{"id":903101,"date":"2026-09-17T12:30:45","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?page_id=903101"},"modified":"2026-09-17T16:30:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:30:50","slug":"is-hegel-an-apologist-for-the-total-state","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/is-hegel-an-apologist-for-the-total-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Hegel an apologist for the \u201etotal state\u201c?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In brief:<\/strong> No \u2014 and the charge can be refuted from the text, not merely disputed. Hegel\u2019s state has a written constitution, separation of powers, independent courts with public hearings, juries, freedom of trade and of occupation, freedom of the press, and civil equality for Jews. What the charge does hit are two other things \u2014 and those stand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where the charge comes from<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Not from the twentieth century. The reading of Hegel as the state philosopher of reaction goes back to Rudolf Haym\u2019s Hegel und seine Zeit<\/em> of 1857; Karl Popper sharpened it in 1945 and declared Hegel the link between Plato and modern totalitarianism. How Popper\u2019s evidence stands up is treated elsewhere: Was Hegel the Prussian state philosopher?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the book actually says<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The state is expressly not the master of the spheres it comprehends. \u00a7 260<\/a> demands both at once: that personal singularity have \u201eits complete development and the recognition of its right<\/em> for itself\u201c and<\/em> pass over into the universal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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so that the universal neither holds good nor is accomplished without particular interest, knowledge, and will, nor do individuals live merely for the latter as private persons.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 260<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To this come the institutions: \u00a7 211<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 216<\/a> require a code of law and the promulgation of the laws; \u00a7 215<\/a> declares inaccessible law to be wrong; \u00a7 224<\/a> demands publicity in the administration of justice, \u00a7 228<\/a> the participation of juries; \u00a7 206<\/a> free choice of occupation; \u00a7 273<\/a> the separation of powers; \u00a7 314<\/a> f. publicity for the debates of the estates; \u00a7 316<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 319<\/a> freedom of the press<\/a>; \u00a7 270<\/a> Remark the civil rights of Jews, on the ground \u201ethat they are first of all human beings<\/em>\u201c. A total state looks different, and on every single count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the counter-test<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Whoever holds Hegel to be a friend of unlimited state power must explain two passages. The first stands in \u00a7 270<\/a> Remark and is directed against religion where it produces \u201ethe harshest bondage under the fetters of superstition\u201c \u2014 against which \u201ea saving power\u201c is required, one that takes up the rights of reason and of self-consciousness. The second is the footnote to \u00a7 258<\/a>, against Carl Ludwig von Haller:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hatred of law<\/em>, of right determined legally<\/em>, is the shibboleth by which fanaticism, feeble-mindedness, and the hypocrisy of good intentions reveal themselves and unfailingly betray what they are, whatever other garb they may otherwise choose to put on.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 258<\/a> Remark, footnote<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And \u00a7 5<\/a> Remark describes the fanaticism of demolishing every existing order and \u201ethe removal of individuals suspected of an order\u201c \u2014 written in 1820, against the Terror of 1793, and uncomfortably exact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the charge does hit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Two things, and both are serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, war.<\/strong> \u00a7 324<\/a> declares the nullity of the individual and of his property in war to be an ethical moment. That Hegel excludes war against private persons and civil life (\u00a7 338<\/a> f.) does not make the sentences harmless \u2014 see Did Hegel glorify war?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, world history.<\/strong> \u00a7 347<\/a> declares the spirits of other nations \u201ewithout right\u201c over against the nation that is world-historical at the time; \u00a7 351<\/a> justifies treating others \u201eas barbarians, with the consciousness of an unequal right\u201c. Here a limit is crossed that Hegel\u2019s own concept of recognition<\/a> draws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither is totalitarianism \u2014 it is no doctrine of the state\u2019s omnipotence over its citizens. But neither is it anything that can be explained away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The difference that matters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hegel\u2019s state is strong because it is supposed to hold out the oppositions that civil society<\/a> generates \u2014 not because it is supposed to remove them. A state that suppresses particularity is, by \u00a7 260<\/a>, not a strong state but none at all in the sense of the concept. Whether the construction holds is another question. That it wants the opposite of what is charged against it is not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources.<\/strong> Groundlines \u00a7 5<\/a> Remark, \u00a7 206<\/a>, \u00a7 211<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 216<\/a>, \u00a7 224<\/a>, \u00a7 228<\/a>, \u00a7 257<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 260<\/a>, \u00a7 258<\/a> Remark with footnote, \u00a7 270<\/a> Remark, \u00a7 273<\/a>, \u00a7 314<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 320<\/a>, \u00a7 324<\/a>, \u00a7 347<\/a>, \u00a7 351<\/a>. \u2013 Literature.<\/strong> Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies<\/em>, vol. 2, London 1945, ch. 12; against it Walter Kaufmann, \u201eThe Hegel Myth and Its Method\u201c, 1959, and Jon Stewart (ed.), The Hegel Myths and Legends<\/em>, Evanston 1996; Shlomo Avineri, Hegel\u2019s Theory of the Modern State<\/em>, Cambridge 1972; on the origin of the reading Rudolf Haym, Hegel und seine Zeit<\/em>, Berlin 1857, and Franz Rosenzweig, Hegel und der Staat<\/em>, Munich 1920. \u2013 In the glossary: the state<\/a>, the constitution<\/a>, separation of powers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n