What are the views of Hegel on different aspects of political philosophy?
Ans. POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL **Hegel's political philosophy was a response to the scepticism of the British thinkers who did not accept reason as an ultimate source of truth and reality. In his political philosophy Hegel emphasized that reason comprehended all reality. He identified all that is or has been with reason. Hegel tried to synthesize in his political philosophy its different aspects and made it all embracingand synthetic. He tried to show that other thinkers had grasped only a part of truth. He did not refute what they wrote but only showed that they had written partial truth. Hestudied philosophy and history and derived some broad principles from which he developed his political philosophy.
1. History as unfoldment of Reason: Reason is the ultimate reality. History is the unfoldment of Reasons in its various shapes. Reason is God.
2. Dialectical Evolution of History: The process of historical evolution is dialectical. Dialectic means the interaction or the conflict of contrary forces or powers. By Us action in the world each force of power gives rise to its opposite. Each thesis generates its anti thesis and out of the conflict between the thesis and antithesis the synthesis is born. The synthesis becomes in its turn the thesis which again generates its anti-thesis a new idea is born. Thus the process of evolution goes on till the ultimate stage is realized. According to Hegel, state is the final embodiment of reason or spirit on the social plane and nothing short of the state is the actualisatioa of freedom.
3. War as a Virtue: According to Hegel the essential principle of the state is self-preservation and perfection. War is not to be regarded as an evil but a virtue. "The state of war", says Hegel, "shows the omnipotence of the state in its individuality". War is to national life what winds are to the sea, 'Preserving mankind from the corruption engendered by immobility". War effectively displays the 'irony of the divine idea". War destroys the selfish egoism of the individual. For Hegel, "peace corrupts and everlasting peace corrupts everlastingly". "War is the state of affairs which deals in earnest with the vanity of temporal goods and concerns - a vanity at other highest; significance that by its agency, the ethical health of people is preserved in their in difference to the stabilizing of finite institutions; just as the blowing of the wind preserves the sea from the foulness which would be the result of a prolonged calm, let alone 'perpetual peace'. "Successful wars have prevented civil boils and strengthened the internal power of the state". Thej various weapons of war were not invented only by chance; they fulfilled an essential purpose. To quote Hegel, "The gun is not a chance invention". The same can be said about gun-power. "Humanity needed it and it made its appearance forthwith". Guns and gunpowder bear the stamp of civilization. "The rights of uncivilized people are a mere formality." "The civilised nation is conscious that the rights of barbarians are the unequal to its own and treats their autonomy as only a formality."
5. World State: Butto Hegel, nation-state was only a necessary step in the evolution of humanity towards a world-state. It is only when the nations have developed to their full maturity that they can march towards the idea of world-state. But Hegel did not write much on the world-state. The idea of world state was too abstract for him to speculate about it.
6. Private Property: Hegel was in favour of the institution of private property. Without it, the individual could not exert himself and make his personality grow.
7. Constitutional Monarchy: According to Hegel, the state manifests itself in a constitution. The three important powers in the state are legislative, administrative and monarchic. Out of these powers, the monarchic power is the most important. Hegel made this division of powers according to the formula of his dialectic. The legislative branch, which stands for the universal aspect of the state, is the thesis. The administrative organ representing its particular aspect is the antithesis. Theconstitutional monarch who may be regarded as their unily in the individual stale is the synthesis. Hegel includes the judicial organ in the administrative branch. The constitutional monarch is the medium through which the legislative and the executive are brought into a harmonious unity.Thus, according to Hegel, the monarch is the symbol and embodiment of the unity and supremacy of the state. The sovereignty of the state resides in him and not in the mass of the people.
4. International Law is not binding to nation state: To Hegel, the nation-state was the most rational thing. It was the expression of a higher rationality than could be achieved by the individual, or by any private group or corporation. The state was omnipotent and absolute, supreme and sovereign. Naturally, therefore, the state is not bound by principles of International Law. International Law represents only certain usages which were accepted so long as they did conflict with the supreme performance of the stats. The other nations have no right against a state.
IMPLICATIONS OF HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY 1. Restoration of German National Unity: An examination
of Hegel's philosophy shows something both very old and very simple. He reaffirmed the Greek view that man rises to his full stature only in the state which completes the training in public spirit supplied at the lower level by the family and civil society. Hegel's real aim was to restore national unity of Germany which had suffered humiliation at the hands of France.
2. Objections to Dialectic: Hegel cast his arguments in the rigid mould of dialectic, he opened himself to serious pitfalls.
(i) Determinism: ToHegel, dialectic was a law of logic, and indeed an iron law, leaving little or nothing to chance or even to conscious human volition.
