In Senior Seminar, my fellow Seminarees and I just finished a fascinating text by Susan Buck-Morss, called Hegel, Haiti and Universal History. In it, she argues for a new form of Universal History that disrupts Hegel's teleological aims. Using the specific example of Hegelian scholarship, she also shows the disciplinary blindness of both History and Philosophy departments, a critique grounded in a re-interpretation of the "Lordship and Bondage" section. Interestingly, she argues, the Haitian revolution may have inspired Hegel's abstract articulation of consciousness' first encounter with an other. A particular chapter drew my attention, and I'd like to delve into it further now. 

            Buck-Mors concludes the chapter’s section, entitled “At the Crossroads,” with a simple aphorism: “Only a distorted history is morally pure” (138). Living in Memphis, it is difficult to excise the signifier “crossroads” from Robert Johnson’s mythos. According to legend, he met the Devil in the middle of the night, while walking down a desolate strip with his guitar. At the point of this meeting, Johnson, by all accounts, lingered in mediocrity as a musician, a detail that enhances the myth’s power. The Devil approaches him with a common proposition. Johnson accepts the terms by handing over his guitar. The Devil tunes it and hands it back. From that moment on, Johnson, if you believe the stories, became the bluesman we know him as today. (Some say his wife and child paid the price for his choice—they both died during child birth. Others say different.)

            Buck-Mors offers an alternative to the either/or option given to Mr. Johnson. For her money, ‘both’ reconciles the distortions that disrupt the apparent teleological trajectory so often peddled by Historians, Philosophers, and Politicians, alike: “The less we see historical actors as playing theatrically coherent roles, the more universally accessible their human dilemmas become” (145). In an attempt to encapsulate the totality of history, teachers and students accept the historical shorthand that jacks up the contrast on a complicated picture, so much so that all the detail gets lost. We must employ a porosity that does not exclude on detail on disciplinary or methodological grounds. 

            Rather than appropriating this Manichean metric, revisionary historians tend on the side of detail but inevitably omit certain factors in order to intrench—either accidentally or maliciously—a certain vantage points that valorizes or demonizes: “Empathic imagination may well be our best hope for humanity. The problem is that we never seem to imagine this humanity inclusively enough, but only by excluding an antithetical other, a collective enemy beyond humanity’s pale” (144). Through difference comes creation and ossification. The movement towards this kind of thinking, however, leaves the creator and the created stuck, bound to the other, limited. The stultifying impact degrades the position of history and localizes it to particular places. These oppositions, then, play out in the same way as the metaphysical concepts of Light and Dark, entombed in perpetual battle. Buck-Mors recognizes how this position debilitates the scholar and her scholarship: “The limits of our imagination need to be taken down brick by brick, chipping away at the cultural embedded-ness that predetermines the meaning of the past in ways that hold us captive in the present” (149). For Buck-Morss, the differences between these two methods is the difference between the M/S dialectic's denouement and the miracle found in absolute spirit. In the same way that Haiti seems stuck, even now, in the later show down, Scholarship, too, seems stuck in a situation the denies every subject the recognition that they need.  

Technology and Conciousness

In class the other day we talked about how consciousness moves through the world exerting its will on everything it encounters. In doing so consciousness is also seeking recognition of its own freedom to do so. However, no object consciousness encounters can give it the satisfaction it craves except another consciousness. Objects may react to consciousness which, in a way affirms consciousness' freedom, but these affirmations are not satisfying. Consciousness seeks the recognition of an equal, another consciousness, another free agent, and anything less than that is unfulfilling. When it finally finds another free agent it seeks recognition, but so does the other consciousness, and a battle of wills ensues. Both consciousness, stake their lives on the recognition of the other, and the consciousness which backs down ends up learning a valuable lesson about itself and about its new lord.

And it was with this whole process on my brain that I was recently listening to a podcast from the NPR program, Radio Lab (which is all-around awesome by the way). This particular podcast, titled Dawn of Midi, explores that band's music and how it came to be. A link to it can be found here: http://www.radiolab.org/story/313542-dawn-midi/ This particular band plays a sort of minimalist acoustic electronic music inspired by African and Moroccan trance sounds. The interesting thing about the show for me, however, was the discussion of technology's role (or lack thereof). So this band basically plays electronic-sounding music with acoustic instruments which is in itself not that impressive, plenty of groups do that, and some probably do it better. However, the hosts were claiming that we could not have had this particular sound without first having had the electronic music. Essentially technology used to attempt to replicate musical instruments, ultimately it allowed for all new sounds and styles of music, but what this band and others have done is used the same old instruments to build on those newly broadened sound horizons.

