[emoshunless]

This is just a friendly inquiry.

Most know when we label ourselves with a political ideology, others seeing this will make assumptions of all of your views, or even use their own definition.

I am curious what would your first thoughts, assumptions (negitive or positive), insults etc...
of one who claims Hegelism or Hegelianism as a political ideology?

I'm would like to see input from people who are knowledgable on the writings of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to people who have no idea, and just google it...

Thanks
Have fun
<3

[Reichstraten]

Hegelianism is about the development of the World Spirit. I wonder how they can translate such a thing into a political ideology.

[Negotiator]

I dont know enough about Hegel to contribute to this specific question.

On a more general scale, though, I have to state:

- I strongly reject the idea that only caring about material things is enough. Poverty causes suffering, in worst cases hunger and even death from starving. But wealth does not cause happiness.

- I dont believe the issues of politics or even economics should be reduced to material things. This is a typical US american way of thinking. I believe it is a thinking like that which caused, for example, the CIA to support Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. We all know how that one ended. Politics and economics have to be moral, too.

- I dont believe that economics itself should be reduced to pure materialism either. Economics is about human behavior, and as such, it is not a precise science. Like with psychology, human behavior is, in the end, unpredictable. For example, here in germany the political establishment tried for decades to install an economy like in the USA. Meaning people accepting worse and worse wages, while consuming on the basis of cheap debs. While the part with lower wages worked brilliantly, even better than in the USA, getting consumption on the basis of debts didnt worked. Because the germans dont think the way US americans think. Germans simply dont allocate debts, unless its completely unavoidable.

So yes, I dont believe in the materialism of Smith and Marx, though for certain tasks, their theories are very useful.

[Cartertonian]

I have 'acquired' from my father-in-law (I would say inherited, but he's not dead yet - just too infirm to read anymore) a veritable library of philosophy books, to which I intend to apply myself.

Having had a quick flick at Hegel in Wikipedia, it seems I could do with boning up on Plato, Kant and De Tocqueville et al before I will have a chance of grasping what Hegel was on about.

I'll get back to you.

[emoshunless]

@Negotiator

So you'd feel it tended towards an economy/materialistic based ideology or were you seriously just talking in general?

@cartertonian good score! If he handed down "The philosophy of history" its an easy read and it embodies all of his works. Its very interesting and I feel very misunderstood due to the time and language used.