Economics; Self-consciousness in Hegel;
Dollars and Sense has a good article on the recent subprime crisis.
D and S also has a good assessment of recent economic history here.
The section on "Lordship and Bondage" is one of the most famous passages from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit; I think Fanon calls it the dialectic of the Master and the Slave, although the Bondsman is something other than a slave. Certainly one can understand its appeal to those engaged in the project of decolonizing the mind, for it asserts, roughly, that the oppressor is unable to realize his humanity while the slave is the one in the position of becoming truly free.
Hegel begins with the insight that self-consciousness exists for another self-consciousness, that self-consciousness can only be if it is recognized by another self-consciousness. I think that now, in an age where psychoanalysis is part of pop culture, it is hard for us to understand the original force of this claim. We are selves only in the process of being recognized as such by other selves -- suddenly the "individual" no longer makes sense as a concept separate from the social; indeed, now the social cannot be thought any longer as either a collection of individuals.
What happens in Hegel's account is this: in order for the individual to be certain of herself as a "pure self-consciousness", she must not think of herself as a particular self-consciousness, as attached to this particular body and life. Likewise with the other self-consciousness that she confronts, now in a struggle to the death. Of course, we have an impulse to think about this in Heideggerian terms -- the authenticity of one's life is achieved through the direct reality of one's mortality.
The struggle to the death is not a true solution to this situation, however, for the victor loses the possibility of recognition if she kills the other self-consciousness. The loser also learns that "life is as essential to it as pure self-consciousness." What happens is that the loser ends up living, but as the "bondsman," while the presumed victor ends up as the lord. The relationship turns on labor -- the Lord forces the bondsman to labor for him, in order that the Lord may satisfy his desires.
Now, it is easy to see that the Lord still cannot achieve self-consciousness, since he is only allowed recognition by the "bondsman", whom he considers to be sub-human and not a true self-consciousness. Hegel describes this in terms of freedom -- recognition is the process whereby what I do to myself is what the other freely does as well; but here, of course, the Lord's actions upon the world via the bondsman is not freely done by the bondsman; "What now really confronts him is not an independent consciousness, but a dependent one."
The rest of this dialectic turns on the nature of work and fear. The bondsman's work on the world is the objectification of his subjectivity (or, as Hegel puts it, his "being-for-self"); at the same time, it is a pure subjectivity since it has been brought to the edge of death by the struggle with the Lord.
I think it is easy to understand the first idea -- that in working on the world we give our subjectivity an objective reality; or rather, it is not necessarily the fixed, material reality that we work on that corresponds in some way to our subjectivity, it is the changing of that reality that is the "objective" aspect of our subjectivity. So that, for instance, it is not in the finished sculpture that Michelangelo finds himself but rather in the chipping, chiseling, polishing of the stone.
Hegel's obsession with fear is a little harder to understand, I think. But we may ask whether the experience of being a bondsman, of having each day be a struggle for life, provides a particular insight into one's own personhood. It is something I find particularly difficult to imagine -- whether there is an intensification of one's sense of objectification, of being this body, with these arms and legs and heartbeat; and whether this leads to a corresponding sense of freedom from this very body, an opening of the vistas of consciousness, a defiant sense of personhood that refuses to be bound to the material, because in such a situation that would be to lose hope.
D and S also has a good assessment of recent economic history here.
The section on "Lordship and Bondage" is one of the most famous passages from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit; I think Fanon calls it the dialectic of the Master and the Slave, although the Bondsman is something other than a slave. Certainly one can understand its appeal to those engaged in the project of decolonizing the mind, for it asserts, roughly, that the oppressor is unable to realize his humanity while the slave is the one in the position of becoming truly free.
Hegel begins with the insight that self-consciousness exists for another self-consciousness, that self-consciousness can only be if it is recognized by another self-consciousness. I think that now, in an age where psychoanalysis is part of pop culture, it is hard for us to understand the original force of this claim. We are selves only in the process of being recognized as such by other selves -- suddenly the "individual" no longer makes sense as a concept separate from the social; indeed, now the social cannot be thought any longer as either a collection of individuals.
What happens in Hegel's account is this: in order for the individual to be certain of herself as a "pure self-consciousness", she must not think of herself as a particular self-consciousness, as attached to this particular body and life. Likewise with the other self-consciousness that she confronts, now in a struggle to the death. Of course, we have an impulse to think about this in Heideggerian terms -- the authenticity of one's life is achieved through the direct reality of one's mortality.
The struggle to the death is not a true solution to this situation, however, for the victor loses the possibility of recognition if she kills the other self-consciousness. The loser also learns that "life is as essential to it as pure self-consciousness." What happens is that the loser ends up living, but as the "bondsman," while the presumed victor ends up as the lord. The relationship turns on labor -- the Lord forces the bondsman to labor for him, in order that the Lord may satisfy his desires.
Now, it is easy to see that the Lord still cannot achieve self-consciousness, since he is only allowed recognition by the "bondsman", whom he considers to be sub-human and not a true self-consciousness. Hegel describes this in terms of freedom -- recognition is the process whereby what I do to myself is what the other freely does as well; but here, of course, the Lord's actions upon the world via the bondsman is not freely done by the bondsman; "What now really confronts him is not an independent consciousness, but a dependent one."
The rest of this dialectic turns on the nature of work and fear. The bondsman's work on the world is the objectification of his subjectivity (or, as Hegel puts it, his "being-for-self"); at the same time, it is a pure subjectivity since it has been brought to the edge of death by the struggle with the Lord.
I think it is easy to understand the first idea -- that in working on the world we give our subjectivity an objective reality; or rather, it is not necessarily the fixed, material reality that we work on that corresponds in some way to our subjectivity, it is the changing of that reality that is the "objective" aspect of our subjectivity. So that, for instance, it is not in the finished sculpture that Michelangelo finds himself but rather in the chipping, chiseling, polishing of the stone.
Hegel's obsession with fear is a little harder to understand, I think. But we may ask whether the experience of being a bondsman, of having each day be a struggle for life, provides a particular insight into one's own personhood. It is something I find particularly difficult to imagine -- whether there is an intensification of one's sense of objectification, of being this body, with these arms and legs and heartbeat; and whether this leads to a corresponding sense of freedom from this very body, an opening of the vistas of consciousness, a defiant sense of personhood that refuses to be bound to the material, because in such a situation that would be to lose hope.