Hegel??

"After decades of trying and utterly failing to see what could possibly be worthwhile in Hegel's philosophy, I believe I've had a breakthrough."

That's the first paragraph of an essay I posted here on December 11, 2023. 4 months later, it seems more and more likely that what I understood was a YouTube which purported to be about Hegel. Does that video actually have anything to do with Hegel? I don't know. I don't have any Earthly. I can't even. 

 

What we have here, now as before, is failure to communicate. We're back to where we were before last December. I am not getting the message from Hegel's texts. 

Unless I am. Unless Schopenhauer was right about Hegel's philosophy: that it was pseudo-intellectual gibberish successfully passing itself off as philosophy. But I can't be sure about that anymore. 

It's not that I am afraid to assail the reputation of a celebrated thinker and purported genius. Every word Susan Sontag published or said on a broadcast was pseudo-intellectual garbage, delivered with that smug grin William Gaddis warned us about. Spengler is, im Grunde genommen, pretty silly, and hugely overrated. But at least much more entertaining than Sontag.

It's not that I can't follow philosophers in general. With those up to and including Hegel's most celebrated immediate forerunner Kant, and also with those following him, although I must often read very slowly and repeat certain passages, I don't get this feeling I get with Hegel. Not with Kant himself, not with Heidegger, not with Adorno. Not with the world's most famous Hegelian, Marx. 

Well, as Kierkegaard said -- Kierkegaard, who has often delighted me, often made me shake my head chidingly, but never puzzled me: enten -- eller. Either Hegel has fooled a great number of very smart people, who regard him as a great genius, but not me, or Schopenhauer, or Kierkegaard -- or all of those people have significantly smarter than all three of us, at least in this regard.

I can easily admit it when a single person is clearly more intelligent than I  -- okay, not easily, but I can admit it. When an entire group is outdoing me, it's disturbing. 

It sort of reminds me of the historical Jesus question. I've studied it pretty thoroughly. Most of the people who have studied it pretty thoroughly say that it's pretty obvious that a person named Jesus preached in Galilee and Jerusalem in the 20's, 30's or 40's AD, that he said many of the things in the text we today call the Sermon on the Mount, and that he was crucified on Pilate's orders. 

Well, it's still not obvious at all to me. That light bulb above my head, which is supposed to go on when I see how the evidence all adds up to Jesus having really lived and preached and been crucified by Pilate -- that light bulb is not on, it has not begun to flicker. The Biblical scholars go over the evidence, and to me, they're making the case that it's possible Jesus existed, the case that it's conceivable -- and then they say, so you see, it's really certain that he existed! And I shout wearily: No! I don't see!

I also don't see how I'm not keeping up with what those Biblical scholars are saying. Let's take the example of another famous controversy: were the writers of the New Testament wrong when they said that a virgin birth was prophesied by Isaiah? Yes. They were wrong. Bart Ehrman explained this to me in less than half a minute. To make a short story even shorter: read the entire chapter of Isaiah 7, and as Ehrman said: shame on all of us supposedly brilliant people for not already having read the entire chapter. It's not long. The Hebrew word can mean "virgin," or simply "young women," somewhat like the English term "maiden." Reading Isaiah 7, the entire short chapter, makes it clear that the Greek New Testament authors were mistaking in translating the word as "virgin" instead of simply "young woman."

I had zero trouble keeping up with that. But understanding what is so great about Hegel...

Some Writers I Haven't Understood, and Some I Have

It goes without saying that when I think I've understood a writer, I could be completely mistaken.

To begin with, writers I know I haven't understood:

-- In the past few days I gave up on my most recent, and only, serious attempt to understand Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. There was one moment when I was prematurely optimistic: I opened Hegel's Philosophie der Geschichte at random and saw that he had a chapter dedicated to the Crusades. Some further skimming revealed statements about the Crusades which actually seemed fact-based, down to Earth and accurate. But when I settled down to read the entire chapter, I discovered that there were only a few lines' worth of this sort of narrative in the entire chapter, embedded in a murky sea of the objective teaching of Christianity and the immense idea of coupling the finite to the infinite and so forth, and I really just can't.

-- Speaking of Kant --

yeah, I don't understand him either. I apologize for having occasionally pretended that I did.

-- Heidegger: whoosh! he goes over my head.

-- Any theologians whatsoever. I still seem to share the New Atheists' problem with theology: theologian says, "God[...]," I respond, "[...]," theologian says, "That's not what I mean when I say 'God," and I've already lost interest. I don't even have the energy to angrily ask, "Well why don't you try saying what you mean when you say 'God'?!" because I despair of getting an answer which isn't even worse.

