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238

At first, the family is the substantial whole to which the provision for this particular side of the individual belongs — both with regard to the means and skills needed to be able to acquire something out of the universal resource, and with regard to his subsistence and support in the event of incapacity. But civil society tears the individual out of this bond, estranges its members from one another, and recognizes them as self-subsistent persons; it further substitutes, in place of the external, inorganic nature and the paternal soil in which the individual had his subsistence, its own [resource], and subjects the very subsistence of the whole family itself to dependence on it, to contingency. |230| Thus the individual has become a son of civil society, which has claims upon him just as much as he has rights against it.

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2 responses to “238”

  1. Eduard Gans (Additions) Avatar
    Eduard Gans (Additions)

    The family certainly has to provide for the bread of the individual, but within civil society it is something subordinate and lays only the foundation; it no longer has such comprehensive efficacy. Civil society is rather the immense power that seizes hold of the human being, demands of him that he work for it, and that he be everything through it and act by means of it. If the human being is thus to be a member of civil society, he has rights and claims upon it just as he had them in the family. Civil society must protect its member, defend his rights, just as the individual is obligated to the rights of civil society.

  2. Hegel (Simple) Avatar
    Hegel (Simple)

    § 238: Son of civil society

    In the past, the family took care of everything. It gave the individual what he needed to earn a living. And it looked after him when he could no longer work.

    What changes?

    Civil society tears the individual out of this bond. The members of the family become strangers to one another. Each now counts as an independent person.

    In the past, people lived from the father’s soil. Now they live from society, from its market and its work. Even whether a whole family can survive now depends on society. And so it depends on chance.

    A huge power:

    Society draws the human being to itself. It demands that he work for it. He is to be everything through it and do everything through it. The family only lays the ground.

    What follows from this?

    The individual is now a son of civil society. It has claims on him. But he also has rights against it. It must protect him, as the family did before.

    Summary: Society takes the individual out of the family and makes him depend on it. In this way, he becomes its son. It has claims on him, and he has rights against it.

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