The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1233: Continental Philosophy and Its Origins - Pt. 10 - Hegel (2) w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: June 29, 2025

55 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas continues a series on the subject of Continental Philosophy, which focuses on history, culture, and society. In this episode Thomas concludes his talk on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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The Pekingona Show.com. Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. Thomas is here. And we're doing part two, Hegel, Continental Philosophy series. Yeah, indeed. And, you know, something that's important to register in a discussion of Hegel, you know, I always come back to the point again and again that

Hegel's not just an intrinsically right-wing theorist. He's the progenitor of historicism, you know, and owing to the epistemic assessment. assumptions of historicism and Hegel's political ontology, like what he insists is the purpose of the state, as well as its psychological, you know, um, constitution that can't, that can't be extricated from, you know, things that are discreetly, you know, related to the significance of organic cultural phenomenon and things like that. You know, it's really anti-liberal, okay, just axiomatically. So that's the reason why I've always maintained as inappropriate, in conceptual terms, to talk about right and left Higalians.

I mean, it's kind of shorthand for a real phenomenon, yeah, but like, left Higalians aren't Higalians. You know, they're people who believe in a dialectical process in history, but it really has nothing to do with a Higalian paradigm, other than in the most kind of loosely structured capacities. You know, so if you're talking about Higalianism, you're talking about a kind of I'd argue right wing and at the very least kind of conservative

historicism that views human populations as the product of a discrete psychology that you know the nuances of which can't be interpreted

a priori or by appeal to you know abstract universalisms and things you know um and that's kind of what i wanted to get in today to today um like i said before i went live um i'm so i'm still shaking off some fatigue and some symptoms of this uh virus i can't seem to shake so to the subs please forgive me if i repeat myself or if i seem a little bit out of it um you know i um I try to make sure that I always deliver properly. I believe where we left off last time was,

I believe I raised the matter of Carl Schmidt very much showing a debt to Hagle in describing the state as being fundamentally born of conflict. You know, not just conflict, external, to the, you know, insular population that devises the state for defensive purposes, you know, contra the external foe. But within the state itself, it's a venue for myriad conflicts, actual, and potential, you know, within the cultural form that consensus is emergent.

and this owes to Hegel identifies the the origin of this phenomenon as anthropological in nature it derives on the nature of man himself okay man rises above the level of

an animal owing the logos and owing you know for his capability for a higher reason but you know there's also a process of engagement

psychologically by which man raises himself to that status of elevation and he doesn't do so in isolation or through merely contemplative processes

or something but really an immortal struggle for recognition you know every man is conscious every man who is is sane and reasoned

and not somehow mentally compromised. You know, he largely exists for himself and for his own purposes. You know, and these purposes derived from a consciousness

of his freedom to act in ways that gain him recognition. Now, we're not just talking about, you know, clout or fame or prestige. I mean, obviously, people covet those kinds of things, too, and it's part and parcel what we're talking about. But we're discussing a phenomenon that's rather deeper. You know, when we say when Hagell talks about recognition, he's really talking about

participation and things that are, you know, transcendent and historical terms. You know, what Aristotle talks about. about as you know the magnanimous man he has a basically aristocratic perspective you know well even men who aren't aristocratic by nature or magnanimous you know they do have this they do have this desire to kind of overcome death through historical living you know whether it's that the fame of a dead man's deeds ring out or you know siring strong children, you know, who will go on to, you know, participate in the life of the nation, or, you know, excelling at a learned profession or at a trade that requires, you know,

learned craftsmanship, you know, and the only way for this kind of recognition to have any significance or for it to really be emergent within that paradigm is if others recognize the significance of these things okay so this this this process can't occur in isolation it requires a historical and thus a cultural situatedness you know it's also a process that's inherently competitive. You know, each, every man, even if he's, even if he's basically moral and basically fair-minded and has a developed sense of equity and things of this nature, he's still going to want his own acts and deeds and character to accomplish recognition without being

forced in turn, you know, to rest. recognize equivalent merit and others, you know. And this, in very basic terms, you know, is the kind of conflict intrinsic to the human condition. So as such that man is a social animal. And human sociality, again, is what makes this process possible. And thus it's what it is to be a human being in axiomatic terms. You know, um, yeah,

there's, uh, religious vocations and things where people deliberately remove themselves from this paradigm, but that itself is kind of overcoming, you know, and, and transcendent activity,

precisely because they're taking themselves out of a psychological state. And, um, a kind of social situatedness that is at base intrinsically human and normative you know and to accomplish

