Page 183 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Unit 10: George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The beginning for Hegel was the oriental world, consisting of China, India and Persia. China and Notes
India were static, i.e. stationary civilizations, in which no change worth the name had taken place
for thousands of years. They were non-dialectical, and, for Hegel, outside the framework of world
history. The most important reason for the unchanging nature of these civilizations was that they
did not comprehend the idea of freedom, since a single person (the ruler) was supreme,
subordinating all others under the rule of oriental despotism. This despotism was not just based
on the fear of persecution and cruelty, as that would mean that the subjects had a consciousness
of their own. However, this was not the case. The subjects lacked consciousness.
Both law and morality emanated from an external authority. Since individual consciousness was
lacking, individuals did not have the capacity for moral judgements of right and wrong. Nothing
was questioned, and subservience to the despot was total. However, Hegel conceded that this lack
of individual consciousness manifested itself differently in other cultures and civilizations. The
Chinese state was governed on the model of a family, and the emperor was looked to for providing
the basis of their paternal order, the subjects being like children. In India, despotism was naturally
ordained by the caste system, and that explained its static and unchanging nature. Both China and
India were outside the process of history, as both reflected arrested development.
Among the oriental states, Persia was distinctly different. The modern process of history that
Hegel spoke of begins here. The Persian emperor was similar to the Chinese one, for both enjoyed
absolute power. But they differed in actual position. In Persia, the loyalty to the state was not akin
to that within a family. The relationship between the ruler and subject was based on general
category. Persia was a theocratic monarchy based on Zoroastrianism, which believed in worshipping
the light. For Hegel, light, like the sun, was a universal category as its benefit was shared equally
by all. Still, the ruler was an absolute ruler and his rule was based on a general criterion which
was not a natural one. This was not possible in China and India. As a universal principle or rule
was the basic necessity for acquiring the consciousness of freedom, true history began with ancient
Persia.
Within Persia, though the consciousness of freedom existed in its rudimentary form, its realization
within the Persian Empire remained unfulfilled. Because of proximity and desire for expansion
and domination, it developed contacts with Athens, Sparta and other city states of ancient Greece.
The Persian emperor wanted the Greeks to accept his authority, which the Greek city states
refused. Consequent to the refusal, the Persian emperor sent a huge army and a fleet of ships to
subdue the Greeks. The Persian and the Greek fleets fought an epic battle in 480 BC at Salamis, a
Greek island in the Aegean Sea, west of Athens. The Greeks won on account of their smaller ships.
Hegel perceived it to be a contest between an oriental despot who wanted to conquer the Greeks
and establish his own authority, and the separate Greek states committed to “free individuality”.
The Greek victory shifted the focus of world history from oriental despotism to the Greek city
states.
However, like Marx’s notion of primitive communism, the Greek notion of freedom was only
partial and not total. This limitation arose out of two reasons. First, the Greeks used slaves, which
meant that they had only a partial realization of freedom, as a universal philosophy could not
exclude any section. But Hegel also acknowledged that the limited democracy of the Greeks
needed slavery for its success. It was a necessary evil, as political participation meant that somebody
else would have to provide for the necessities of life. The base of working non-citizens made possible
the public activities of non-working citizens. This functionalist attitude was very similar to the
defence of slavery by Aristotle, who could postulate the end of it only when some other mechanism
of work could be established. This incompleteness was also reflected in another way, as the
Greeks did not have any conception of individual consciousness. But the difference with the
oriental world was that whereas in the Orient obedience came from external agencies, for the
Greeks it was derived from within. It was habitual obedience, without a universal or impersonal

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 177