The hosts claimed that this process has not only happened in music, but in many different fields. For instance, they claimed that surfers will now paddle out themselves to giant waves that only a few years ago they had to be towed into by jet ski, and only a few years before that they thought could not be ridden at all. It seems that in these situations technology has shown us possibilities that existed all along but that we did not know about. For Hegel, it does not seem that consciousness can really learn much from passive objects; it can exert its will upon them freely, and they do not challenge or affirm its freedom,  but I wonder if this is always the case. Can some objects help consciousness to develop, even if their recognition is nonexistent or not fully satisfying?

P.S.

My apologies for this post, my brain is fully checked out today for some reason. So if this was completely unintelligible or if all the thoughts don't quiet fit together, I apologize.

Fear in Philosophic Thought and "Is Fear the only trigger?"

     In his passage known as the master-slave dialectic, Hegel notes that "For this consciousness [the one which becomes the slave] has been fearful, not of this or that particular thing or just at odd moments, but its whole being has been seized with dread; for it has experienced the fear of death, the absolute Lord" (paragraph 194). Here I take Hegel to mean that this consciousness, in the life and death experience, has realized its desire to be recognized will become an impossibility if she dies.Thus, to prevent this she negates the possibility of her desire's absolute negation by submitting, or "backing down" in the game of chicken. Hegel goes on to write that "in fear, the being-for-itself is present in the bondsman himself; in fashioning the thing, he becomes aware that being-for-self belongs to him, that he himself exists essentially and actually in his own right" (paragraph 118). From my reading, fear is essential to the process that the slave consciousness goes through because of its ability to make the consciousness realize that it possesses this being-for-self.
     I was motivated to ask the title question because in my experience with Early Modern philosophy there is no real discussion or attention given to the role or importance of fear, anxiety, dread, anguish, etc. in the works of authors like Kant, Bacon, Locke, Hume, or Bentham. From my understanding of philosophical history, the previously mentioned ideas become crucial in the works of phenomenologists and existentialists like Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre. So where then does this interest and attention to fear and concepts like it begin? It appears that the master-slave dialectic is an early beginning of this philosophical attention being given to these types of ideas.
    Here is where we get to the question in the title: Is fear the only trigger for consciousness' realization of its possession of being-for-self? At least from the little musing I have given to this thought, I think that we should be skeptical of the claim that fear alone can make a consciousness aware of its possession of being-for-self. For example, overcoming an intense obstacle or meeting a meaningful goal seem like reasonable candidates that could also allow for a consciousness realize its being-for-self. Both of these importantly include work or service which Hegel notes is necessary for the slave's realization. A potential response could be that these instances include moments of fear, but they are not the overwhelming, eclipsing fear that Hegel speaks of. Essentially, I'm proposing that fear may not be the only instance in which realization of being-for-self and work are together and thus that other situations may produce the same lesson that the slave consciousness attains as described in the master slave dialectic.

The Slavish Dance

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?

What if description isn't necessary?

In last week's class we discussed how "Sense Certainty" failed, by the very fact that, in describing itself, it uses universals in their least descriptive form. By using the universals as explanation for understanding, there is an inherent failure to understand. I understood Hegel's process that guided us to this realization and don't argue with the chain of logic. However, one point that seems to be troublesome for me is that Hegel seems to never address one concept. What if knowledge doesn't need to be described to another person? Sense Certainty seems to have failed at the basic level of explanation due to its inability to describe what it knows without using universal such as the "here," "now," and "this.” What if Sense Certainty knows, but needs not describe? Hegel seems to be grappling with the problem of description and public understanding of what is known, but what if Sense Certainty can know in that it knows and has no need to explain. For it is explanation itself that leads to a lack of true understanding. There are some religious groups that experience their environment and do not speak of their understanding because it is internal, personal, and indescribable. Could it be possible that in Hegel's attempt to extract what each stage "knows" he fails to understand what it knows, but it still knows? Maybe the religious group doesn't necessarily capture Sense Certainty, since part of those beliefs and practices are what Hegel would consider to be illogical, but for me it presents an interesting example of how there could be a failure in language to describe what it knows and not a failure in Sense Certainty. It almost seems to be that Sense Certainty is the ability to live and sense and react in the here and now, but without having to use those terms we place on it. Although one problem with this questioning is that I fail to address is the idea of constant rediscovery and unfamiliarness of everything around us. Potentially, this idea of constant confusion, and everything being Sensed as a blur of constant rediscovery, isn't illogical, but rather a process of coming to terms with the individuality of the world. Because when I really think about it, how often are two things complete identical? This is potential a question that Hegel answers more thoroughly elsewhere, or I completely missed this point, but I wanted to address it since I didn't ask during class.

