What started as nothing, has now made HISTORY!

I have got to admit, when I began reading Hegel, I thought the man was either, mentally ill or just trying to make everyone’s lives miserable. As I read on in Hegel’s assigned readings, I came across a very interesting point. In his reading, Hegel states “in 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; they gratify their own interest.” At first this didn’t make sense, but as I read on, Hegel gave an example of a man who felt revenge against someone perhaps not an unjust one, but produced by injury on the other’s part—burns the other man’s house. Ok, at first, I thought to myself “what does all this mean.” My understanding of the statement above is (even though I have a feeling I am wrong) that sometimes history is built by mere individuals seeking justice. A long time ago, Plato wrote a book solely based on how justice is achieved. Plato asked many what their definition of justice is and Plato then proved them wrong. When Hegel gave the example, it gave me a clearer picture of what he is trying to convey. The following paragraphs in Hegel’s book on page 28 go on long detailed explanation of his purpose. From what I understood from those paragraphs is that history can be written by a simple act. This takes us to the moment in life that this reminds me of. It is actually happening as I write this blog and it has been going on for the past five days; the crisis/revolution in Egypt. Since Mubarak claimed presidency 30 years ago, he has been wrecking the country and driving it into turmoil. Those long thirty years have not been talked about or discussed in the news at all. Nothing about Egypt was written in the history books following Sadat’s death. Now after a long autocracy has taken place, Egypt is all over the news; the Egyptians are seeking revenge (as stated from Hegel’s example). The Egyptians revolted from what started as a mere taking power as a vice president from the assassinated president. Also, as Hegel states that Egyptians didn’t do this as a personal interest, but something further was indeed accomplished by the protests. The whole world today knows what has been going on in Egypt over the past thirty years; what started as nothing, will now be going into the history books.

Primary Source: "The Philosophy of History" by G.W.F Hegel

Secondary Source: www.cnn.com and CNN Channel

By: Ahmed Elhadidi