Lessons from Hegel about Identity

-- By DawitAklilu - 22 Feb 2021

Section I: Introduction

Identity. A word that carries a complicated connotation and a concept that we all encountered, for better or worse over the course of our lives. One of the most complex analysis, at least that I have read, about identity comes from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit which can be applied in a variety of contexts to help explain why forming our identity can be such a turbulent experience.

Section II: An experience

I remember like it was yesterday, my first day in a new school. I walked into my science class. We were learning about the periodic table and our teacher was asking questions to gauge our knowledge. Being the diligent student, I had already gotten a leg up on the rest and answered in rapid succession, much to the surprise of my classmates; However, their astonishment wasn’t caused by my knowing the answers but rather because the "black kid" was smart. FINISH THIS

Section III: Hegelian Dialectic and Phenomenology of Spirit: An Overview

According to Hegel, self-consciousness “exists in itself, and for itself, in that, and by the fact that it exists for another self-consciousness” meaning that our self-consciousness exists in order to be recognized. Recognition plays a major role in Hegel’s theory of identity because it is acts as both the means and ends of consciousness, which is to say that to be seen and understood validates our existence. In his theory, Hegel articulates how the process of recognition takes place when “the self”, acting both as an evaluator and as the evaluated, interacts with “another self-consciousness [that] has come outside itself”. This other consciousness is no different than our “self” yet, in order to distinguish who we are Hegel believes it is necessary to have this “double significance” in order to define and distinguish between our sense of self and our actual self. According to Hegel, both of these consciousnesses are “independent, shut up within itself” and thus are not affected by any notion or influence outside of themselves which furthermore demonstrates that recognition is self-contained and ahistorical. The two versions of consciousnesses thus act as “the mediating term for the other, through which each mediates and unites itself with itself”, essentially positing that our sense of self and our actual self are in constant negotiation to form one consciousness. Hegel’s process of recognition is, as opposed to being a singular act, a dynamic and recursive cycle, where the self is constantly evaluating and being evaluated as its presented against a new self-consciousnesses birthed over the course of repeated recognition. Also central to self-consciousness is that the two consciousness “recognize themselves as mutually recognizing one another,” further ingraining the importance of independence and equal standing that Hegel places on consciousness. In his phenomenology, Hegel employs a master-slave dialectic to articulate the difference between independent and dependent consciousnesses. Hegel defines the master as being “independent, and its essential nature is to be for itself” while the slave is “dependent, and its essence is life or existence for another”. The master, according to Hegel, is able to “bring himself in relation to both moments,” that is, the master is able to exist for itself as well as being mediated through its interaction with another, in this instance the slave. The slave however, lacks such independence of existing for itself and is thus dependent on their relationship to the master to find definition. This dependence is what “keeps the [slave] in thrall…from which he could not in the struggle get away, and for that reason he proved himself to be dependent” as the master shapes the way in which the slave understands themselves through “the shape of thinghood”. In regard to “thinghood”, Hegel writes that the slave, through work, “becomes conscious of what he truly is” essentially transcending the definition and dependency on the master by engaging with the fruits of his labor.

Section IV: The Takeaway

In short, Hegel’s theory espouses a relationship between the master and slave that is asymmetrical in power and understanding. The master, through their self-understanding and ability to project consciousness in objects, is able to control the slave by mediating the slave’s existence through projections of consciousness which traps the slave into a state of dependence. In other words, the master controls the slave by projecting itself onto the slave’s desires. This theory translates well, as it was intended, into our conversations about the role that social dogma over race, gender, ability, and religion act as disruptive force that complicates our process of forming our own identity. Most of us have felt this feeling of not truly feeling that we are understood or understand ourselves and the theory nails that feeling on the head by explaining it in the age old terms of dominant versus subservient. Yet, in this section of the book Hegel offers little regarding a way out from this vicious cycle maybe because the way out is simply not engaging, to simply accept that you are what you are and that the world will continue to project things onto groups regardless of whether one does find that self-acceptance (and maybe that’s something we already do in a sense as we get older and more comfortable in ourselves). Nevertheless, Hegel provides us with an interesting perspective into one of the most fundamental aspects of the human experience that we all should keep in mind as we remind ourselves that we are not all of what

Now that this draft has been reset for public readership, we need to think about it differently than we did last time, when its only readers were you and me. My suggestion to improve the last draft was to look for the larger ideas personal experience signifies; this revision meets that suggestion by importing a slab of Hegel. Whether this is what a broader readership for your idea most needs is unclear to me. But for the increase in complexity and the large investment of space involved it seems to me that the return is not very substantial. Do we need all the machinery of Hegelian dialectic to know that the "relationship between the master and slave is asymmetrical in power and understanding"? Is Hegel actually what we require in order to understand that "Most of us have felt this feeling of not truly feeling that we are understood or understand ourselves and the theory nails that feeling on the head by explaining it in the age old terms of dominant versus subservient"?

From the point of view of execution, the draft is also in the technical sense unimproved. "FINISH THIS" applies both to the place it literally appears, and to the fragmentary last paragraph with its unfinished last sentence. It's as though you gave up or lost interest in the middle of the revising.

If you want to do another draft by the morning of May 24, I will read again.

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