Yesterday we attempted to understand Hegel. With the guidance of Dr. J, the assigned reading of Lordship & Bondage made slightly more sense. We interact with one another in very different ways than how we interact with objects. Dr. J mentioned that we can find examples of Hegelian relationships everywhere and my blog post is going to attempt to explain some of those examples.
First, let's go over the master slave relationship. Hegel explains that when two people meet, there is a battle of recognition. What the subconscious wants, according to Hegel, is to be recognized as free by the other subconscious or will. He thinks this battle of recognition is a battle to the death because the way one can prove herself to be completely free is by freely choosing to die. After both free wills are in a situation where either will die, a type of paradox occurs where no matter what happens both people will lose (either they die, or the other person dies and the living person will not be recognized as free by anyone). Ultimately one person must choose to say, "Okay, you're free." In submitting to the other will, the person who realizes the lose/lose situation the two people are in becomes the 'slave' of sorts, while the person who did not realize the truth of the situation becomes the 'master' or person in power. This dynamic will be their entire relationship unless both people mutually recognize each others' freedom, only then can the dynamic not be that of the master/slave.
While I do not usually like pop culture references, I think we can try to actualize this master slave relationship by looking at popular couples in our media and seeing whether a reader or viewer would claim the couple mutually recognize each others' will and freedom:
Edward and Bella: The Twilight 'saga' in which a 100 year old vampire falls in love with a 17 year old almost character of a girl has been deemed on of our society's "best love stories" and a few critics have even tried to compare it to Romeo and Juliet. Let us attempt to see what sort of light Hegel sheds on their relationship. (Disclaimer: I have only read book 1, and it was years ago.) When Edward and Bella meet, Edward basically ignores Bella. As their relationship progresses, he is continually reminding her that without any exertion on his part he could kill her. Bella puts forth no real free identity towards him and does whatever he says. At many points, she restates that she cannot live without him. This is obviously a master slave relationship according to Hegel. Bella submits her will to Edward, recognizing him as the dominant and him as the free agent in their relationship. While Stephanie Meyer attempts to show Edward as just as submissive (by having him say things like, "my life was nothing without you") all of his actions suggest just the opposite: that he is the master of Bella.
Pam and Jim (from The Office): Pam and Jim are another pop culture couple that most viewers seem to not be able to see or discuss enough. I would argue that they do not mutually recognize each others' will until Jim professes his love for her in the end of Season 2. Before then, Pam was the master of Jim by not recognizing his freedom. Jim submits his will towards Pam and focuses most of his actions on her. When she rejects him in season 2, it gives him the motivation to act as a free willed agent.
So this could all be nonsense, but I was curious to see if I could apply Hegelian theory to pop culture.
In the first example I could see how you could apply this to Hegel, but I think that for it to be fully applied to Hegel is for Bella and Edward to have a struggle for recognition instead of Bella just fully submitting herself to Edward. I haven't read any of the books and I have only watched part of the first movie so I could be missing entire chunks of their relationship. If this is completely wrong my apologies.
ReplyDeleteBut I have watched the office and I feel that they both recognized their wills (that they liked each other), but they didn't know how to publicly deal with it because Pam was already in a relationship. But I do agree with the ending about how Jim focuses all of his actions on her until she rejects him and how this propels him to once again be a free will agent by turing his attention to other things such as dating other women.
I agree with Cassandra that in the Office Jim and Pam would not be the best example. I do not think that either of them saw the other as not having free will, I think that the show was depicting a mutually loving relationship that was having trouble getting started. I think that your example of Edward and Bella is more fitting to Hegel.
ReplyDeleteIt shames me a bit to admit that I was in fact a Twilight fan in my younger days--read all the books, went to the midnight premiere of the movie, etc--but my one bit of solace has always been that I never liked Edward, mostly for the reasons you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteHe was controlling and weirdly fatherly to Bella, in my opinion, and the way Bella merely swooned and completely submitted her will to him without so much as a huffy remark irked me to no end. Bella is Edward's willing slave, and while Edward often acknowledges that he is "nothing" without Bella, isn't the same true of Hegel's master? The Lord is only given his power through the Bondsman's recognition of his will--without the slave, the Master is nothing. He is completely defined by the slave's perception of and submission to him.