Hegel explanation of Colonization

In the Hegel's allegory of the Lord and the Bondsman, Hegel depiction of struggle for recognition of self is works well as an explanation of the development and eventual downfall of the colonial system of oppression.

The allegory begins with two hypothetical people (or consciousnesses) who have never encountered another person before. At first, it is a harmless mirroring of each others movements but it slow escalates into a death struggle as both become dependent on the other for recognition.

The problem I have with the death struggle is that it is in terms of life and death. To me, life and death are biological concepts, so have a lot of theoretical baggage which is not part of the experience of the struggle for self-hood. What would be better here is 'existence' and 'non-existence.' One discovers the unessential or contingency of their existence, meaning that their existence can cease, by recognizing that one is not the only existence, and they recognize what existence is putting it at stake. This is quite true as one doesn't really grasp the nature or the limits of existence without its negation.

The mirroring and subsequent death struggle is analogous to how different cultures interact on first contact. At first, they are surprised another culture exists almost immediately they start fighting, with extinction of one as a possibility. If recognition of self-hood is the cause of these confrontations is highly speculative, but works well as a explanation of how the European explorers reacted when they first contacted strange foreign cultures in the East and New World.

As Hegel stated in the first sentence of the section that self-consciousness can only be achieved through another (178), the two consciousness soon realize that by killing the other, that would leave the survivor without another to recognize his self (188). This gives into a battle for dominance where one becomes lord or master and the other slave or bondsman.

This step corresponds to the period in which one nation is dominated by another nation and the result is colonization. Their national image is then bolstered as they recognize that they are the free ones.

The next step is that the lord makes the bondsman produce things that the lord desires. Because the act of production is a creative process, the bondsman develops a self-consciousness through their relationship with their work. As these creations become more developed because the lord restrains bondsman's desires, a contradiction occurs as the lord becomes dependent on the bondsman. This leads to a new struggle for dominance between the two self-consciousnesses, one between the producer and the consumer, or this is how I interpreted the end of the allegory.

This last part corresponds to the revolution where colonized and enslaved, having developed a power over their lords through the relationship both have to the slave's work, revolt against the colonizer and slaver. This revolt is in the name of becoming independent and is only possible if the enslaved can recognize their power to revolt like they did in many colonies before, during, and after Hegel's time.

Consciousness and Progress

            In class on Tuesday, we established through our discussions of “Sense-Certainty” and “Perception” that the way in which we perceive objects is determined by the subjects. We view things in terms of universals, but because of the makeup of consciousness, we can’t decide whether it is correct to perceive things in terms of “also” or “one.” That we have two competing ways to perceive the same object shows, according to Hegel, that perception is more about the subject than the object. Somewhat obviously, this seems to suggest that all human consciousnesses are the same in this regard; perception necessarily depends on consciousness, which for all people necessarily cannot decide between “also” and one.” Although this suggests sameness of human consciousnesses on the issue of perceiving objects, this opens the door to the idea that all human consciousnesses may share many things in common or have the same basic template.  That all human consciousnesses may share aspects other than perception of objects is further suggested in “Lordship and Bondage” (but I haven’t really looked at that in detail yet).

            In the week before this last class, we discussed progress as it occurs among humanity over time. Reading the blog last week, I thought that the types of progress we were discussing necessitated that progress occur over multiple lifetimes and that one generation kind of picks up where the previous one leaves off. (For, if this weren’t true, when people die, progress would seemingly have to start from scratch instead of continuing. Then, it would seem, real progress would never really occur.) With this in mind, history progresses with each generation or group, thinking about things and reacting to things in a way that grows out of (but is still at least slightly different from) the thought of the previous groups. When it occurred to me that Hegel implies that consciousnesses all have some commonality, I thought of this again. I questioned, what does the nature of progress suggest about inherent similarities between consciousnesses? I came to two different conclusions. In one sense, progress in this manner implies some similarities between all consciousnesses. For, if there were no common ground inherent in all consciousnesses, progress in this regard wouldn’t really be possible because there would be no ground for continuation. I also thought that consciousnesses can’t all be the same in manner completely, because if everyone was born with the same potential for development of consciousness, there would be no progress because the way of looking at things would never change. I recognize that these claims are debatable, and that there are many ways they could be argued against, and I’m not entirely sure whether I stand by them, but they’re interesting to think about. So in the end, I question, do consciousnesses share certain bases, but do these bases correspond to and change with progress in the world?