this process of recognition you know men will risk their wealth their reputation and even their life so it becomes a mortal struggle

and it can only end in inequality because at some point the dominant cast and this can take various forms in terms of the peculiar characteristics that define it you know we'll submit to the superior

prestige or deeds warranting recognition or mode of life that defines the cultural environment there will always be a ruling class

and that ruling class only is extant because the competitors to it have submitted to it, you know, and have seized waging this struggle, whereby, you know, they demand any quality of recognition, or more properly, perhaps, they cease trying to overcome their masters, you know. There's always a willful aspect of submission in the paradigm between masters and slaves, even if you accept the postulate, the Aristotilian postulate, that there is such a thing as, you know, natural slavery.

You know, so, in other words, every man emerges from this struggle by necessity. every man emerges from this fight for recognition is either a master or a slave. So human reality is essentially social. And human sociology owing to logos

is intrinsically political. So this submission to the mastery of another and the accomplishing or the realization of peace within the parameters of this sort of ethical and aesthetical and cultural consensus, you know, based on a shared historical experience and ancestral memory. this is the beginning of states, okay. The state, the primordial state is, the boundaries within this process has been accomplished. However, both, the master requires more than just mere acknowledgement from his social inferiors.

and similarly, you know, the slave requires for his life to hold meaning, you know, more than just an acknowledgment of the supremacy of the master caste. And, you know, thus an entitlement of his caste nobles oblige. in general terms you know even if there's even if the moral and ethical value of the labor of the slave is acknowledged

and even if his stoic submission to the authority of the master while still retaining his own dignity as a man is acknowledged you know he's still as a man and as a human being

singly long for recognition in his own right and to be situated with a higher or at least a perennial conceptual reality or form of life like material compensation cannot sate this desire nor facilitate it

but even if the slave is manumitted and later becomes rich you know that that doesn't say first of all, that's an exception anyway, but regardless, it doesn't see this desire. The only thing that can facilitate that is recognition by another free consciousness. this. The paradigm then within the state between the classes is it based psychological. You know, again,

I know I said it before, but this is fundamentally important to understand the Higalian ontology. And it is the state which facilitates the recognition and establishes the setting of it. And this desire is sated collectively and individually. by living historically, okay, and taking part in the communitarian and historical life of the nation and living perennially within the historical consciousness that is timeless and linear, okay, and transcends death and generational and temporal boundaries. Now, what's essential to Hegel is that the state basically has to

it's got to actively reconcile these things. It's not enough to just create a system whereby, tensions between casts are just mitigated such that there's not sanguinary

hostilities emergent and that it's not enough that the state simply protect property rights and things you know

by enforcing you know the positive law or what have you it's got to facilitate this kind of reciprocity of recognition at which the master and slave both aim in vain without the state. On the other hand, too, or in addition to, the state needs to be a teacher and inculcate both the master and slave

with a belief in their own historical situatedness and their own belonging, you know, to the polis or the racial community, the vocally, or the nation, you know, and it's got to inculcate people with these values to such a degree that they'll put aside not just the discrete private ego and the desires therein as well as um you know the kind of wider cast-based identity contra the other within the social organism um but it's got to it's it's got to make people truly believe you know in the efficacy and value of the labor of the other as well as an understanding that at war you know each man is uh who can take up arms there's a an ethical equality there among all who are willing to lay on their lives

you know to preserve the historical life of the nation you know and uh this is why the subject matter of the state is war and peace, not just because in existential terms, and practically speaking, it's a defensive structure, you know, whereby the historical community can only exist within its parameters without being subsumed or destroyed, you know, by those outside of it, who by asserting their own desire for recognition and historical imperative would repudiate you know their way of life violently but there's also um

you know a profoundly psychological mechanism at work here you know what reconciles with the glue of civil society again is um the common enterprise of warfare actual and potential and the obligation of citizenship um you know upon incumbent upon every every class you know in common which uh i mean yes there's command and obedience is nowhere more sharply expressed

than you know in a nation's military forces but you know all men die the same in battle

you know and the command element and the conscript or enlisted element you know they

rely on each other in the most critical ways you know and that breaks down what would otherwise be an intractable hostility and this is why the state can only derive

from a common psychological experience of ancestral memory okay and this is why it's He, you know, as I said, I think before we went alive, Hegel's axiomatically anti-liberal. You can't talk about a liberal hegelianism. And you can't talk about Hegel's account of what precedes, you know, the foreign political organization in anthropological terms in terms of abstract postulates, you know, because the only, you know, the only one of political organization, you know, logical terms in

terms of abstract postulates you know because the only tie that binds the only thing that facilitates peace within the parameters of the state I mean the only thing that

rationalizes the state in and of itself is this kind of shared ancestral memory and this experience of a common history you know and um This is key. And again, I think also before I went live, you know, for the guys who reach Spangled, right, I know a lot of the young guys do, and that's great.

