilitarianism go hand-in-glove. They both fail to see that there is something that transcends naked individual self-interest. You say that Hegel gives the state a quasi-divine status. That is correct as far as it goes: that is the status that the state deserves. Only the state can allow all citizens to live fulfilling lives, under capitalism. What higher value is there than that? Divine indeed.

Like you, the Bushies are focused on the individual. They don't like the state any more than you do. Furthermore, they understand that not all individuals are alike. Some are winners, some are losers. The state doesn't make that distinction. Face it: liberalism can't conceptualize an organic connection between the human beings making up a society. So it is very easy to slip from a benevolent liberalism—individuals with bad luck must be helped—to a malevolent liberalism—the best way to help individuals is to give them "incentives" to help themselves (even though, given their conditions, they can't).

I'm pleased to learn that Hegel advocated religious tolerance toward Quakers and Jews. But I am not surprised to learn that, since, unlike you, I understand that Hegel gives the individual his due. I don't call upon the state to impose secularism on individuals. My view is that secularism and Christianity are two sides of the same coin. And I got that idea from Hegel, so I would say that was his view as well, although he wouldn't have put it that way, since the concept of secularism didn't exist in his time. (He was instrumental in bringing it about.)

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns

by Alexander on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 03:42:51 AM EST
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Re: Submission versus freedom (3.50 / 2)

It just occurred to me that it is interesting that English-speaking countries tend to allow the wearing of headscarves, while the European continent tends to ban them. I take that as evidence for my suspicion that Europeans don't share the liberal notion of freedom with the anglophone world: they have the Hegelian notion of freedom. (In the liberal view, there is no reason (only instrumental rationality), so "freedom" consists in doing what you want: so Muslims have a "right" to wear headscarves. But in the Hegelian view, there is no more such a right than a "right" to cut off your own limbs: wanting to do it can't be rational, so there can't be a right to do it. It is not just that a Muslim wearing a headscarve damages society (by undermining social solidarity and implicitly rejecting core European values): she damages herself.)

It's not because they're Hegelians: it's because they're Europeans. Hegel just articulated their own self-understanding better than anyone else did.

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns

by Alexander on Tue Jan 16th, 2007 at 11:22:49 PM EST
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Re: Hegel is irrelevant (4.00 / 3)

Just want to say that as much as I enjoy debating Hegel with you, I find your view of Islam incredibly bigoted. The way I see it Islamic societies have the bad luck of a religion that has a sacred body of law, making the separation of religion from the state more difficult than in was in Christian ones. Given the numbers of people in Europe wanting sharia law I don't think we need to worry about that. And it's not like the invocation of religion to rail against civil law doesn't have a long tradition in modern Europe. The Federal Republic is a prime example.

In any case, your understanding of why Europe bans headscarves is mistaken. The French do so because of a historical tradition of militant secularism descended from the Revolution and the many generations of struggle where the Church opposed the Republic. The Bavarians because they're Catholic bigots and racism plays a role as well - we're talking about the CSU here. The idea that the CSU as an entity in favour of either secularism or a strict separation of Church and State is too funny for words. Hegel has nothing to do with it.

by MarekNYC on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 02:16:37 AM EST
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Re: Hegel is irrelevant (3.50 / 2)

Of course Hegel has something to do with it: it is called the cunning of reason. French militant secularism can be treated as a component of a Hegelian view of Europe, since French secular values are secularized Christian values. Hegel, and I following him, are neither in favor of secularism nor of a strict separation of church and state, so I have no problems with the CSU on those grounds. (In Europe, unlike America, even reactionaries can be correct on some issues. This is because European societies are organic. The U.S. on the other hand is an artificial construct, the product of social engineering. So since reactionaries here have no authentic tradition to fall back upon, they have nothing to help them to get it right at least some of the time.) We don't need to be in favor of secularism, since reality is secular. So we can afford to give religion some space in society. This isn't possible in America, since reality isn't allowed to enter into the debate. This is because the notion of reality implies that there is an objective reality, binding on everyone: but that contradicts that prime American principle, that everyone has a right to their opinion. If the creed is everyone has a right to their opinion (without the qualification that it must be a well-justified opinion, and able to withstand criticism by others, which the creed does not include), then reality has no privileged place in America. It is just another perspective, one among many others.

I don't know what you're thinking about when you say that in the Federal Republic, religion has "rail[ed] against civil law". I'd be grateful if you could tell me what it is you have in mind. But I should point out that the German Enlightenment, unlike the French and Scottish enlightenments, never adopted a hostile position against religion. In essence, in Germany, philosophers and theologians just agreed to work together. That is why about the only modern society you have Christian fundamentalism is America: it is virtually unheard of in Germany. (But there is significant anti-abortion sentiment in Germany, which I find puzzling. My guess is that that is an instance of the contemporary German drive to over-compensate for the crimes of the Nazi period.)

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns

by Alexander on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 03:05:44 AM EST
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Re: Hegel is irrelevant (none / 1)

This is because European societies are organic. The U.S. on the other hand is an artificial construct, the product of social engineering.

All nations are social constructs. Period. If you want to say that America's national identity is ideological rather than ethnic, fair enough. But that's equally true of France.

So since reactionaries here have no authentic tradition to fall back upon, they have nothing to help them to get it right at least some of the time.) We don't need to be in favor of secularism, since reality is secular.

