Hyperian History Of The World (19th Century, Part 1)
Hyperian History Of The World (19th Century, Part 1)
After the tumultuous events of the end of the 18th century, the old powers of the church and the European monarchies were forever diminished. Nonetheless, these old powers were still very much in control, just no longer in such an overt and obvious way. The French Revolution had failed, yet it had a tremendous effect on the world. Napoleon attempted to spread revolutionary ideals around Europe, yet proclaimed himself as Emperor and became a new form of tyranny. The old powers quickly seized on this new tyranny and presented themselves as heroic liberators in their war against Napoleon. Eventually, Napoleon was brought down and the old powers restored, albeit in a diluted way.
Following these events, the world was beginning to feel very much more modern. Science was progressing and spreading, well on its way to replacing religion as the dominant influence on the thought of ordinary people, and the industrial revolution saw the massive spread of new technologies across the world.
If science and engineering were growing, philosophy, on the other hand, was waning. The industrial revolution was creating lots of wealth and was driven by science and engineering. As such, these disciplines grew. Philosophy, by comparison, began to seem old fashioned and without any real purpose, merely an academic curiosity. People no longer seemed to care about understanding the true nature of their existence, preferring rather to merely indulge in the petty pleasures of a purposeless existence.
Nonetheless, in Germany in the 19th century, there were still a number of great philosophers. In the previous century, Immanuel Kant had produced a philosophical system which separated the universe into the noumenal and the phenomenal, the former being the true reality and the latter being the way in which we experience it. This was a new kind of dualism which concluded by saying that we can never have any knowledge of the true reality of existence. This idea seemed to kill off idealism and pave the way for the dominance of materialism which we see today. However, there was one philosopher who resisted, and in fact took idealism to its most extreme, to absolute idealism, the great Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
Hegel refused to accept that we can never know the true reality of the universe. Hegel saw that, if the universe is nothing but minds, then there is nothing which minds cannot know. Yet we are, for the most part, currently in a state of ignorance about the true nature of our reality. Hegel realised that the universe was one of a constant evolution towards complete knowledge of reality. We are currently alienated from the truth of existence, and all the things we don’t yet understand thus appear foreign and ‘other’ to us. Yet, as we progress, we slowly come to understand and have complete knowledge of the full content of our minds.
To explain the evolution of our minds, Hegel went back to the ideas of Heraclitus. Heraclitus had said that the universe changes due to the conflict and resolution of opposite forces. Hegel took this idea and added to it greater philosophical rigour and formed it into the idea known as the dialectic. The dialectic works as follows. Everything that exists, every idea we can have, can be called a thesis. The existence of a thesis automatically requires the existence of the idea which is the very opposite of the thesis, the antithesis. Things are defined by what they are not, therefore nothing can exist without the thing that it is not (its opposite) also existing. The thesis and the antithesis interact and conflict arises. This conflict is eventually resolved by a new thing arising out of the conflict, the synthesis, which takes what is good from both the thesis and the antithesis. This higher synthesis then becomes a new thesis, the existence of which requires the existence of its antithesis causing conflict and resolution into a new, higher synthesis, which becomes a new thesis etc.
This dialectical progression occurs everywhere in the universe to everything in the universe. This is how minds evolve towards their perfect state. Hegel backed up this idea by providing a philosophical reason why this should occur. Hegel defined the basic substance of the universe as Geist, meaning mind or spirit. This was equivalent to the collection of monads in the Leibnizian system, or God in Spinoza’s system. Geist originally exists in a purely unconscious state and strives to become fully conscious. By being split into infinite mids, Geist can begin to become conscious of itself, as the individual minds can reflect upon one another in order to become aware of themselves.
Thus Hegel shows that the existence of many minds is rationally necessary in order for the universe to evolve towards its final state of full consciousness of itself. The one had to become many in order for the many to all reflect upon one another and begin the process of actualising their potential and becoming perfect, a process which follows the logic of the dialectic of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
Hegel also saw that this was not merely an internal process within our minds, yet was also manifesting itself outside in the physical world around us. The progress of the history of our society also develops in the same way, in accordance with the dialectic. The progress of society, and all of the conflict which arises, is simply a phenomenal manifestation of the internal progress within our minds. Eventually, Hegel realised, the world will arrive at a society in which every mind is free to express itself and actualise all of its potential.
Hegel had an enormous impact on subsequent philosophers, although more frequently this amounted to his philosophy being dismissed by those who failed to understand it. This is somewhat understandable however, given that, in his writings, Hegel buried his philosophy beneath layers and layers of dense academic language rendering it all but impenetrable to the average reader. Hegel retains the reputation as the most difficult to read philosopher to this day.
One subsequent philosopher inspired by Hegel would have a major impact on world events however. This was Karl Marx. Unfortunately, Marx seemed not to have a complete understanding of Hegel’s philosophy. Whereas Hegel’s system was one of dialectical idealism, Marx developed a philosophy of dialectical materialism. Hegel’s system explored the development of mind and the effects this development had on the world around us. Marx, however, ignored the minds of individuals and focused entirely on the development of society, from a materialist perspective.
Marx had witnessed the rise of capitalism following the industrial revolution. He saw how it had clearly shown the division of society into the ruling classes and the working classes, locked in an ongoing struggle. Under capitalism, the ruling classes control the means of production whilst the working class enable these means by selling their labour for wages. Using Hegel’s dialectical logic, Marx foresaw that the struggle between the classes would lead to the development of a class consciousness amongst the working class, which would see them demand more and more political power, eventually culminating in the development of a classless, communist society, in which the means of production are controlled by everyone and everyone is equal.
Marx didn’t merely describe this system, he actually called for the workers to rise up in revolution against the ruling classes in order to bring about communism sooner rather than later. This didn’t happen until the next century however, and Marx remained just a theorist. Whilst Marx’s critique of capitalism is excellent, showing exactly how it is an insidious system which benefits the rulers to the massive detriment of the workers, his alternative solution was not as well thought out. This problem derives ultimately from his materialist rejection of Hegel’s focus on the mind. The truth is that people who have lived under capitalism for so long simply aren’t psychologically ready for communism. There has to be psychological development of the people alongside the social development. Whilst communism is an ultimate end point for the social development, it cannot be enforced upon a people who are not psychologically ready for it. Events in the 20th century would show all too clearly the dangers of communism being forced upon people without the relevant psychological development.
Marx showed just how capitalism is a psychologically damaging system, yet communism, when enforced, proved to be just as damaging. To solve the problem, we simply have to return to Hegel’s dialectic. If capitalism is the thesis, and communism is the antithesis, what we require is a synthesis. Hyperianism aims to provide this synthesis. Whilst we must bring down the form of wildly unregulated capitalism which we currently have, we do not aim to completely remove capitalism as a whole. Rather, we advocate a form of state controlled capitalism in which competition is encouraged, but never allowed to get out of control, being directed at all times by logic and reason and an enlightened government. This enlightened government will actively promote a meritocratic system in which every citizen is given true equal opportunity to reach their full potential. The state will actively engage in the psychological development of each individual and, eventually, this system will have created a society of highly enlightened Hyperians. At that point, a classless society of pure equality will simply occur by itself, without having to be forced, as a natural, rational consequence of the Hyperian system.