The debt that he owes that Hegel cannot be overstated. Hegel is a progenitor of historicism, you know, in a way that's even more pronounced than other, you know, modern. disciplines of political theory and you know historiographical analysis and things so if people

need an answer to why is Hegel important from like a partisan perspective well that's why the and there's two the two aspects the human being

as a political agent that the state must account for and reconcile and permit to flourish within constructive parameters

Hagle identified these two tendencies as subjective liberty and objective liberty subjective liberty is the natural state of man in its most perfectly expressed

capacity that is subjective liberty is an individual will and consciousness pursuing its particular goals its creative impulses its desires for recognition and

transcendent life of a sort beyond this mortal coil objective liberty is the substantial general will essentially the demands of citizenship and the things that facilitate the realization of those demands for example at war

you know the general will deriving from aspects of shared psychology born of historical memory the reconciliation of these things is what Hague called the serene totality which is the union of the particular and the universal within

the unity of the state you know ideally if the state is performing its function it guarantees not just the posterity of the the people, you know, of the demos, of the Volk, what have you. But it facilitates the unity and the flourishing of the discrete individual will and the particular interest therein

and allows those things to find full expression in the fact of the citizens' duties to the state. in direct proportion you know, to the individual rights he is allowed. I mean, to unpack that a little bit. You know, basically, what Hegel's getting at is that these sacrifices incumbent upon the discrete,

subjective ego, you know, born of will and passion, the state as the instantation of reason, you know, the aspects of those things that demands the sacrificed are perfected by way of objective liberty

and the channeling of these energies into enterprises that can only be fulfilled by the general will. Okay. So you're not really talking about deprivation. of, you know, discrete liberty and action, or you're not really asking the individual man to forfeit some sort of potentiality within himself

because it's only within the state that these things can be, can find full, can come to full forish. And again, as we talked about last time, Hegel's not talking about the state as some like bureaucratic, like secular apparatus, nor is it some kind of ending itself. You know, this is critical. Hegel would have viewed a state, like a managerial state, like we have today, is totally illegitimate and pointless.

You know, the state is only legitimate again so far as it is allowing the realization of these things. You know, and that it's tailored to facilitate these things. And that it's premised on, you know, the posterity of the historical community that it encompasses. You know, in other words, it's it's a true, you know, like folk community. If you want to think about it in those terms, you know, because that comes up again and again, especially from, you know, people who are culturally anglophone who have this. kind of natural enmity towards political authority, which is well situated, considering the state of things since 1933 and arguably since, you know, the 1840s or so. But that's not what Hegel's talking about. And it's interesting here because Hegel compares and contrasts Athens and Rome in ways that are critical, in my opinion.

you know, Hegelze, you are the Greeks, much as, you know, they deserve to be praised, and much as high culture was perfected in abject capacities, you know, in Pericles, Athens, the Greeks failed on grounds that their cultural form, their psychological and moral orientation. their political ontology. It didn't permit or acknowledge subjective liberty and the freedom that attends it in any meaningful way. The Greeks lived very organically, spontaneously, and immediately. You know, Spangler made the point that in these Athenian freezes, you know, it's always a sensuously present body, you know, of like a warrior or like a farmer or of like, you know, beautiful woman, but they're always standing in front of nothing.

You know, it's like there's, there's not, there's not like a historical past and future in the way we think about it. And this is key. Because again, you know, and to understand Hegel's criticism, you know, read Thucydides and read about. the trial of Socrates, like the Athenian ideal was basically living up to what your function is, you know, as a yeoman, you know, as a slave, you know, like as a, as a craftsman, you know, education should be for military service and the demands of citizenship, you know, and the household should be, you know, essentially a school. of command and obedience you know there's no thought given to the the subjective what gives rise is the subjective liberty you know and the desire for recognition and and the flourishing of these impulses and imperatives you know to be a good Athenian is to be in the habit literally

be habituated of a living and dying for the fatherland without reflection you know so there's no place for subjectivity in any capacity you know and anybody who claimed otherwise you know well that's

that that be viewed as lowly you know it'd be viewed as related to personal well-being and you know that kind of thoughtfully worthy of a slave, or alternatively, it'd be viewed as subversive, you know,

and as a subtle way of attacking public morals, you know, which is exactly why Socrates found himself. I mean, I think, I generally hear with Sorrell, I think Socrates was not a good guy.

