(Before I start, I just have to state this every blog. Please pardon my bad English and grammar.)
When I read Hegel’s book, “Philosophy of History,” there is one moment that I feel “Dead Agree!!!” to, “… [I]n history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire…. Such individuals had no consciousness of the general Idea they were unfolding, while prosecuting those aims of theirs; on the contrary, they were practical, political men. But at the same time they were thinking men, who had an insight into the requirements of the time—what was ripe for development” (Hegel, 27 & 30). I take the quotes from two different pages but they are like the beginning and end of each other so I have to put them together. To my understanding/feelings (common senses), Hegel simply says that these “historical men” are “historically great men” because even though whatever they have done is only from (and for) their own self-interests, they accidentally do something good for the people at the time. As far as I know about history, it’s all about great men and what they do/contribute to this world. When I read these parts of the book, I keep thinking about “The Romance of Three Kingdoms” (intertextuality) and keep thinking to myself “Yeah, that’s right!!!”
In the “Romance of Three Kingdoms” (RoTK), there are 3 notable factions lead by 3 “great men”: Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and Sun Quan. Even though Sun Quan was the last one of the three, the figure of Liu Bei and Cao Cao are much better remembered by the people (us/or most Asians).
At first (before read this book), I thought that maybe the time that Liu Bei and Cao Cao are in are much more chaotic than of Sun Quan, but anytime during “The Three Kingdoms” period is chaotic. After reading this book, I can see now that Liu Bei and Cao Cao’s actions, even though they both acted on their own ambition of having the throne, actually had an “additional result” of uniting the 3 kingdoms, which is also the will of the people and “the requirements of the time.” Compared to these two, Sun Quan doesn’t have such an ambition and only tried to keep his kingdom survive through such time. Now, that maybe a good thing but because it is not the will of the people, Sun Quan isn’t well known as a part of history. Now between Cao Cao and Liu Bei, Liu Bei is better received among the people at the time and even to this day, all production made based on “Romance of Three Kingdoms,” Liu Bei is portrayed as a righteous figure while Cao Cao is made to look like a monster (ex: Dynasty Warriors); but as proven by the primary source (a drawing of them at the time) they don’t look so much different (obviously none look like a monster). Now after the reading, I see the thing that stands out so much from Liu Bei that’s not in Cao Cao, loyalty and brotherhood. At the time, these two things decide how righteous a man is (not so much these days so maybe I look like an idiot for saying this) therefore Liu Bei is considered a greater man than Cao Cao. As for “the requirements of the time,” Liu Bei wins big time. A word of conclusion, everything about history is in the hand of the historians, who are first the people before they are historians. As for the question, “Why read a 200 year-old book written by a racist privileged dead white straight European Christian academic male?” I kind of answered it through the examples but in few simple words, because whatever he wrote is still alive to this day…
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