Good Book: Emancipation After Hegel, by Todd McGowan

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  • October 24, 2020 at 10:51 am #123349
    Avatar photoBilly_T
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    Emancipation After Hegel Achieving a Contradictory Revolution Todd McGowan Columbia University Press
    I enjoyed it. Haven’t read Hegel in a long time, and had pretty much dismissed him, especially after reading several negative critiques in the past. McGowan presents a fascinating reappraisal, which should interest all leftists.

    Key thing for McGowan is Hegel’s contention that humans (and the world itself) are contradictory, and there is no way around this. Acceptance of this is a vital step when it comes to our freedom — macro and micro, individually and collectively.

    Another key stems from that acceptance: No authority, including the gods/goddesses, the state, or our fellow humans, can be a pure “substance” themselves, given their inherent contradictory nature . . . which destroys the rationale for pedestals, worship, blind obedience, allegiance, compliance, etc. etc. We are all equal in being contradictory, which brings in the three-legged stool from the French Revolution.

    Not an easy read in all parts, but well worth the effort.

    Side note: Just beginning Antonio Negri on Spinoza (in the aftermath of the above reading), which reminds me of another interesting phenomenon. This or that critic will champion this or that person/treatise, and when you read several side by side, it’s almost like a competition. Reevaluations can disagree vehemently about these works and thinkers, for sometimes wildly different reasons . . . which basically means you have to keep reading, learning, weighing and measuring, etc. So many different ways to see them, from direct readings to critical readings. Nothing is closed up. Which is also, ironically, something that leftist critics point to as leftist in and of itself, and in opposition to right-wing philosophical views, in general — with exceptions. As in, the right tends to push the case for closed systems, done deals, static natures, and so on.

    Will be continuing with this philosophy kick for as long as I can . . .

    • This topic was modified 4 years ago by Avatar photoBilly_T.
    October 24, 2020 at 11:09 am #123353
    Avatar photoBilly_T
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    Also, from reading Erich Fromm . . . Freud talked about contradictions in terms of our conscious and unconscious minds. This made me think about discussions involving “Why do voters make decisions against their own best interests?”

    A host of reasons for that, of course, but at the individual level, at the level of the mind, that conflict between conscious and unconscious drives/desires is huge. And then there’s our biology as well. Nature versus Nurture and so on.

    Thinking in terms of universe, society and personal contradictions . . . it’s not really all that baffling that we humans do strange, seemingly “irrational,” and oh so counterproductive things all the time.

    In general, I think “the right” has a major advantage, politically, because it doesn’t try to persuade voters via “rational” means. It uses sales and marketing methods that tap into unconscious drives and desires instead, especially fear. It factors in “the irrational,” often promotes it, in fact, whereas the left tends to avoid this. Again, in general.

    I don’t know what the answer is for us. But I think we have to figure out a way to tap into the unconscious too, without stoking fear and hatred.

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