Back to Le neveu de Rameau, that pre-Post-modernist parasite. A passage from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. First, the summary by J. N. Findlay:
§520. Self-consciousness uses a language of noble flattery in dealing with state power: it employs a language of ignoble flattery in dealing with wealth. But the language which truly expresses its Zerrissenheit, its torn state, is one which makes diremption its essence, which in all its judgements unites terms in an utterly irrelevant, external fashion. Its only reason for dealing with things together is that they have nothing to do with each other.
§521. The absolute, universal inversion of reality and thought, their mutual estrangement, is the final product of culture. Everything becomes void of substance and confounded with its opposite All values become transvalued. Spirit in this phase of culture speaks a language of utter disintegration, which takes the novel form of wit.
§522. Wit runs the shole gamut of the serious and the silly, the trivial and the profound, the lofty and the infamous, with complete lack of taste and shame (see Diderot's Nephew of Rameau).
§523. Plain sense and sound morality can teach this disintegrated brilliance nothing that it does not know. It can merely utter some of the syllables the latter weves into its piebald discourse. In conceding that the bad and good are mixed in life, it merely substitutes dull platitude for witty brilliance.
§524. The disintegrated consciousness can be noble and edifying but this is for it only one note among others. To ask it to forsake its disintegration is merely, from its own point of view, to preach a new eccentricity, that of Diogenes in his tub.
§525. The disintegrated consciousness is, howerver, on the way to transcending its disintegration. It sees the vanity of treating all things as vain, and so becomes serious.
§526. Wit really emancipates the disintegrated consciousness from finite material aims and gives it true spiritual freedom. In knowing itself as disintegrated it also rises above this, and achieves a truly positive self-consciousness.
Hegel's text from the Phenomenology of Spirit, as translated by A. V. Miller:
§520. Just as self-consciousness had its own language with state power, in other words, just as Spirit emerged as actively mediating between these extremes, so also has self-consciousness in its own language in dealing with wealth; but still more so when it rebels. The language that gives wealth a sense of its essential significance, and thereby gains possession of it, is likewise the language of flattery, but of base flattery; for what it pronounces to be an essence, it knows to be expendable, to be without any intrinsic being. The language of flattery, however, as we have already observed, is Spirit that is still one-sided. For although its moments are indeed the self which has been refined by the discipline of service into a pure existence, and the intrinsic being of power, yet the pure Notion in which the simple, unitary self and the in-itself, the former a pure 'I' and the latter this pure essence or thought, are the same—this unity of the two sides which are in reciprocal relation is not present in the consciousness that uses this language. The object is still for consciousness an intrinsic being in contrast to the self, that is, the object is not for consciousness at the same time consciousness's own self as such. The language of this disrupted consciousness is, however, the perfect language and the authentic existent Spirit of this entire world of culture. This self-consciousness which rebels against this rejection of itself is eo ipso absolutely self-identical in its absolute disruption, the pure mediation of pure self-consciousness with itself. It is the sameness of the identical judgement in which one and the same personality is both subject and predicate. But this identical judgement is at the same time the infinite judgement; for this personality is absolutely dirempted, and subject and predicate are utterly indifferent, immediate beings which have nothing to do with one another, which have no necessary unity, so much so that each is the power of a separate independent personality. The being-for-self [of this consciousness] has its own being-for-self ofr objet as an out-and-out 'other', and yet, at the same time, directly as its own self—itself as an 'other'; not as if this had a different content, for the content is the same self in the form of an absolute antithesis and a completely indifferent existence of its own. Here, then, we have the Spirit of this real world of culture, Spirit that is conscious of itself in its truth and in its Notion.
