{"id":903199,"date":"2026-09-17T16:08:52","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?page_id=903199"},"modified":"2026-09-17T16:08:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:08:53","slug":"is-hegel-an-ally-of-conservatives","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/is-hegel-an-ally-of-conservatives\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Hegel an ally of conservatives?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In brief:<\/strong> In part \u2013 and then in a way that is probably not wanted. Hegel supplies the strongest arguments against constructivism in politics. He supplies at the same time the sharpest sentences written in the nineteenth century against appeals to tradition, the spirit of a people and the wisdom of ancestors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What speaks for it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

First: constitutions are not made. \u00a7 273<\/a> note treats the question who should make the constitution as senseless \u2013 either there is none yet, in which case the concept has to do with a mere \u201eatomistic heap<\/em> of individuals\u201c, or there is one, in which case \u201emaking\u201c means only changing it, and that only by constitutional means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In general, however, it is absolutely essential that the constitution, although it has emerged in time, should not be regarded as something made<\/em>.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 273<\/a> note<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Second: institutions carry more than dispositions. Hegel\u2019s whole ethical life<\/a> is a refusal of the notion that good common life rests on good intentions. And third: the warning in \u00a7 258<\/a> note against beginning \u201eentirely afresh, from thought<\/em> alone\u201c has often been quoted from the conservative side, with some justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What speaks against it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hegel\u2019s best-known sentence against historical justification stands in \u00a7 3<\/a> note and strikes the conservative figure of argument at its centre:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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a legal determination can be shown to be perfectly grounded<\/em> and consistent<\/em> based on circumstances<\/em> and existing<\/em> legal institutions, and yet be inherently wrongful and irrational.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 3<\/a> note<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And he turns the argument round: whoever justifies an institution by the use it once had has shown that today \u2013 the circumstances being gone \u2013 it \u201ehas thereby rather lost its meaning and its right\u201c. His example is the monasteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The footnote to \u00a7 258<\/a> is plainer still. It concerns Carl Ludwig von Haller, the leading thinker of the Restoration, whom Hegel credits with \u201ea complete lack of thought\u201c and whose enmity towards codes of law he disposes of in a sentence worth knowing by heart:<\/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.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 258<\/a> note, footnote<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And then there is the substance itself: Hegel\u2019s state has a written constitution, a division of powers, public court proceedings, juries, freedom of trade, free choice of occupation, freedom of the press and the legal equality of Jews (\u00a7 270<\/a> note). In 1820 that was not a conservative programme but a reforming one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real gain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hegel is interesting for conservatives because he has the conservative insight without the conservative comfort. That institutions are older and wiser than the intentions of those who carry them \u2013 yes. That it follows one should leave them alone \u2013 no. The proving of an order lies for him not in its age but in its bearing the freedom of its members. What does not do that has lost its right, however long it has stood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources.<\/strong> Groundlines \u00a7 3<\/a> and note, \u00a7 211<\/a> note, \u00a7 258<\/a> note with footnote (against Carl Ludwig von Haller), \u00a7 270<\/a> note, \u00a7 273<\/a> note (the constitution not as something made), \u00a7 298<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 320<\/a>. \u2013 Preface to the Groundlines. \u2013 See also Was Hegel the Prussian state philosopher?<\/a> \u2013 Literature.<\/strong> Joachim Ritter, Hegel und die Franz\u00f6sische Revolution<\/em>, Cologne 1957; Henning Ottmann, Individuum und Gemeinschaft bei Hegel<\/em>, Berlin 1977; Franz Rosenzweig, Hegel und der Staat<\/em>, Munich 1920.<\/p>\n\n\n\n