But the reasons why he ended up going to the gallows were fairly dubious. You know, and even his critics acknowledged that. You know, the, you know, but at the same time, you know, Hegel acknowledged that there was a lot to be said for the Athenian civic culture and that it did, you know, inculcate men with, what was

inarguably, you know, a heroic and noble ambition. You know, so he doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. But, you know, the... And this is significant... I'm assuming around a bit, but this is significant to Heidegger's critique, too. Because Heidegger mirrored a lot of that critique. critique. Heidegger made the point that the Greeks believe the natural world, you know, revealed itself to man on grounds that, you know, being, and the way it was interpreted from the pre-Socratics through Plato, was basically that, like, man as, like, part of the natural world, you know, is a part of the natural world, you know, is a intrinsically capable of accepting

these revelations but through Logos you know the world opens up to him to exhibit a deeper reality than beasts could perceive you know but Dysine as

as Heidegger referred to it it's still fundamentally passive you know in this capacity um what's critical to Hegel and Heidegger in contrast is that, you know, they reject that entirely.

Man on grounds of Logos, he finds himself situated within a discrete political ontology. And owing to that fact, he experiences being as a rational and deliberate agent. You know, he's not, he's not just situated within nature and always. to his elevated capacity to a reason, you know, he's noticing a revelation that, you know, a wolf or a dog or a bear can't.

You know, this is not a middling distinction. It's key to understanding the difference between classical philosophy and, you know, what became the continental

tradition. a living organism capable of higher reason. Nose, a rational soul. This axiomatically finds expression through fellow-fueling within the polis and between peoples constituting the demos, the body politic, in the Heidegarian view. And that's a Hegelian point, too. you know um

there is no the polis doesn't emerge because of this kind of like accidental revealing within you know the conceptual horizon of man's being going to logos whereby then you know the better man realize you know we've got to educate men to be heroic you know and

and and and abide you know with the fatherland who cires of them no there's a very man is an active agent you know and through higher reason he literally creates this paradigm so that you know all higher values and

recognition can come to fruition you know and that is the process of state craft, literally. That is the origin of the state. The, uh,

that was a bit tangential, but I think it's important. Hegel, bring it back. Hegel contrasted Athens with Rome. He cited Rome's frailty is essentially a constellation of mirror causes within the body politic. Contra,

the Athenian situation. In Rome, individuality, the subjective individual will, it was absolutely recognized both abstractly and externally,

but in so doing, the state as an organic whole was dissolved. Rome, late-American, America has more in common with Rome than people think. And I know that that's like a cliche comparison,

but people think about it in terms of things like excess or conspicuous consumption or, you know, neo-imperialism. They're approaching it the wrong way. A lot of laws cause historians are wise to this, incidentally. Like even if you don't accept that perspective, the, um, the Roman, political ethos. It basically degraded all individuals the level of private persons,

like formally equal with one another. You know, within the class they found themselves, you know, possessed of formal rights in common. But the only thing that held them together was this kind of like abstract commitment to, you know, your liberty, your rights as our Roman. you know, there was nothing at all organic about the Constitution. There was no concept of, you know, an ethical consensus born of an organic historical experience.

There was nothing concrete in the moral life of the Roman nation, later the Roman Empire, other than these kinds of abstract populates relating to at least nominally individual rights and concerns. You know, so consequently and taken to logical extremes, the abstractness of equality, and their purported absolute moral imperative of facilitating the free expression of, individual wants and desires the demand for recognition but again in an historical way

related to wish fulfillment more than anything and actively opposed to any communitarian imperative you know this is the Roman state and states like it like in my opinion the American regime

this this creates a repository of active nihilism you know And there's a very real danger of all such states deteriorating into terror. Like the state itself, I mean, that's your mentality of terror, owing to the fact that the very, the aforementioned abstractness and inability to define equality, well at the same time, suggesting that formal equality

or these kinds of formal rights, individual rights, attending citizenship, you know, are, is not just the highest imperative of the state, but also the only tie that binds between these discreetly situated individuals that basically renders all public perspectives outside of those promulgated by the minority. cadres who constantly the state itself that basically renders everything else oppositional to the state like every other modality of thought. I mean that's where we're at now. You know, obviously. I mean, people aren't

