Why read a 200 year-old book written by a racist privileged dead white straight European Christian academic male?
Because he's isn't so dead.
Even if you've never read Hegel, you know Hegel. You know Hegel because the ideas Hegel promoted -- to his legions of adoring students (and their students, and their students, and their students), over many, many years -- have become "common sense." A whole lot of how we think about, talk about, and make history (or try to), a lot of what feels "obvious" to us about what history is and how it works, did not exist before Hegel.
(Just one example, out of a zillion I could have chosen: during the recent Senate fight over gays in the military, both the Franken and the Obama people sent out emails (yes, I'm on their lists...) suggesting that Republicans trying to block the bill needed to get "on the right side of history". What does it mean to be on the "right side of history"? Or the "wrong side"? Does history really have "sides"? Now that I've made you stop and think about it, it may sound a little silly -- but on some level, if you're like me, it still kind of feels right. And if so, even a little bit, regardless of where you stand on Don't Ask Don't Tell, then you too see History as "the progress of the consciousness of Freedom" (Hegel 19). You are, in short, a Hegelian.)
Your assignment, basically, is to do what I just did in the above paragraph, except in more words (umm...I mean...more *detail*):
1) READ the 20-or-so assigned pages from Hegel's The Philosophy of History. (See my email for details about what to read, and how.)
2) CHOOSE one moment from the text -- longer than a word, shorter than a paragraph -- that resonates with your "common sense" understanding of history, what it is, and how it works. Common sense is less about "knowing" than about "feeling." What "feels" right? What makes you go, "ah, yes, of course"!
(***NOTE: when you quote, make sure to be aware of your quote's context! If Hegel writes the sentence (which he doesn't, but he could have), "Some people say the movement of history is random, but they are wrong," don't quote Hegel as saying, "the movement of history is random." Even though the words are there, you're totally distorting what he's saying! This may sound obvious, but I see this kind of thing all the time. Including by people who should know better.)
3) CHOOSE one moment from your life, which operates on the historical logic expressed in the moment from Hegel that you chose. It can be anything. It can be something from our class, or another class, or another school. It can be something you saw on TV, in a movie, or (as in my example above) on the Internet. It can be from a social interaction (or an anti-social interaction). It can pick up lingering thoughts on Beck & Co. from today, if you've got any. Anything. I'd just ask, in the interest of all of our reading pleasures: don't repeat something someone else already talked about. Or if you do, at least say something new and different about it.
4) WRITE a blog post, at least 300 words long, in which you (a) show us the moment from Hegel you chose, and why/how it resonates with you, (b) show us (link if you can, describe if you can't) the moment from your life, and -- this is really the point -- (c) explain how reading Hegel (a) helps you understand this thing in your life (b). (Or, in other words, give one possible answer to the question, "Why read a 200 year-old book written by racist privileged dead white straight European Christian academic male?")
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