Hegel
Hegel believed that history was a movement tending towards the realization of "freedom" (although there is much debate over precisely what Hegel means by freedom) - which, in his own historical moment, he had held his own society to represent, or at least represent the beginning of. For Hegel, divisions and conflicts between people were the external appearance of the internal tensions which drive the development of Spirit. Conflict and its resolution were the ratchet by which human progress was driven steadily forwards - he once famously described Napoleon Bonaparte as 'the World Spirit on horseback'. Accordingly: having arrived at the end of history, these divisions were to be reconciled by the new 'universal class' of state bureaucrats, who acted at all times to reconcile conflicts of interest and acted only in the best interests of the entire society.
Read more about this topic: Universal Class
Famous quotes containing the word hegel:
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Nothing great has been and nothing great can be accomplished without passion. It is only a dead, too often, indeed, a hypocritical moralizing which inveighs against the form of passion as such.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)