Hegel's Cake

Despite being capable of living a materialist, amoral existence, we do, I argue, all the same feel the weight of morality and of spirituality. Why?

Is it because it has become ingrained in all human peoples and cultures? Don't we all grow up with this sense of right and wrong, which we experience as a conscience? It doesn't mean we must accept that a spiritual world or afterlife exists in reality, but its influence on us is, all the same, real.

This is what stops us from getting away with our cake and eating it too.

Is dialectical philosophy practical? Is it philosophy's role to be practical? If not, then what is the purpose of philosophy?

The dialectic method is less analytical than many would want, but more holistic than analysis can claim to be. I argue that holistic is good and deserves a chance to be important in philosophy's quest for truth.

Looking at the big picture often gets bad publicity. It can be seen as being unscientific and illogical. But if we look at what the big picture contains, then things might appear to be different. A big picture is made up of little pictures. These little pictures are a commentary, in the form of symptoms, of a bigger picture harmony or disharmony. Analytic philosophers worry that the grand narrative of dialectic philosophy is nothing but the story of constant reevaluation, as theory after theory is discredited on the grounds that it must be disproved in order to be faithful to pure truth. I say, fear not. We are not robots. We are emotional beings, and as such, will always look to make opinions that justify our emotive actions. So bring on the dialectics and let us channel human passion to find truth and not just to pretend to find truth whilst merely justifying our own particular desires.

Hegel's thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectic can be seen as being a constant procrastination that never finds anything stable that can lead to truth. This might happen only if we were a race of computer-brains. For example, we might well promote our own ideas in spite of an opposing view. But by promoting our own ideas because they are more real/truthful at the culmination of a dialectical discussion with the opposing view, is more likely to convince our rational mind that we are arriving at something nearer universal truth, rather than an isolated particular will.

The attractive quality for me, of the dialectic approach, is that it forces philosophers to listen to every idea. Nothing can be discounted and therefore it keeps the focus on truth foremost and it prevents arrogance of mind. It does mean a more long-winded method compared with an analytical method. But if philosophy is primarily concerned with truth, then the time it takes to get there is surely of secondary importance? The dialectic is a way of making sure you don't become exactly that which you accuse your opponent of being: Namely a tyrant, a totalitarian, a bully, someone unwilling to compromise the methods that neatly justify their own predetermined ends.

Then the question is: Does one encourage the tyrant by always forgiving him? But is it not also arrogant, and tyrannical, to assume that it is the other and not you (the ego) that is the tyrant. Is to feel persecuted also to encourage tyranny? Relationships can be seen as a nuclear example of this Yin and Yang struggle. In marriage, two people form a union. This union is generally understood to represent the universal harmony of the two particular individuals. As human beings, it is very difficult to compromise our convictions. Hegel believed that the ultimate tragedy of the French Revolution was that by voicing a dogmatic opinion, the particular person who instigates the revolution is never speaking for the universal and therefore cannot be promoting the universal cause of the people.
 

I argue that in the dialectical approach, and through the dialectical approach, philosophy is not in crisis. It has a role in human affairs in that it deals with finding meaning in existence and giving confidence when we feel doubt. It encourages us to keep going and to keep believing in humanity.

Two things seem to be given truths here that suggest dialectics is not a tyrannical approach to finding truth. One is that humans are inquisitive beings who think for themselves and order their thinking. (Descartes' Cogito ergo sum) Two, through this we can derive the fact that humans form opinions. They categorize a difference between things; between right and wrong, as a matter of instinct. Therefore, if we are designed to make opinions, a dialectical method, which analytic philosophy might dismiss as vague and procrastinatory, is a good way of keeping us in check. It is a regulatory system, like the ones we must put on nasty city bankers, that stops us arrogantly assuming that just because we instinctively form opinions and can argue a good case for them, does not mean we can dismiss the rights of others to have equally valid opinions too.

The Negative Innovation Dialectic

I say we are traditionalists, because by nature we seem to be afraid of improvement. How so?

Innovation, by definition, supersedes what has gone before it. This makes us acutely aware of our own fading relevance in the world. Look for instance at the way we construct tradition and how we classify culture. For example, music that is called 'classical', has a clearly defined and reverently respected repertory. When someone or something comes along to expose these 'masters' as something other than the very pinnacle of their field, we are forced either to dismiss them as arrogant pretenders, or accept them, along with the notion we are all but mere mortals, never be sure of leaving anything that lasts when we in time we shed this mortal coil.

I began thinking about this when listening to the amazing child jazz piano sensation Eldar Djangirov. I then selected a conservatively selected jazz great who has become an acceptable face of the jazz Standard. Kenny Barron is highly respected by the Wynton Marsalis/Stanley Crouch neo-classicist institution, that controls so much of what is allowed to be Jazz.

It seems that one of the trade-offs in the deal we make with society, it to develop an instinct to cling to an acceptable level on innovation and greatness in order to come to terms with our own underachieving. The consequence being that we seem to promote tradition above innovation. We treat it with the highest respect because it is already there, predictable and controllable. We can use it for our own means, to justify our own path and convictions. If we take it away we take away, we question the basis of our own fragile existence.

A History of Class and a Future of Equality

If all history is the history of class, as Karl Marx famously recognised, then how can we genuinely aspire to promote equality? And if our material state necessarily influences our ideas, then how can we be sure that our convictions have a global truth and not just a local resonance?

Why is it so hard to deny the existence of 'class' in society?

In a capitalist world, people buy a habitable environment. This environment is not provided for individuals freely. If you can't earn enough money to buy this life-space, then you might well be subsidised by your family. This is what Marx calls 'the destruction of the family's sentimental veil'. It is the humiliation you experience at not being able to live independent of those who love you instinctively and would do anything for you. In economic crisis this humiliation doubles. Because despite having education and drive, and perhaps even a full time job, you cannot afford to house yourself or feed yourself adequately.

This family bail-out further reinforces this class system in two ways. One, the children of families with material wealth acquire a sense of entitlement to money that is given to them for free. Secondly, it disenfranchises and demoralises all those without an inheritance pot, who feel respected by the pseudo-democratic capitalist society which not only allows material inequality, but actively encourages it.

So we get buffeted around physically and psychologically. To such an extent that capitalism hopes to kill off all fighting spirit and convert us all into mindless consumers. Which is why we must be resilient, be versatile, and above all be compassionate to others and to ourselves. A 'how can I possibly survive?' mentality must become an 'If you try to drain my energies then I WILL survive' mentality.

Of course we all need food and shelter from which to launch our ideas of universal freedom and equality. Marx admits this when he says that 'men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.' But I don't think it is hypocritical or contradictory to say that 'all history is the history of class' whilst at the same time as advocating freedom and advocating a future without class and with equality.