A Hegelian Discourse

I admit that I am no student of Philosophy. However, I must comment that after reading certain philosophical works (are they philosophical?), I started to question them from a more - you can say - "simplistic" point of view, one that does not include all the confusing mumbo jumbo in contemporary and classical Philosophy. One such person who caught my eye was a German guy named Hegel.Georg Hegel. He was a German philosopher back in the day, and had quite a cult following, both right-wingers and left-wingers.

I tend to view him in the same light as the same guy who said that "democracies can't fight each other" (which is utterly false). Why is that? Hegel, like Samuel Huntington, in his controversial yet faulty "Clash of Civilizations" theory (I wrote something about this, but I suppose Edward Said has a much better argument), provided a philosophy that is based on simplistic collectivist ideas that do not take into account the many variables that shape our world today.

However, Hegel's theory has a more realistic basis than those of the other two. He stated that society progresses and forms a system called the thesis. The noted example on the Wikipedia link is the French Revolution. The antithesis results from the counter-propositions and faults of the system; the Reign of Terror that followed the French Revolution is a shining example of this. Ensuing conflict between these two aspects would produce a synthesis, which is void of all the defects of the previous society; the French Constitution can be regarded as such a synthesis. In more simplistic words, Hegel stated his theory as follows with respect to the larger scope of human History:

"The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom; a progress whose development according to the necessity of its nature, it is our business to investigate."

Reflect a bit on those words. He is stating that with respect to human freedoms, the world community/human society progresses through time as more human freedoms are given rather than taken. Many people borrowed from his philosophy, most notably Karl Marx, the (co-)founder of Communism (you might want to google "Friedrich Engels" and see what you come up with). Karl Marx proposed that class conflict would be the driving force that produces the synthesis, which would, over successive generations, lead to a utopia of classless society and ultimate human (economic) freedom (let's face it: Marx loved his moolah).

If Hegel was right, we would expect humans to be happy about the state of the world... in fact, much happier than before. The truth is that the world is now a worse place than it was years ago, in terms of human freedom.

There has been a rise in despotic regimes globally, and even without the concept of government do people in certain areas enjoy limited freedoms. There are also places with a great degree of disorder. As a liberal/libertarian, I believe that freedom and order are both essential to society. Scientifically, the chance of acquiring a stable and free society diminishes with time. The Second Law of Thermodynamics can also apply to the universe in general:

"The entropy of an isolated system not at equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value."

Entropy is the degree of disorder, and it increases with time because systems tend towards less order, which require an investment, whether it be governmental power or individual choice, or anything else that tends to require energy. The flaw in the theory comes from the idea that people these days feel worse about the world, and that people have different views. Freedom will be a necessity, but people will tend to see that security should be placed in the stead of certain principles of liberty in order to maintain the order. It has been like this over the past few centuries: regimes rise and fall because they suddenly become too autocratic. It is guaranteed that in the end, there will be a maximum state of entropy, of disorder and freedom, but that will not come anytime soon.

Sometimes, I think Hegel might be correct. Maybe I'm just too pessimistic. As a Muslim, I believe in the End of Days, when the Earth will be verdant, and human freedom will be attained. However, considering the state of the world today, we can't be too certain. With all the needless war, destruction and death that has befallen so many people, it is very hard to say that we are attaining the state that both Hegel and Marx dreamed of.

But who knows? Only time will tell if Hegel was right...

Salaam, from Saracen