§521. It is this absolute and universal inversion and alienation of the actual world and of thought; it is pure culture. What is learnt in this world is that neither the actuality of power and wealth, not their specific Notions, 'good' and 'bad', or the consciousness o 'good' and 'bad' (the noble and the ignoble consciousness), possess truth; on the contrary, all these moments become inverted, one changing into the other, and each is the opposite of itself. The universal power, which is the Substance, when it acquires a spiritual nature of its own through the principle of individuality, receives its own self merely as a name, and though it is the actuality of power, is really the powerless being that sacrifices its own self. But his expendable, self-less being, or the self that has become a Thing, is rather the return of that being into itself; it is being-for-self that is explicitly for itself, th concrete existence of Spirit. The thoughts of these two essences, of 'good' and 'bad', are similarly inverted in this movement; what is characterized as good is bad, and vice versa. The consciousness of each of these moments, the consciousnesses judged as noble and ignoble, are rather in their truth just as much the reverse of what these characterizations are supposed to be; the noble consciousness is ignoble and repudiated, just as the repudiated consciousness is ignoble and repudiated, just as the repudiated consciousness changes round into the nobility which characterizes the most highly developed freedom of self-consciousness. From a formal standpoint, everything is outwardly the reverse of what it is for itself; and, again, it is not in truth what it is for itself, but something else than it wants to be; being-for-self is rather the loss of itself, nd its self-alienation rather the preservation of itself. What we have here, then, is that all the moments execute a universal justice on one another, each just as much alienates its own self, as it forms itself into its opposite and in this way inverts it. True Spirit, however, is just this unity of the absolutely separate moments, and, indeed, it is just through the free actuality of these selfless extyremes that, as their middle term, it achieves a concrete existence. It exists in the universal talk and destructive judgement which strips of their significance all htose moments which are supposed to count as the true being and as actual members of the whole, and is equally this nihilistic game which it plays with itself. This judging and talking is, therefore, what is true and invincible, while it overpowers everything; it is solely with this alone that one has truly to do with in this actual world. In this world, the Spirit of each part finds expression, or is wittily talked about, and finds said about it what it is. The honest individual takes each moment to be an abiding essentiality, and is the uneducated thoughtlessness of not knowing that it is equally doing the reverse. The disrupted consciousness, however, is consciousness of the perversion, and, moreover, of the absolute perversion. What prevails in it is the Notion, which brings together in a unity the thoughts which, in the honest individual, lie far apart, and its language is therefore clever and witty.
§522. The content of what Spirit says about itself is thus the perversion of every Notion and reality, the universal deception of itself and others; and the shamelessness which gives utterance to this deception is just for that reason the greatest truth. This kind of talk is the madness of the musician 'who heaped up and mixed together thirty arias, Italian, French, tragic, comic, of every sort; now with a deep bass he descended into hell, then, contracting his throat, he rent the vaults of heaven with a falsetto tone, frantic and soothed, imperious and mocking, by turns' (Diderot, Nephew of Rameau). To the tranquil consciousness which, in its honest way, takes the melody of the Good and the True to consist in the evenness of the notes, i.e. in unison, this talk appears as a 'rigmarole of wisdom and folly, as a medley of as much skill as baseness, of as many correct as false ideas, a mixture compounded of a complete perversion of sentiment, of absolute shamefulness, and of perfect frankness and truth. It will be unable to refrain from entering into all these tones and running up and down the entire scale of feelings from the prfoundest contempt and dejection ot the highest pitch of admiration and emotion; but blended with the latter will be a tinge of ridicule which spoils them' (ibid.). The former, however, will find in their very frankness a strain of reconciliation, will find in their subversive depths the all-powerful note which restores Spirit to itself.
§523. If we contrast with the speech of this mind which is fully aware of its confused state, the speech of that simple consciousness of the true and the good, we find that in face of the frank and self-conscious eloquence of the educated mind, it can be no more than taciturn; for to the latter it can say nothing that it does not already know and say. If it gets beyond speaking in monosyllables, it says, therefore, the same thing that is said by the educated mind, but in doing so also commits the folly of imagining it is saying something new and different. Its very words 'shameful', 'ignoble' are already this folly, for the other says them about itself. This latter mind perverts in its speech all that is unequivocal, because what is self-identical is only an abstraction, but in its actual existence is in its own self a perversion. The plain mind, on the other hand, takes under its protection the good and the noble i.e. what retains its self-identity in its utternace, in the only way here possible—that is to say, the 'good' does not lose its value because it may be associated or mixed with the 'bad', for this is its condition and necessity, and in this fact lies the wisdom of Nature. Yet this plain mind, while it imagined it was contradicting what was said, has, in doing so, merely condensed into a trivial form the content of Spirit's utterance; in making the opposite of the noble and good into the condition and necessity of the noble and good, it thoughtlessly supposes itself to be saying something else than that what is called noble and good is in its essence the reverse of itself, or that, conversely, the 'bad' is the 'excellent'.