Writers whom I think I've understood:

-- William Gaddis. The only writer of realistic dialogue known to me. Because apart from literature, most people don't speak in complete sentences which resemble those written in books. And each one of Gaddis' characters is speech-impaired in his or her specific way, which again is realistic, and allows the reader to tell them apart even in a book like JR which is about 98% unattributed dialogue. Even the few characters who are able to speak quite elegantly while sober lose their verbal form, in a quite realistic way, as they get drunk.

Jean-Paul Sartre: I believe I understand: the world, the universe, is devoid of inherent meaning, and so therefore each of our lives is as meaningful as we are able to make it. Communism, with its goal of everyone working for the common good, is more noble than capitalism with its goal of he who dies with the most toys wins.

William H Gass: His prose is pure music, prose poetry. I never found it difficult.

Gertrude Stein: Hers either. Her joy in her experience with language is as pure and beautiful as the joy of a toddler, except that where a toddler toddles around a backyard and is astounded by a pebble, Stein traveled quite a bit, and took joy in her own wide knowledge, experience and vocabulary. Emulating her, writing as well as she did? Excruciatingly difficult, maybe impossible. Reading her? Never anything but joy as pure as a toddler's smile.

Band 3 Vom Prinzip Hoffnung Habe Ich Schon

Das habe ich in dem letzten Post nicht erwaehnt. (Gestern bestellte ich die 3baendige suhrkamp taschenbuch wissenschaft Ausgabe bei Amazon Marketplace und heute sah ich: "order cancelled.")

Ich habe auch Band 2 von einer 2baendigen suhrkamp taschenbuch wissenschaft-Ausgabe von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Ich habe auch den ganzen Kritik der reinen Vernunft in einem kleinen und ganz dicken Reclam-Band aus den 80ern Jahren..

Ich denke, ich habe Band 3 des Prinzips Hoffnung und Band 2 der Kritik im selben -- wie sagt man eigentlich "used book store" auf Deutsch? -- im selben Laden gefunden. Seltsam, dass nur diese Bruchteile der ganzen Werke da angeboten wurden, findet Ihr nicht? Ich argwoehne, dieser Laden weiss eher wenig ueber seinen sehr vielen Buechern, trotzdem ist er so riesig und erfolgreich dass er mehrere deutlch besseren Laden in dieser Stadt zur Pleite geholfen hat. Stell Dir vor, Buchladen gewoehnlicherweise waeren um so erfolgreicher, je mehr sie von Buechern wuessten. (Ich uebe mich im Blochschen Utopiedenken, trotzdem ich nur Band 3 habe.)

Ich moechte, wenn ich bei Amazon kaufe, nur Amazon Prime benutzen. Aber unuebersetze Bloch hat Amazon in den US gar nicht. Da muss man sich an Amazon Marketplace wenden, und Amazon Marketplace ist wenig mehr als ein Aerger. Einige Suhrkamp-Baender kann man hier direkt durch Amazon Prime kaufen. Zum Beispiel einige Baender von Hesse, weil ja der gewoehnliche durchschnittliche Arschloch in den US Hessens Name kennt und Blochs nicht, und der riesigste Buchladen der Welt, Amazon, bekanntlicherweise von gewoehnlichen amerikanischen Arschloechern geleitet wird, und nicht von Leuten die sich im Buchbetrieb auskennen. Die haben nicht mal die meistbegehrten Sachen von Hesse, Steppenwolf und Siddhartha, bei Amazon Prime in den US, sondern Demian -- mehrere verschiedene Ausgaben von Demian sogar -- und Unterm Rad und noch exotischere Titel.

In Berlin koennte man wunderleicht und wunderschnell zackzack eine ordentliche Portion Bloch finden. Wenn ich in Berlin lebte wuerde ich schnell Dinge vermissen, welche ich hier in Michigan zackzack leicht und schnell finden, ohne das Wunderbare daran zu sehen? Wahrscheinlich. Ich lebte ein Jahr in Bonn und die kuerzeren duetschen Ladenzeiten gaben mir wirklich zu schaffen. Der menschliche Elnde ist weit und viefaeltig.

Naja. Es ist ja nicht, als gaebe es nicht allein in Band 3 des Prinzips Hofffnung reichlich viel, mit dem ich mich verwirren kann. Und wenn Bloch in einem Recht hat und Schopenhauer Unrecht, dann haben diese rumliegende Baender von Hegel einiges Nutzen. -- ich lachte, als ich Letzteres tippte. Nein, ich kann das noch nicht glauben.