(ii) Vagueness: But the most serious objection against dialectic is that it is extremely vague. The 'contradictions'.discovered by Hegel consist of so many sorts of different and opposite things that the dialectic frequently loses its plausibility. Thus to Hegel, civil society is the antithesis of family.
(iii) Disappearance of Individual Values: As a matter of fact, Hegel has reduced individual wishes and perverseness to the level of mere caprice. The actors in human history for him are not men but impersonal forces. The deeds of actual men are what Hegel calls moments' in the process by which he idea realizes itself in the state.
3. Exaltation of State: The most significant aspect of hegel's philosophy is his exaltation of the state. He makes the individual not only a member of society but makes him the subject of a state which being the final embodiment of world spirit is supreme and omnipotent. The moral superiority of the state consists not in the fact that it is a means to meet the needs of man but in the fact that it is an end in itself, representing the supreme achievement of reason in human affairs.
4. Worship of state power: State is the 'absolutely rational', the 'actuality of the ethical idea' 'ihe march of God on earth'. Individual has significance only as the material upon which spirit works its will. The individual conscience is not to be trusted. The commands of the state are the spokesmen of infalliable morality. To raise the state above all moral criticism was to contribute decisively to a disastrous worship of power.
5.
Value of Hegel's Teaching
(i) Emphasis on social aspect: Hegel's individualism ignores the social character of man. Hegel emphasized the social aspect of man's nature.
(ii) Rich Idea of Liberty: Hegel made the idea of liberty richer by showing that man's conception of it largely depends upon the institutions which have trained him and given him his education.
(iii) Basis of Communism: Hegel emphasized that the state is not a police state, instead it must be regarded as part of man's moral end. His dialectic became in the hands of Marx the basis of revolutionary communism. Marx converted the evolution, an evolution ending not in the exaltation of the state but in its abolition.
(iv) Revision of Liberalism: Hegel's philosophy led the Englisi idealists of the last 19th century to revise liberalism and rid it of its abstraction which had viewed the individual as a solitary and pleasure seeking animal.
(v) Sociological Theory of Politics: Hegel's theory gave rise to the sociological theory of politics, because he showed that political power was connected with the economic, social and cultural forces to the state. He gave a new emphasis and importance to the state and greatly enriched modern political philosophy.
(vi) Synthesis of Ethics and Politics: hegel grasped the connection between moráls and politics and handled the same with a far greater in sight than any of his predecessors. According to Prof. Sabine, "The philosophy of hegel aimed at nothing less than a complete and systematic reconstruction of modern thought".
(vii) Dialectical method: He set forth a new intellectual method, the dialectic which should bridge the gulf between reason, fact and value.
(viii) National State: In his political theory Hegel set a value on the national state and its place in history which formed no small part of his influence. The social philosophy of Hegel had a direct and intimate relation to the national history of Germany.
Prostitution and deaths from starvation - this is the tap root of modern religion. The party of the proletariat demands that the government shall declare religion as a private matter but it does not for a moment regard the question of the fight against the opium of the people, the right against religious superstition as a private matter. We demand that religion be regarded as a private matter as far as the state is concerned, but under no circumstances can we regard it as private matter in our own party."
Lenin's Adaptation of Marxism to Russia: It is said that one of the greatest contributions of Lenin was that he adapted Marxism to Russia. Lenin was a Russian of the Russians and he had a deep understanding of the Russian realities. As a Marxist revolutionary, Lenin believed that revolution was possible in Russia only under certain conditions. The Czar must be defeated in war and there must be a group of highly disciplined and professional revolutionaries, who must be able to take over the Government of the country. Lenin held that there was going to be a war and Russia was sure to be defeated in that war but the problem was how to train revolutionaries who could take over in the event of Russia's defeat in
Lenin had thus to experience a very big hurdle. The Marxian view was that a revolution could take place only in a country where there was full-fledged industrial capitalism. According to Marx, there were no short-cuts to revolution. Revolutionary movements could arise spontaneously and could not outrun the underlying industrial and economic conditions which gave birth to them. However, Russia al that time was mainly an agriculturist country. In spite of this handicap Lenin came to the conclusion that a successful revolution could be led by the creation of a small disciplined and centralised party. There were genuine Marxists like Plekhanov who did not accept the thesis of Lenin and he addressed them in these words: "Think over it a little and you will realise that broad democracy in party organisations, amidst the darkness of autocracy and the domination of the Gendarmes, is nothing more than a useless and harmful toy." His critics state that if there were to be no democracy within the party, tie masses will not get the education which was a necessary condition of socialism. Lenin was more interested in making men carry out his policy than in justifying it theoretically.
