In thinking about Hegel's Master-Slave dialectic I can't help but compare the scenario to classical ballet. Often in classical ballet, as in the included video, a character performs a solo dance routine in which their body language aspires to praise and celebrate the world around them. Their world is beautiful, and they - alone in this world - are content.
THEN...
Another character enters, and the world of singular existence that the first has been shown to know is undone by the presence of the second. Whether this new presence is perceived as good or bad by the first character we have met varies by ballet. We do not typically presume that a solo dancer in a single scene has never before encountered another human when one enters the scene, but let us do so for a moment as we examine this selected scene - the final scene of Death in Venice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-3G9WUbK34
I find that the above video well exemplifies the Master-Slave dialectic because it gives us an example of one person who dances through life (Wicked reference intended) doing, for a lack of better words, doing his "own thing." He sees the other person whose existence has entered the sphere of his own, but he debates on what to do about this person. He first dances about him, he then dances away from him - perhaps ignoring that the other person might be a conscience in the same way that he is one himself. Next, importantly, he tests this new being. He touches his face, and finds that the other person reacts to him in a dismissive manner, by swishing him away with his hand. It is then - and the reason for this is left, I think appropriately, to ambiguity - that the first dancer bows to the other.
"BAZINGA!" says Hegel!
Exemplified through this dance, the first dancer - the first consciousness - has acknowledged the other. True, there has been no 'life or death' fight scene, but (interpreting the situation as a Hegelian) I believe this is because the first dancer grew in understanding in a moment that the other did not. He realized that he is not alone in this world, but has a conscious equal. By making this realization and acknowledging the other he has submitted to this other as his slave. BUT. In a way, the slave is the master - the master of knowledge. For, if reasoning is the most fundamentally human activity we consciousnesses can accomplish, has the "slave" not won a prize of sorts, by being the most reasonable, and thereby the most knowledgeable being in this sphere of existence?
To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world looks rationally back. --G.W.F. Hegel
Isabelle: Thank you for pointing our class toward a Balletic translation of Hegel's analysis, I truly appreciate it. As far as your conclusion is concerned, I think you are right. The Bondsman finds comfort in his or her knowledge and his or her ability to interact with the material world. However, he or she must still be the medium through which the Lord relates to the world. In this sense, he or she remain a facticity, an "in itself" rather than "for itself." We must simply be careful not to excise the Lord and Bondsman from their position in the progression towards Absolute Knowledge. Doing so obscures the need of the Bondsman to continue on toward another problem for consciousness. If, in fact, the results were satisfactory, the progression would simply end. "A prize of sorts" accurately describes his or her situation.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really helpful illustration of the kind of interpersonal dynamic that Hegel has in mind. I think you're right to look for these kinds of illustrations in artist representations. Your example also got me thinking about the limits of the "work." In this instance, perhaps the bondsman's work is represented by his dance, a kind of physical work that bears the imprint of his consciousness and that facilitates and shapes his relationship with his surroundings. To what extent does artistic or creative labor participate in work as Hegel describes it, as something through which "the bondsman becomes conscious of what he truly is" (195)? It seems that artistic work (and I am using this in the mostly loosely defined sense) could be an even more effective means of becoming conscious of who one truly is, and perhaps also more effective at facilitating relationships of mutual recognition between individuals. Sorry to stray a bit from your original post; this is something I'd been thinking about as we were reading "Lordship and Bondage," and the video you've linked got me thinking about it again.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it's not your main point, you bring up something here that I haven't previously thought about. You bring out that in the ballet, we don't think that this is the first time the consciousness has ever encountered another consciousness. This made me think of something that may be somewhat obvious but something I haven't given much thought. This is that in the life of a consciousness, there is really no point in which a consciousness perceives another consciousness for the first time. People begin seeing other people and identifying them as people from the time they are very young. Whenever the first time is that they recognize that another being as a consciousness, they are too young to actually understand it or identify the novelty of the experience. Obviously, Hegel's work to this point cannot be taken literally as recounting scenarios that really happen. For the same point I made about age clearly is relevant to everything going back to sense-certainty. It does suggest, however, that even if something like the master-slave relationship exists in real life (which evidence suggests it does), it doesn't function and come about exactly the way Hegel describes it.
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