being slaughtered en masse like in Jacob and France or the Soviet Union, but that doesn't mean that couldn't happen. You know, no, history doesn't repeat itself and only idiots say that it does. but there are

predictable outcomes within common paradigms owing to the limited number of variables that can possibly constitute political life at scale you know so this is a real thing and it's not it's not just some cliche of

like old right types or of midwit libertarian guys. They're actually right about that when they point out that this like the cult of equality is more susceptible to becoming a terror instrumentality than

a more conventional mode of government. That's very true. You're running the people and it's not just post-war liberals who, you know, abide this kind of Alan Bloom, Carl Popper, like, stupid on purpose, sort of, you know, superficially persuasive, but, you know, kind of intellectually impoverished viewpoint held out as, is pragmatic.

It's not just guys like that. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, there's people who are more reasonable and learned, you know, and a common, you know, and a common, you, who presented a critique of Hegel as well as being this kind of authoritarian brute. That's the wrong way to, that's the wrong way to characterize Hegel. He was adamant that it's an absolute moral imperative that the state recognize the liberty inherent to mind is capable of higher reason, you know, derivative of Logos. and you know he considered an absolute imperative that the state

recognized that you know Logos is the source of these discrete and individual ambitions you know within human minds but by no means does this

suggest that this must or should you know lead the procedural democracy you know and those things aren't mutually exclusive or somehow inconsistent you know hey let me the point

like look like this idea that every single person has some share or stake in deliberating or deciding on political matters you know on grounds that all individuals are members of the state so thus its concerns are are their concerns

you know, he said that that's abject nonsense. You know, like, again, like really all the state owes to people in this regard is an acknowledgement, you know, of the liberty inherent to Logos and the minds of people so capable, you know, that doesn't confer upon any given man, like, a right to have a right to have a sense. say in affairs of statecraft. The individual person, he should only be taken into account politically so far as he occupies a definite

place within the political organism. Say, for example, he's a general, or he's got an obvious aptitude for statecraft. Or, or he's got a unique skill set that confers upon him a kind of augury about power political affairs,

you know, or he's a brilliant analyst, you know, and Hageley won't even further, he said, the potentiality, at least in abstract terms, for each man to potentially become a member of the governing class

or like the higher judiciary or anything like that that still doesn't confer upon him a right to be heard or for authority to somehow deferred his opinion as if it has some sort of merit. You know, if in fact he has aptitude for such things

you know, he will rise to that office and, you know, a natural authority will accrue based on his service as a competent representative, but it does violence to reason and good government is derivative of a reason to entertain this delusion that there's some sort of general right to be heard on political affairs. you know and again like that the this balancing between the general will

and the subjective mind you know the grave grave violence is done to this you know kind of necessary unity and balancing of these

essential aspects that suggest any sort of of any sort of egalitarian ethic needs to reign in terms of procedural democracy. You know, so that's kind of

that should put to bed any notion that you can reconcile Hegelian theory with any kind of like liberal theory of government. You know? And this is

by Hagel's the consummately um your modern European philosopher you know um before um every every European theory is modern European theory is statecraft

prior to the day of defeat because there aren't no more like European theories of statecraft up in 1945 I mean that's not a partisan take like it does not they don't exist you know you've got you got these like carwell cult iterations of um of the

American regime you know in occupied countries and then you have this kind of bizarre managerialism

in the UK that um isn't really premised on anything you know um

other than a loose and diluted mythology that you know they they have some legacy

moral authority on grounds that, you know, they were an American lackey during the Zionist and communist war on Europe. Yeah, that's what all I got for Hegel. I'm going to speak more on this, but then we'd be here all night. I'm probably going to have just some concluding thoughts on the next episode on Hegel. and then we'll like I said I wanted to do a theology episode because it's essential

I mean that's important stuff anyway but I think it's critical to include that in any discussion account and political theory you know we'll talk about Aquinas and then we'll cover Martin Luther and Calvin

and um yeah that's what I was thinking for the next episode if that's it real Sounds good. All right. Let everyone know where they can find you. Yeah, I'm retooling my website with the help of a dear friend of mine who assist me with things relating to IT.

You can access it now, although bear in mind it's a work in progress. It's Thomas 777.com. is number seven H-M-A-S-777.com. Otherwise, right now, you should visit my substack. That's where most of my content is, you know, especially pod content and longer form stuff. It's real Thomas-77.7.7.com. And from there, there's links to my Instagram,

my telegram and things of that nature. All right. Until the next episode. Yeah, thank you, man.