Why Hegel knew there would be days like these

The German philosopher Hegel helps us to understand that progress in societies is never linear, and that these societies may have to go through a variety of reversals before advancing, a process he termed ‘the dialectic.’

FURTHER READING

“There have been places and periods of history when only a congenital optimist could have had any hope for the future of our species. Think of the end of Athens’s golden age, the fall of the Roman Empire, the petering out of the Renaissance, the close of the Enlightenment, the rise of fascism…”

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Mike Booth #TheSchoolOfLife

[MephLeo]

The platypus rising from the dialectical struggle between a duck and a beaver was the single most brilliant metaphor for the dialectical process I've ever seen, and a brilliant joke, also.

[bolivar]

There is a deeply sad but very valuable story that I will never forget. I have heard it on an interview with Hrant Dink, an Armenian journalist from Istanbul, a wonderful human being who got killed in Turkey in 2007. He worked for peace and reconciliation all his life and that was his end... He told this story about an Armenian grandfather:

So before the genocide began in 1915, during the deportation, the old man remained until the last moment on his farm trying to repair a machine that is used for harvesting. When his son went to look for him and said: " Dad, we won't see the harvest, you know that they came for us, and we have to leave now. Why are you still repairing that machine?"

The old man said " I have to. After we leave, other farmers will live here and they will make the harvest. We can't leave the machine broken. They will need it."

He had been deported and killed after that. And he knew it while repairing the machine...How dignified is the man who leads a meaningful life until the very last moment!!

So much of our own future is absolutely not in our hands. But if we could manage to be so virtuous as the Armenian grandfather, we could at least contribute to a better future after us.

What Hegel says is definitely good news and there is hope. But may be not for us...Unfortunately I remembered a novel I have read by the German writer Ernst Glaeser, called " Born in 1902" . Hemingway called it a " damned good book".
It is about a lost generation...Imagine what it means to be born in 1902. So from the age of 12 to 16 they had gone through the First World War, and then in their 30's they had to live through the horrors of the Second World War. What a life...

So we can never know what is next for us...May be we will see the things getting better before we pass away. Or may be the days we have left behind were the best days of our lives already and we don't even know it yet.

But at least here is some clarity:

We benefit from all the sacrifices of people who came before us. Think of all the idealists in every field, who fought for a cause and died without seeing the fruits of their life's struggle. We are the ones who received those fruits.

And most of them were ordinary people whose names are not written in history books...
So we must do the same for the people who will come after us and therefore we must insist in believing in some kind of progress...

[HighMojo]

Duck = thesis, Gopher = antithesis, Platypus = Synthesis
That in itself is a brilliant summary and made everything instantly understandable for me.

[somerandomguy]

This video triggered alot of Trump Supporters and it's really funny how they jumped to conclusions thinking that this video is "anti-Trump". But this is in no way this is "anti Trump" as far as I can see. The School of life is simply teaching philosophy, and how Philosophers' view on how we should we live our lives and how they theorize the world. This is not an "anti-Trump" propaganda, so stop saying this "anti-Trump" because it's not.

[irreversiblyhuman]

I absolutely agree: the swing is natural, the important thing is to not loose your head.

[Riley-Hill]

This is what Caesar talked about in Fallout: New Vegas regarding the NCR and the Legion

[etwas]

I must praise your optimism. It is refreshing.

[maureens]

This is amazing and so uplifting given the seemingly terrifying situation many Americans, including myself, are struggling with. How wise and beautiful to remember we are humans, living in an imperfect word, reflecting timeless truths, acting out necessary patterns.

Thank you!

[markofunkade]

You can apply Hegel's dialectic to almost any process, not just human history. Think of the nature of art: idea (thesis) + medium/tool (antithesis) : manifested art like a painting (synthesis). What's really cool is how synthesis becomes a new thesis. That painting inspires an idea in someone else and so continues...

[frothydawg]

Well, I hope he's right. We're still in many ways tribalistic primates, only nuclear armed.

[shahirbear]

All comes down to one question really: How far is too far and when do we know we've reached it?

The world is now reacting. Some people have been too giving, and others have been suckling for far too long.

Let's see what happens now.
Sincerely, a Canadian.

[artmasterpl]

I always found this sentence so accurate to our history,
Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men and weak men create hard times

[ericatanaka]

Hegel never really used the "thesis - antithesis - synthesis" dialectic, the few times he writes about it is to refer to it as Kant's and describe it as "spiritless." the description of Persia as "despotic enemies of free thought" seems grossly inaccurate. While no state at the time could be described as "freethinking, " the Persians were probably the most religiously tolerant. Socrates was put to death on charges of atheism and "introducing new divinities." you could've probably brought up Sparta as an alternative to Athens, though it's still a grotesque oversimplification of history.

[rperlberg]

Hegel said there'll be days like this
There'll be days like this, Hegel said

[FilmmakerIQ]

Some of the best videos on the net are right here. Cheers guys - you really do an outstanding job.

[yaronimus]

this is the most brilliant idea i have heard of. i got to know Hegel's dialectic history in lectures and in this video.
i think one can gain hope and patience through this prism, and gain a new understanding which frees one from his zeitgeist cage.

[powercutstories]

So to summarize, there will be good times aswell as bad times. Rinse and repeat until you die and then your lucky kids get to go through the same thing. Awesome.

[mephistophelesthesilentchi]

I am weary of such optimism, as it seems to me the pendulum is swinging much wider now than before and will continue to do so...

[TheOnboardAphid]

This philosophy is referenced in Fallout: New Vegas, and it's the one of the main reasons that Caesar created his faction (arguably the biggest antagonists) modeled on the Roman Empire.

Pretty crazy when you think about it.

[PerspectivePhilosophy]

It was Fitche who argued History moved using the Kantian judgement of Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. Hegel updated this method to include double negatives. This way the process moves from extremes and never fully Synthesizes until it reaches absolute truth which is why the movement of history continues rather than simply stop in a given paradigm.