Given that Europe managed to come up with some remarkably nasty reactionaries appealing to 'authenticity' and 'tradition', based on the notion of a 'real' 'organic' society, as opposed to the constructs of modernity, I'm not sure this is a good argument. You should do some reading on proto-fascism. Fritz Stern's Politics of Cultural Despair is a classic. But the literature is enormous.

On France and it's 'Christian rooted' secular values - ?! Actually based on a hatred of Catholicism.

Germany's anti-abortion stuff is simply the product of the dominant part[ies] being predominantly by Catholic - and the direct successor to a explicitly Catholic part[ies].

by MarekNYC on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 03:29:13 AM EST
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Re: Hegel is irrelevant (none / 1)

Wow. This should be a thread in its own right. But this is a role that Islam plays in the West today: it forces us to return to the notion of rationality.

You say that France's identity is ideological exactly in the same way that America's is, with France's 1300 year history being of no consequence. I wonder how many French people would agree with you.

The argument I was making derives from Louis Hartz's The liberal tradition in America: an interpretation of American political thought since the revolution, a canonical work of American liberalism. Hartz's argument (which I think is irrefutable) is that since the American revolution was based on liberal ideas, and since the American revolution is constitutive of America, there can be no such thing as an authentic American conservatism. (Needless to say, there can be such things as authentic German or French conservatisms, since those societies predate the very idea of liberalism.)

With respect to your second comment about Europe having nasty reactionaries appealing to authenticity, I would say that that is irrelevant, since today it is the anglophone countries that show signs of fascism, not European ones (backward countries like Poland and Latvia being excepted, of course). (Germany had only a couple of decades in which it was involved in conquest of foreign lands, whereas Britain's imperial career, based on military might, spans centuries. So America's current belligirence simply falls into the anglophone pattern.)

So the French hate Catholocism? I am not sure it so simple. The philosophes hated Catholocism I suppose, but they didn't turn the French into Protestants, did they?

As for the anti-abortion stuff: thanks for the point that it is due to Catholicism. That makes sense. If you look at the history of anti-abortionism in the US, you will find that this "movement" originated with Catholics. The evangelicals simply picked it up because they thought it was a good rallying cry.

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns

by Alexander on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 04:46:58 AM EST
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Re: Hegel is irrelevant (none / 0)

You say that France's identity is ideological exactly in the same way that America's is, with France's 1300 year history being of no consequence. I wonder how many French people would agree with you.

What self-deluding French reactionaries might think is irrelevant. France circa 1100 AD, or 1700 for that matter, is meaningless. Or no more meaningful than various European pasts are to America in the sense that any given period came out of what preceded it, and given that America is largely a Western culture it is a product of these pasts. Any appeal to 'tradition' by conservatives is about the present, the 'traditions' which are being invoked are at best arbitrarily chosen and reinterpreted for the present, at worst made up of whole cloth. To the extent that conservatism is authentic it is seeking to preserve the existing or to return to a recent past. Even the latter isn't quite that simple - nostalgia for the nineteen fifties is already in part a nostalgia for a specific contemporary re-imagining of the fifties. When you go back centuries seeing anything authentically 'traditional' about those 'traditions' is ridiculous.

This was a hot topic in the eighties and nineties. The closest that any of it came to your viewpoint was Anthony Smith, e.g. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. And even Smith wouldn't go anywhere near as far as you. The more widely accepted interpretation was that set out by Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities or the modernization one in Ernest Gellner's Nations and Nationalism . On the 'authentic' traditions Eric Hobsbawm (ed) The Invention of Tradition is fun.

Germany had only a couple of decades in which it was involved in conquest of foreign lands, whereas Britain's imperial career, based on military might, spans centuries.
Germany as a state didn't exist all that long; it's sort of hard for a non-existent state to be conquering people. France, Spain, Britain, and Russia on the other hand... or even the Dutch. Of course if you look at the Prussian and Habsburg states a rather different picture emerges. Polish nationalist versions of your view of authenticity and tradition see the early Prussian Teutonic Knights based state as an earlier version of Nazi Germany with the Deutsche Orden as the first draft of the SS. Amusingly enough so did the Nazis. In the Polish communist nationalist remix this became class struggle with Germans as the eternal opressing imperial nation-class. Wilhelmine conservatives saw that state as the early incarnation of their own vision of Germany, Drang nach Osten included, what a surprise. All that shows is that people can and do play any game they want with ancient 'traditions' in order to find support for whatever political interpretation of the present they're pushing.

by MarekNYC on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 03:09:08 PM EST
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Re: Hegel is irrelevant (none / 0)

You make a pursuasive case about the identity question. (Citing books your oponent has not read (except Gellner's) is an effective debating tactic.) Certainly, the US has a real identity, history, and tradition(s) by this point. I'll have to rething my position on their being a qualitative difference between the US and European countries here.

Probably Hartz's book should be viewed not as a destriction of an objective cultural reality, but as an attempt by a liberal to marginalize conservatives. I used to really believe what he argued: that in the US, there can be no authentic conservatives. But having read up a little on the history of American evancelicalism, it now strikes me that Harz does what many liberals do: simply ignore evangelicalism as irrelevant for understanding American culture. Obviously, this is harder to do today than it was in 1955, when Hartz wrote his book.

The rest of your remarks are amusing. Yes, I forgot about Prussia. So more than just a couple of decades of conquest.

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns

by Alexander on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 05:56:53 PM EST
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Free minds, not hair. | 101 comments (101 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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