Ich kann auch nicht glauben, dass, wenn ich steinrich waere, so dass ich mir auch von Michigan aus ganz leicht alle gewuenschten Buecher besorgen koennte -- oder einen Assistant bezahlen, der sowas fuer mich zackzack besorgte, und sich darueber hinaus an vielem von meinem Geld vergriff, und ich wusste davon aber es stoerte mich nicht, weil er so geschickt waere dass er es eigentlich verdiente, und vor allem weil ich so endlich vielem Geld haette dass nicht mal der geschichteste Assistant der Welt in seinem Leben mehr als ein kleines Bruchteil davon stehlen koennte -- oder steinreich und auch so beruehmt dass die Verlage mir alles schickte ohne dass ich einmal bitten muesste, geschwiege denn bezahlen -- es faellt mir sehr schwer zu glauben, dass in einem solchen Falle, als der Aerger mit Buechern geloest wird, dies nur Platz machen wuerde in meinem Bewusstsein fuer noch schmerzlichere Aergere.

Aber ich moechte es erleben und es einmal wissen, so oder so, und Euch meinen Lesern ausfuehrlich darueber berichten.

Ich moechte auch wissen warum sie suhrkamp taschenbuch wissenschaft und edition suhrkamp und suhrkamp taschenbuch und insel taschenbuch und einiges mehr alles kleinschreiben! Was zur Hoelle soll das?!

I Am Clicheoclast, Hear Me Roar

LISA: You shouldn't make generalizations about people who live in places you've never been.

BART: Yeah, Dad. That's what they do in Russia. [QUOTE NOT GUARANTEED EXACT, BUT THAT'S THE GIST OF IT]

Ah, if only the problem were limited to places people have never been. A story has hit concerning 2 Russians in their 20's arguing about Kant, an argument which escalated from words to fists to gunfire.

Predictably, and sadly, some people are responding to the story with cliches, such as: "This would never happen in the US, because you'd have to search far and wide before finding 2 Americans in their 20's who know who Kant is."

Not if you searched in university philosophy departments, that much is certain.

But of course you wouldn't have to resort to going to the nearest university.

It's typical -- sadly typical -- that such remarks are routinely made in the midst of Americans who are not asking questions such as, "Who is Kant?" because they already know who Kant is, but that doesn't stop the people who are delivering the cliches from considering themselves to be wise, nor does it stop many many people -- Americans, mostly -- from chiming in and agreeing, and somehow failing to see, although it's hard to see how anything could be much clearer, that they themselves are a refutation of the cliches with which they are agreeing.

Sadly typical as well is how few people seem to grasp that this particular cliche about Americans never having heard of Kant is nonsense. So far I've seen just one person challenge it. Me.

This is a particularly striking example of the power of cliches to blind people and switch their brains off.

PS: There may be one way in which Russians actually have an advantage over Americans when it comes to studying Kant, a significant advantage: it may be that more Russians than Americans have read Kant untranslated. That's just a guess on my part, but it rests partly on the sad fact that the cliche about proud smug American monoligualism is not entirely unfounded, and partly on the rather large physical presence of German scholars in Russia going back to before Kant's time, and a correspondingly large knowledge of the German language among Russian academics. And, well, #3: Karl Marx.

Somebody's Missing Something (Might Be Me)

For years -- decades, actually -- I was unable to read Immanuel Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft. In most attempts -- in the more merciful cases -- I would simply fall quickly to sleep. When I stayed awake I quickly became very annoyed, and wondered when Kant was going to stop prattling about next to nothing and get down to the critique of this thing he called pure reason. Finally, recently, I gritted my teeth and read the whole thing, and I didn't merely hate it. I've enjoyed and felt greatly edified by some other of Kant's works, especially the ones written before the famous Critiques. But I not only hated the Critique of Pure Reason: I wondered whether I was way past everything he said in this, his universally-acknowledged masterpiece. I came to an agonizing, Kierkegaardian Either/Or moment: either I didn't understand what Kant was driving at, and never would, or Kant and his fans were wrong in their belief that he had surpassed Hume. If I'm right, then an awful lot of very smart people who feel that Kant has helped them past certain mental points where Hume had left them stumped are wrong. A third possibility, that I will eventually understand Kant's Critiques as an advance past Humeist (Humean?) impasses, does not strike me as realistic at this point, after I have read so much earlier philosophy to which Kant refers, and so much later philosophy which refers to him. (Nietzsche is one of the few philosophers who refer to Kant negatively, but he does so in passing, in not enough detail for me to know whether his reasons for rejecting Kant resemble mine at all.) (And yes, I do realize that I have not explained my objections to the Critique of Pure Reason at all.)

