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War, Huh! What's it good for?
"War is the state of affairs which deals in earnest with the vanity of temporal goods and concerns- a
vanity at other times a common theme of edifying sermonizing. This is what makes it the moment in which the ideality of the particular attains its right and is actualized. War has the higher significance that by its agency...the ethical health of peoples is preserved in their indifference to the stabilization of finite institutions; just as the blowing of the winds preserves the sea from the foulness which would be the result of prolonged calm, so also corruption in nations would be a product of prolonged, let alone 'perpetual peace.'" Hegel's Philosophy of Right/sec{324}
I was drawn back to Hegel in response to the recent attacks in London, along with the general rhetoric of the "war on terror." Of course Hegel is notorious for seeming to "rationalize" war, to the point of glorifying it. I have never believed that this is the substance of Hegel's claim, and I am sure the Young Hegelian could respnd better than I to this popular misunderstanding.
I am re-examining Hegel's analysis because I am trying to understand what is happening today. I believe that the quote reveals a subtlety that is easily missed at first glance. War represents the ultimate challenge to the bourgeois preoccupation with property and stability. It stands as a testament to the contingency of all commercial relationships, that belongings are by their nature only fleeting. War proves that the values of civil society are only relative and not to be taken as ends in themselves. Time and again Hegel asserts the importance of civil society as being constitutive of the modern understanding of freedom; but it is only a partial perspective. It is only within an ethical community of shared values and customs, whoes political institutions reflect these, that we are truly free.
A community that does not see beyond economic relationships is prone to disintegration and social unrest. This is why Hegel emphasizes War's impact on social cohesion:
"In peace civil life continually expands; all its departments wall themselves in, and in the long run men stagnate. Their idiosyncracies become continually more fixed and ossified. But for health the unity of the body is required, and if its parts harden themselves into exclusiveness, that is death." Philosopy of Right {324}
Unlike many commentators, I do not think Hegel is advocating War as a "Good Thing." But he is indicating that there is a rationality to conflict, both "internal" and "external" to sovreign states. In answer to the question "Why ought I to die for my country?" Hegel believes that the modern subject does so in order to "align oneself with the Universal." One's personal sacrifice reveals the rationality and integrity of the State. The fact that I am willing to die for something larger than myself discloses my solidarity with the ethical community.
However, the rationality of war also reveals itself in the way sovereign states relate to each other. Hegel describes the State in comparison to an individual. The expression of the States unity lies in its relationships with other states:
"The nation state is mind in its substantive rationality and immediate actuality and is therefore the absolute power on earth. It follows that every state is sovreign and autonomous against its neighbors. It is entitled in the first place and without qualification to be sovreign from their point of view, i.e., to be recognized by them as sovereign." Philosophy of Right{324}
Hegel realizes that there are many ways for states to recognize one another: treaties, border agreements, alliances. But the one paradoxical way is in the case of war:
"It happens of course that a state against which war is actually being waged is not recognized; but in reality it is recognized by the very fact that war is being waged against it, and it gains full recognition when peace is made with it." The German Constitution
Though sovereignty is absolute, a states sovereignty needs recognition by other states in order to be actualized. During conflict, states still must recognize each others absolute sovereignty. Conflict between states arise when they can not agree as to the legitimates assertion of their rights, though from Hegel's dialectical perspective, both sides are right. Because there is no sovereign to adjudicate the conflict between sovereign states, War decides which of the sides must defer to the other. Both states have rights that are equally legitimate, so war intervenes to resolve the conflict.
Again, we should be cautious not to take Hegel as advocating this state of affairs. His account is more of a phenomenological description of what takes place when states cannot resolve their differences. In response to the notion of a "League of Nations" Hegel believes that such a body could not work unless it were prepared to wage war. Such a league may be able to promote peaceful settlements in some cases but it would be unable to eliminate war as such:
"Perpetual Peace is often advocated as an ideal towards which humanity should strive. With that end in view, Kant proposed a league of Monarchs to adjust differences between states, and the Holy Alliance was meant to be a league of much the same kind. But the state is an individual, and individuality implies negation. Hence even if a number of states make themselves into a family, this group as an individual must engender an opposite and create an enemy." Philosophy of Right{324}
What seems so amazing to me about Hegel's analysis is how much sense it makes of something that seems to make so little sense. The renowned paradoxes of the dialectic are on grand display: In creating its own identity, a state must assert itself in opposition to what it is not, which in certain circumstances leads to conflict with other states. Hegel's discussion provokes many questions: Is he right that conflict between States is inevitable? Are international bodies limited in their ability to prevent or avoid war? Does his account make sense of "Why we die for our country?" And what of the necessity of creating an "enemy?" In the war on terror, the enemy is not well defined, and there seems to be no forseeable end in sight. And what of the terrorists? Since they do not form a state, what is their status as an enemy? Initially it may seem that Hegel's approach would be incommensurable with the current situation because it is focused on conflict between states. But I suspect much of what Hegel has to say is relevant, particularly as a contrast to what is being done in the name of combating "global terrorism." To be Continued...
