Hegel says that Consciousness is ever-evolving, and is therefore never complete. With consciousness, which endeavors to understand and interpret it, is truth too ever evolving. Therefore, something that is true now may not have necessarily been true previously because consciousness may not have been in a state previously that was prepared to define this truth as such. The example that I brought up in class was the right of American women to vote. Has it always been women's right to vote? What changed over time to predicate a conscious acceptance of women having a right to vote? In class I brought up the evolution of the American education system. Once segregated only to white men, the education system in this country evolved over time to accept white women as well, and eventually to accept everyone - regardless of race or socio-economic status. This systemic evolution took to a long time. If we admit that education was the leading cause of the inclusion of the idea within within social consciousness that women had finally become academically equal - or on an equal plane of social awareness - with men, then we may concede that consciousness in America evolved with the nation's education system, and that from this consciousness grew a truth that women, too have a right to vote in America. (Apologies for the Hegelian length of that sentence.)
Why did the evolution of truth and consciousness in this example take so long to happen? Hegel might say that this is because of what he calls "geists", or because consciousness is on an endless journey - a journey to discover itself. Consciousness has two objectives, as mentioned in the Introduction: discovery of the "in-itself" and discovery of the "being-in-itself consciousness of the in-itself." Consciousness in-itself is not a complete understanding of itself, but only comes to know itself through the understanding of itself in the world. In the context of the mentioned early-1900's American world, perhaps the reason that the statement "women have the right to vote" took so very long in the nation's history to become true is that consciousness was not yet prepared to define the statement as such. Perhaps because consciousness did not yet understand the fullness of itself within the context of this country, it had not yet reached an evolutionary point of understanding "women have the right to vote" as true.
I invite feedback on this "little musing." Do you believe that anyone in this country has a right to vote? Was is evolution of consciousness or something else that predicated this political phenomenon in our country? What does education have to do with it? What's love got to do, got to do with it?
This last question is obviously rhetorical... Happy blogging!
To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world looks rationally back. --G.W.F. Hegel
Hegel does seem to believe that history matures or "grows into" new truths; I think you're right when you say that, according to Hegel's model of historical progress, the right to vote was long in developing because the national consciousness was not yet prepared for this truth. I think this example of women's right to vote is a particularly good one for sorting out some of the intricacies of the maturation of consciousness. For example, does consciousness develop in response to external changes, or does the consciousness merely shift its orientation to the world, so that its developments seem to arise from within consciousness itself? I'm tempted to lean toward the latter option, if only in this example of the right to vote and education. Women's inclusion in institutions of education could have prompted the national consciousness to see women as potential voters. But it also seems that the national consciousness would have to evolve to even consider women as potential members of these educational institutions. This might be a confusing way to say that I think, yes, women did always have the right to vote. It might be better to say that women always deserved equal treatment and political representation, and I think a kernel of this truth might have been present in consciousness (if not the national consciousness, certainly some individual consciousness) long before it became a political actuality. Certain steps along this path, like education, seem less like historical promptings than expressions of consciousness, slowly pushing towards a final goal. My apologies if this seems like a minor distinction, but I think its important to maintain this distinction if only to insist upon human dignity, in all places and all times. Whether or not this is a priority for Hegel, I'm not quite sure yet.
ReplyDeleteOne point that I still need to clarify myself; doesn't Hegel think at some point consciousness could in fact become complete? Isn't this the total union of subject with object, consciousness and rational world that he mentions at the end of the preface? And isn't this also the end of history we discussed last class? I might be taking these things a little too far, but it seems to me like Hegel does in fact envision an end to this developmental process.
I think this issue as well as many others can be looked at through Hegel's idea of evolving consciousnesses. In the case of women's right to vote, a path can be traced back to where people would laugh at the idea of women voting. It could even be traced back further to when the concept of voting for representatives was unheard of. If we somehow went back in time to 1800 and suggested that women be given the right to vote, we probably wouldn't be met with agreement. If we continued to go through time, we would gradually be met with greater reception. With this in mind, I do think that consciousness evolves to a point where it can accept certain statements as true. Furthermore, that there is some great world consciousness and that it evolves over time can be displayed through this example. If we compare someone of this age to someone who lived say 200 years ago, there would be no real biological difference between them, but they would have vastly different views on something like women's right to vote. Evolution of consciousness has occurred so that the person of this generation can accept the statement, but that the consciousness if bigger than any one person is suggested by the fact that the person of this age does not begin at a point in which he or she believes that women shouldn't have the right to vote. Although this may be a somewhat obvious point, it suggests that spirit can be bigger than more than one lifetime
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