Commentary on “The State”

In the commentary entitled “The State” the commenter included five main arguments or requirements for a Hegelian state. These main premises consisted of 1) that the State is established by a constitution, 2) the constitution is the collective will or spirit of a nation, 3) to maintain unity of citizenry love is applied to the family within civil life, 4) love in the family is rule of law in the State obtained through reason, and 5) rules of law allow for “objective freedom” (§535-540/p284-289).  It is important to note that Hegel’s use of “objective freedom” means the free participation within the over-arching laws that help the collective State be (§539/ p287).

I will set aside objections for Hegel to account for abuses in the State based on individual freedoms or inequalities, as I believe that Hegel was philosophizing on the ideal State. However, what if a state in all its totality has all of the above premises within its barriers but instead of producing a productive and exemplary State creates a horrifying manifestation of evil so great that it changes the history of humanity as never seen before in the modern age. How does Hegel account for such, when a state meets his requirements yet fails at goodness?

It might come as a shock to Hegel that the example I speak of comes ironically from his own homeland. It would seem that Nazi Germany would fit Hegel’s requirements of a State. It certainly had a constitution that exhausted the collective triumphant will or spirit of that nation at the time. Though love in its Hegelian use is a strange notion and seems ambiguously defined, it still appears that it was applied in its Hegelian sense on a universal level to the white German citizenry. Despite how abominable it may be now, there was still a line of reason that ran through the German nation at that time. Finally, it had an overwhelming amount of “objective freedom” so much so that a whole nation was prepared to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the collective whole of the State.

Despite how we see Nazi Germany today, prior to 1939 (and I believe many a historical scholar would agree) Nazi Germany was the embodiment of Hegel’s State. The only problem is that where convention would lead most of us to believe goodness would prevail, Hegel’s system turned upside down and evil subsisted.

Hegel may argue that Nazi Germany became an “individual subject” and lost its collective whole under the authoritarian leadership of the ruling party. Meaning that its constitution was so called, hi-jacked, gave way to a monarch-like ruling that made the “self” the main unit of state and not the collective whole (§329/p. 302, 291-292).

He could also answer in another direction by stating that Nazi Germany was as much a part of the historical dialectic as anything else. Needed so much as to propel humanity forward, allowing us to gain a self-awareness and universal consciousness that we did not carry prior to 1939. In short, he may argue that the independence of enslaved colonial nations, the addressing of civil rights for all in the freest of nations, and a new social morality was obtained through this part of the dialectic for all of humanity.