By Alain | July 13, 2005 in Current Affairs, Hegel | Permalink
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Comments
Alain,
Great reading of Hegel. I particularly like your emphasis on the contingency of financial and property arrangements.
Here is what I'm pushed to think more about: as you say, on the one hand Hegel is emphasizing a certain lack of limit of sovereignty, its dependence on recognition and thus on the way that it is non-sovereign with regard to itself. Yet, his emphasis on the ethical life of a people, that is, his presumption of the nation state, seems to rest on a denial of this substantial insight: so, civil society is bounded, property is bounded, finance is bounded--these are not fields or fora for international relations or relations between states; they are, then, too restricted. And, this restriction, it seems to me, results in a rigidity where war is his answer. Kinda proto-Schmittian.
I would say that it is precisely because the enemy is not defined that the so-called war on terror is a condition of endless war. And here is the icky part: this unnamed condition means that the so-called terrorist can never be recognized or confer recognition, can never be an other to me in Hegel's ethical sense; rather, the terrorist traverses and violates a state still somehow conceived as determined and bounded (even as its financial arrangments necessarily belie this illusion).
Posted by: Jodi | Jul 13, 2005 7:09:00 PM
Jodi
Thanks for the feedback. I guess I will both agree and disagree with you. I agree that Hegel's view of economic relations seems confined to traditional notions of political economy. As you point out, current "financial arrangements belie this illusion." But Hegel was keenly aware of the inner dynamic of capital that requires the establishment of colonialism. And he foresaw the danger of economics eclipsing the public realm.
As to whether the terrorist can be recognized or confer recognition, I am not so sure. To follow Hegel's argument strictly, it seems certain that he would not allow for it. But if one looks at the current experience of terrorism, it would seem that the United States (and perhaps Great Britain to a certain extent) has come to identify itself in opposition to something called "Islamic Terrorism." To the degree that the terrorists "target" the United States (or its interests) it would seem to be a form of (quasi)recognition. As enemies we still come to recognize one another, even if it is in a nihilistic, unHegelian sense. Of course, as soon as I say it is unHegelian it would remain to be seen whether this dialectic will retrospectively reveal something. As Hegel was fond of quoting, "the history of the world is the world's court of judgement."
Posted by: Alain | Jul 13, 2005 11:10:36 PM
There's a passage that may or may not be relevent in the 1805-6 Jena Lectures where he's discussing religion:
"...this inner stubbornness that [leads one to] give up one's existence and be ready to die for one's thought, for whom the pure thought is everything; [religion is] his inner thinking as such, having the meaning of action which otherwise appears as something contingent. So high has thinking been raised - [in the individual] going to death happily for the sake of faith. The state that subordinates itself to the church, however, has either surrendered to fanaticism and is lost; or else a priestly regime has been established, demanding not the alienation of action and existence and specific thoughts, but of the will as such and indeed of the will in existence as such - and certainly not toward the universal, the being-recognized, but rather toward a single will as such." [interpolations are the editor's]
Posted by: YH | Jul 14, 2005 5:12:57 AM
good point on colonialism
is targeting recognition? I don't think so--one can target objects; this doesn't require reflexivity in any but a mechanical way (say allowing for movement in target as when tracking)
Posted by: Jodi | Jul 14, 2005 11:12:45 AM
Alain, thanks for indirectly filling in some of the neglected bits from Philosophy in a Time of Terror as well.
There does seem to be a sense in which the war "on Islamic terrorists" capitalizes and performs on a historical reality somewhat unforeseeable in Hegel's time. Namely that, as JD states, this new "enemy" IS in a sense a terror unhinged from territory (not contained within some nation-state), and even invisible ("terror" by definition always comes from within--the heart of darkness--in a sense perhaps even inseparable from its target). Historical realities such as the unprecedented vulnerability of "instant" and also increasingly centralized global connectivity. The hyperextension of powers (of global finance, for instance) coincides with this hyper-vulnerability on many levels, but most obviously, or iconically, perhaps, with regard to the potential for a chemical, biological or information systems attack. This vulnerability, which is both new and seems new because it is something we are now able to collectively fantasize about, is a reality the Bushes have capitalized on, and is one reason why they sometimes get facile credit for having correctly recognized and acted upon a condition of what Zizek likes to call 'postpolitics', no?