I say all of the above as preamble to a more recent Either/Or moment of mine: either theologians are writing way above my head almost all of the time, and I will very probably never even begin to understand what they are saying; or I, and Goethe, and not a few others, are thinking at a level way above that not only of the theologians themselves, but of anyone who finds any theologians to be brilliant or finds any reward in reading them. Somebody is missing a whole lot here. Might be me. Might be me and Nietzsche and Goethe and a lot of others. Then again it might not. R Joseph Hoffmann has written many things which I have found to be insightful, witty, profound -- and then he starts writing admiringly of someone like Aquinas, and he's lost me. Somebody's missing something. Might be me. (Might not.) And I might be missing a whole great big bunch of stuff when it seems to me that Hoffmann -- like Ehrman, like Crossan -- has begun to make illogical leaps which I can only describe as theological, in his recent comments on the historicity of Jesus. He is not strictly historicist now, but in several recent posts on his blog The New Oxonian, Hoffmann presents his current take on historicity, which is similar to the current mainstream position of New Testament scholars and authorities in related fields: first they assert that very little, if any, or what the New Testament says about what Jesus said or did can be relied upon as historical. And they add that neither the earliest non-Christian references to Christianity: Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, etc, nor any of the non-canonical Gospels, with the exception of the Gospel of Thomas in the opinion of only a minority of scholars, can be regarded as primary sources, or make up for the deficiencies of the New Testament as an historical record.

And then they add that it is however certain, or close to it, that he did exist, which is where they completely lose me. And they place all sorts of requirements on mythicist arguments before they will consider any of them to be reasonable, requirements which seem to me to be utterly unreasonable, not applied to their own historicist arguments, and basically pulled out of their fundaments.

I expect to be thoroughly puzzled by Hoffmann's upcoming book on the historicity of Jesus, or to have lost all faith in the soundness of his reasoning by the time it is published. I have not given up on ever finding what looks to me to be reason in historicist arguments, but I have taken a step in that direction, and that makes me sad. Not because I want Jesus' existence to be proven -- I continue to maintain that I am actually objective here, and wish simply for understanding to increase, in whatever direction that greater understanding may lead us -- but because it seems Either that there is precious little sound thinking going on concerning the Jesus question, (Don't even get me started on the non-academic mythicists.) Or that I am not particularly bright when it comes to understanding ancient texts and ancient artifacts related as evidence to those texts.

Yes, Dear, You're Smart. Of Course You Are

Robert McAlmon's memoir Being Geniuses Together,about the community of artsy folk in Paris in the 1920's which included Gertrude Steinand Alic B Toklas, Picasso, Pound, Joyce,Hemingway and, yes, Robert McAlmon, never gave me any indication that McAlmon was actually a genius, and it did give me several strong hints that he was not. Then suddenly this morning, it became clear to me how the interaction between McAlmon and the geniuses worked: those of the geniuses who, like for instance Joyce, were not wealthy, got lots of free meals and drinks and "loans" and no doubt many other assorted handouts from rich boy McAlmon, who in turn got to feel like a genius, when in fact he was plainly a bonehead. Much the way writers and painters in ages past, as recently and with as much spine as Kant,flattered princes for a living. (Have you read the dedications to Prussian royalty in Kant's books? Disgusting!)

Stein was the center of this community, and most certainly a genius, and wealthy, and formidable in every which way -- say it with a French accent, please -- but presumably not even she could do everything all by herself. Enter the well-married and deluded McAlmon: ah, how convenient. I don't know why it took me so long to figure that out.

Who need to be constantly reassured that they are smart? Stupid people, of course. Don't you ever -- EVER! -- call me stupid! Who need to be reassured that they are wondrously virile studs? Impotent men.

Although it seems to be the opposite when it comes to looks: supermodels and other stunningly-beautiful people seem so often chronically insecure about their looks -- some actually say things like, My earlobes are hideous. Or, My navel. Honey, put the mirror down, sit down and listen to me: if you have to search yourself all over until you get to your earlobes or your navel before you find something you don't like, you're gorgeous. Just trust me, you are. Try to enjoy it. You're gorgeous, and you probably haven't spent a lot of time carefully looking at average-looking people. People probably generally tend to like you a lot, because, well, c'mon. But if you could stop whining about your tiny, barely-perceptible, probably mostly imaginary appearance problems around the rest of us, who have never looked nearly as good as you and never will, that'd be swell, that'd make you much more likable still. If in addition to realizing that you're beautiful, you could also realize that sometimes you're not as intelligent or witty as people tell you you are, because, well, c'mon -- (McAlmon was once a nude model) -- then you'd be way ahead of the curve. The world would pretty much be yours.

Plainer people, on the other hand, often have the attitude of, I know, I'm ugly. Can we move on? Not like with other things. Impotence must be widespread, judging from the sales of medications for it, but you don't often see a guy come into a bar and say to everyone, Man, I just can't do it at all! I am one limp-dicked loser! Give everybody a round on me! You don't often hear the stupid say, Yes, I'm stupid. Perhaps it's partly that Socratic I-know-that-I-know-nothing paradox. Perhaps it's mostly or entirely that.