The Revolutionary Paradox: Hegel, Nietzsche, and the Struggle for Recognition

Since the French Revolution, the last 250 years might be described as a history of gloriously successful revolutions that failed miserably — of human freedom made manifest only to be subsumed and placed in the service of totalitarian regimes. Why is it that so many modern revolutions begin with a demand for freedom yet end in despotism? This inversion appears to afflict every attempt at revolutionary transformation: socialist, communist, nationalist, liberal, conservative, etc. Is there something rotten in revolution itself? To consider this question, we turn to the work of two revolutionary thinkers of the 19th century: Hegel and Nietzsche.

For Hegel, the inversion of revolutionary freedom into despotism — producing deaths that carry “no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage” — is nevertheless a necessary moment in the struggle to realize freedom in absolute spirit. Hegel uses the master-slave dialectic to explain this phenomenon during the French Revolution. Yet the history of the twentieth century raised persistent challenges to Hegel’s account: Is there a decisive end to human struggle that satisfies everyone? Do humans actually desire such an end? Does such a goal justify the suffering and misery endured along the way? Nietzsche’s treatment of the master-slave dialectic both challenges and complements Hegel’s attempt to answer these questions.

This seminar is structured around three decisive moments in Hegel’s thought: 1) the primary principle of human existence is heroic survival, the preservation of life; 2) life is subordinated to the principle of recognition and the mastering ego, which gains its supremacy through this struggle; and 3) life should be subordinated to meaning — it should unfold as a meaningful narrative. We will test the force of these principles by subjecting them to Nietzsche’s genealogical revaluation of the birth of dialectics, focusing in particular on Nietzsche’s account of the “priests” who develop dialectical evaluation by confusing first and last and thereby creating “nothingness.”

Our inquiry will also follow Nietzsche’s revaluation of Hegel’s dialectic as a revolutionary dialectic of slaves in search of solace and revenge: Where does the unnatural desire for recognition come from? What is the value of another’s recognition? (Or, put differently: how can another injure me by insulting me?) Is survival the only principle of existence? Should life be meaningful? Where does the demand for meaning come from? What is the meaning and source of freedom in the struggle for recognition? Contemplating these questions will be, at the same time, a reflection on the revolutionary paradox itself.

Primary readings include selections from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals and Twilight of the Idols. Secondary readings will help us better understand the philosophers’ arguments, especially Hyppolite and Harris on the master-slave dialectic, and Safranski’s account of Nietzsche’s genealogy.