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The State As A Community Of Persons In Hegel; A Critique
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Thus, the
absolute democracy of Rousseau was rightly criticized by Hegel. And the
criticisms gave direction to Hegel’s philosophy of the organic state.
This absolute democracy gave individuals the right to agree and form
government of all citizens’ participation. This implies that there is no
state outside the civil society, because all are decision makers. This
form, according to Rousseau, accords well with individual inalienable
freedom that should not be surrendered to another. Hegel found serious
faults against this liberalist individualist absolute democracy. He saw
its demolition and replacement as the hope of a new socio-political
order,
1.1.3 HEGEL’S AIM OF POLITICS
Hegel aimed at
introducing a substantial change in the entire socio-political structure
but with a special reference to Germany. To achieve this he brought in
his new logic, the dialectic which is the underlying principle for
validation of the historical necessity of a people’s national mentality
and spirit. Again he wanted to present a view
of the individual as an entity whose end is the absolute spirit, and
without the existence of the absolute spirit it automatically loses
its authenticity as a substantial individual.
Also the de facto
German government which he says has not yet arrived at a national unity
requires a binding force to achieve its organic structure. This, in
fact, would elevate it to the level where it will be the teleology or
the ‘entelechy’[9] of the individual. It would be the highest authority,
the most moral being and the superlative synthesis of all families and
civil societies.
At such a stratum, it will dedicate itself to the
so-called Hegelian Nobel act of institutionalizing the common interest
and defending it against all external and internal conflicts. Thus the
state will not only embody or encapsulate its citizens but also pastures
them like a flock. This then gave Hegel more courage to hold that the
state is far superior to and qualitatively different from the civil
society. That is why he said:
The state is the actuality of concrete
freedom. But concrete freedom consists in this, that personal
individuality and its particular interests not only achieve their
complete development and again explicit recognition for their right (as
in the family and civil society) …they also pass over of their own
accord into the interests of the universal,… they know and will the
universal. Even recognize it as their own substantive mind; they take it
as their end and aim and are active in its pursuit. The result is that
the universal does not prevail or achieve completion along with
particular interests and through the co-operation of particular knowing
and willing…[10]
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