§524. If the simple consciousness compensates for this dull, uninspired thought by the actuality of the excellent, by adducing an example of the latter, either in the form of a fictitious case or a true story, thus showing that it is no empty name but actually exists, the universal actuality of the perverted action stands opposed to the whole of the real world in which the said example constitutes somethin quite single and separate, an espèce, a mere 'sort' of thing; and to represent the existence of the good and noble as an isolated anecdote, whether fictitious or true, is the most disparaging thing that can be said about it. Finally, should the plain mind demand the dissolution of this whole world of perversion, it cannot demand of the individual that he remove himself from it, for even Diogenes in his tub is conditioned by it, and to make this demand of the individual is just what is reckoned to be bad, viz. to care for himself qua individual. But if the demand for this removal is directed to the universal individuality, it cannot mean that Reason should give up again the spiritually developed consciousness it has acquired, should submerge the widespread wealth of its moments again in the simplicity of the natural heart, and relapse into the wilderness of the nearly animal consciousness, which is also called Nature or innocence. On the contrary, the demand for this dissolution can only be directed to the Spirit of culture itself, in order that it return out of its confusion to itself as Spirit, and win for itself a still higher consciousness.
§525. But in point of fact, Spirit has already accomplished this in principle. The consciousness that is aware of its disruption and openly declares it, derides existence and the universal confusion, and derides its own self as well; It is at the same time the fading, but still audible, sound of all this confusion. This vanity of all reality and every definite Notion, vanity which knows itself to be such, is the double reflection of the real world into itself: once in this particular self of consciousness qua particular, and again in the pure universality of consciousness, or in thought. In hte first case, Spirit that has come to itself has directed its gaze to the world of actuality and still has there its purpose and immediate content; but, in the other case, its gaze is in part turned only inward and negatively against it, and in part is turned away from that world towards heaven, and its object is the beyond of this world.
§526. In that aspect of the return into the self, the vanity of all things is its own vanity, it is itself vain. It is the self-centred self that knows, not only how to pass judgement on and chatter about everything, but how to give witty expression to the contradiction that is present in the solid eleemnts of the actual world, as also in the fixed determinations posited by judgement; and this contradiction is their truth. Looked at from the point of view of form, it knows everything to be self-alienated, being-for-self is separated from being-in-itself; what is meant, and purpose, are separated from truth; and from both again, the being-for-another, the ostensible meaning from the real meaning, from the true thing and intention. Thus it knows how to give correct expression to each moment in relation to its opposite, in general, how to express accurately the perversion of everything; it knows better than each is, no matter what its specific nature is. Since it knows the substantial from the side of the disunion and conflict which are united within the substantial itself, but not from the side of this union, it understands very well how to pass judgement on it, but has lost the ability to comprehend it. This vanity at the same time needs the vanity of all things in order to get from them the consciousness of self; it therefore creates this vanity itself and is the soul that supports it. Power and wealth are the supreme ends of its exertions, it knows that through renunciation and sacrifice it forms itself into the universal, attains to the possession of it, and in this possession is universally recognized and accepted: state power and wealth are the real and acknowledged powers. However, this recognition and acceptance is itself vain; and just by taking possession of power and wealth it knows them to be without a self of their own, knows rather that it is the power over them, while they are vain things. The fact that in possessing them it is itself apart from and beyond them, is exhibited in its witty talk which is, therefore, its supreme interest and the truth of the whole relationship. In such talk, this particular self, qua this pure self, determined neither by reality nor by thought, develops into a spiritual self that is of truly universal worth. It is the self-disruptive nature of all relationships and the conscious isruption of them; but only as self-consciousness in revolt is it aware of its own disrupted state, and in thus knowing it has immediately risen above it. In that vanity, all content is turned into something negative which can no longer be grasped as having a positive significance. The positive object is merely the pure 'I' itself, and the disrupted consciousness in itself this pure self-identity of self-consciousness that has returned to itself.
