I have an issue with Hegel. His culmination of thought results in people no longer being individuals, at least that is how I understand it. But one of the fundamental limitations of humans is the self. We can never “be” outside the individual. If we reach the pinnacle of consciousness, as Hegel says, then we would have to cease to be human. But what does that look like? I’m not really willing to accept an “I don’t know” response. If we can’t know what it looks like, then there just doesn’t seem to be a point in considering it.
Ok, so what does it look like when you get rid of the individual? So far humanity hasn’t come up with very many pleasant images. The first two that leap to mind are the Borg and the Zerg (and all other knockoffs). And nature doesn’t do us much better, she gives us bees and termites. I wouldn’t call any of those images better for humanity. The only realistic state I can think of is a world in which everyone agrees on everything. But that wouldn’t eliminate the individual, it would just make him/her really boring.
I just can’t really get on board with Hegel saying that humanity will look entirely unpredictable and inhuman once its consciousness is wholly realized.
5 comments:
Although i agree that this is somewhat of a terrifying thought, this world sans descent, i think that it would be entirely predictable, and perhaps in some ways, superhuman.
Truth- Hegel argues that the dialectic is an constant perpetual motion destined to meet an absolute truth of the given subject- in this case the universal consciousness of humankind. In kurt vonnegut's "Galapagos" (sorry, i don't know how to underline in this system), mankind reaches a universal consciousness by dumbing down through a millenia of natural selection favor those with smaller brains. I almost feel like this is what the collective human consciousness would be like- though this universal consciousness would be the ultimate synthesis of this dialectic, it would remove all cause and negate all precedent for doubt and dissent, two fundamentals of human existence. the flip side is that perhaps these systems of consciousness are already being realize in their rudimentary forms, ideas of progress that have yet to establish themselves but are well underway (Utopian colonies and the advent of Communism) In these societies, you get rid of the individual but for the sake of the betterment of Humanity as a whole (thus far, unfortunately, in theory). Cool.
If we can’t know what it looks like, then there just doesn’t seem to be a point in considering it.
Rather Kantian point--we cannot know what the consequences of actions will look like, although his idea pertains more to the moral value of an action. Nonetheless there are plenty of things that we will not know what they look like but it does not follow that we should not consider them. We cannot know what the future will look like but I like many other would be extremely bored if we did not think it was worth considering.
I have to agree with Mark (which unfortunately means agreeing with Kant): there's no way we would know the outcome so there isn't much point in discussing it.
Besides, the time it would take humans to truly eliminate the individual and convert to a hive mind is quite significant and not really relevant to us since we'd be dead by the time it happens (if it happens) and if it did occur in our lifetime, we wouldn't care because we are one with the hive. That's some Zerg shit right there.
I do not think that Hegel is trying to get rid of the individual but may be trying to go beyond synthesizing a moral law or a categorical imperative based solely on an individual's rationalization. Hegel seems to think that Kant's or Descartes' lonely philosopher skip over the inherent morals that society teaches us and that religion or universities implant into our minds. The language we learn connects people to a certain group, our socialization in America dictates which actions are seen as acceptable or not - even our parents are a deep underlying influence on us, and if we are to ignore those influences and try to think about morals alone in a closed system we find a very impractical and isolated set of ideas.
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