Facile (if not profoundly cynical) because it remains far easier to exploit this condition for political gain or whatever it is that motivates them––power of a never quite sovereign enough sort I suppose––than to take stock and act responsibly (having fully seen the contradiction that demands negotiation, not just manipulation).
But there is also no way to predict the backlash, other than to hope to further capitalize on the inevitable resurgence in things like nationalism, religion and, well, terrorism.
So far they are doing just fine, but the Enlightenment she is not so easily vanquished (in this period while she re-examines––one dares to hope––the still living bark of her justifications and roots (roots that do not "cling", incidentally, so much as slowly, patiently maneuver around obstacles, not with malicious intent but eventually causing the soil to be more stable, etc. Yes, I am being sort of tongue in cheek; there are probably less naturalistic ways to describe Derrida's unique conservatism). The result of which is not to arrive at any new-age, Tom Cruise-like "stability", unwitting self-parody, or fortressing of ego, but rather at renewed precision in her speaking, and concomitant faith (of a sort) in her infinite perfectability!
Posted by: Matt | Jul 14, 2005 12:33:29 PM
YH
Thank you for the great quote. It seems to suggest that to die for a religious cause is not to even to seek recognition, but merely to subordinate our will to that of something "higher." Hegel makes a valid point here, and it seems to complement what he is saying in the passages on War. My only caution would be that "global terrorism" may be motivated by more than religion, that it may in fact be a gesture toward a universal response. I am not sure.
Posted by: Alain | Jul 14, 2005 2:03:19 PM
Jodi
You might be right. My Hegel knowledge at this point is probably Undergraduate level so I am surely glossing over his emphasis on sovereignty too quickly in order to make my point. And perhaps recognition is not the right frame in which to look at what is going on between the United States and the terrorists. It just seemed striking to me that Hegel's view seems to resonate with some of the pronouncements of the neocons. But that is another story.
Posted by: Alain | Jul 14, 2005 4:43:29 PM
Matt
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Your comment about Derrida is funny because I had him in the back of my mind with some of the Hegel material. I just started to look at the "Philosophy in a Time of Terror" interview again after your post the other day. It seems that he does well at addressing the uniqueness of the situation today, just as you point out. And yet his call for a more enlightened enlightenment, for stronger international institutions, a new type of security council,etc... seem to continue his tendency to side with Kant, rather than Hegel, on political matters. Of course this is an over simplification. Initially it strikes me that his hope for the future comes to rest on a certain notion of hospitality, which he distinguishes from mere tolerance. It seems like an interesting place to start but I need to explore it more before I can speak about it intelligently.
Posted by: Alain | Jul 14, 2005 5:02:14 PM
This meshes with a lot of stuff I've been thinking of recently. The ramifications are pretty much infinite.
First, few outside political theory, history, etc. realize the degree to which the State's bottom line is legitimate violence (against enemy states or against rebellious or disloyal subjects).
Second, many of the spiritual traditions teaching self-discipline and indifference to comfort, wealth, selfishness, and conventionality end up taking on military forms. Jihad and crusade are obvious examples, but Zen warriors, Taoist warlords, and the sacred warfare of pre-State peoples are other examples. (I don't know about Hinduism; the Kshatriyas were a military caste, but I know little about them).
I recently looked at the Schmitt / Strauss relationship (at my URL). Schmitt clearly takes the Hegelian line here, and Strauss disagrees with him, though discreetly. (I myself took the liberal line here, BTW. In 1932 Germany, I do not think that an even more fundamental critique of liberalism was what was needed. My angle on the dialogue was that in 1934 Strauss was really pretty goddamn right wing.)
I've also compared what I call the "German Seriousness" with French irony, frivolity, decadence, etc. My still-sketchy history goes from Luther and the counter-Reformation through Kant and the Austrian and Prussian military elites to straightedge, nihilist modernism.
A remarkable proportion of the French decadent poets (Nerval, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Bertrand) came from military families; but France after 1815 was almost disarmed, so there were no serious military careers possible. Poetry was an alternative escape from bourgeois crassness.
Rather surprisingly to me, one place where I found an excess of The German Seriousness was in Wittgenstein (even though Austrians could be exempt). That guy could be extremely harsh and grim.
Posted by: John Emerson | Jul 15, 2005 5:13:50 PM
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