American academics read too much Hegel
March 10, 2015 12:58 AM   Subscribe

 
I am not an American academic - what's the Hegel reference? Good article though.
posted by awfurby at 1:21 AM on March 10, 2015


First, I agree with the author's conclusion, just not the way it is argued. Paragraph 5 for example is a handwavy framing depending more on the reader's already-present inclinations than a more analytical line of reasoning supported by references to events, histories, theories, etc.

Second, there's an element of reflexivity that the article is missing. Given that the article can even ask these questions i.e. to make a point about unknowability in a political situation—that in itself indicates something about China's relation to the Western world (& vice versa). The article should explicitly try to recognize this and account for it in the analysis.

Did that make any sense?

(Third, I came for the Hegel as well but seem to have missed the joke?)
posted by polymodus at 1:37 AM on March 10, 2015


Gordon Chang, perhaps the most extreme example, has set several firm deadlines on his CCP collapse theory that have turned out utterly wrong. And yet, he still enjoys “China expert” status along with regular columns and TV appearances.
How many "USA Experts" are there who are still considered authoritative after getting big things wrong? And the U.S.A. is considered a much more 'open' system, with much more data available to analyze. If anything, depending too much on specific predictions always makes it harder to react properly to the actual events when they happen, even when the deviation is relatively small.

I think the most definitive statement was made, not by Hegel, but by the philosophers Livingston and Evans:
"Que Sera, Sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be"
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:42 AM on March 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


I came here for the Hegel too.
posted by colie at 1:46 AM on March 10, 2015


He does slightly overplay his claims about the value of and motivation for prediction, although he pulls back a bit on those points fairly quickly too, but other than that it's a decent article.

What I would add is that this doesn't just apply in China. He's probably correct that it's at its most extreme there, due to size, censorship and the disproportionate effect of a small number of people over a huge population, but most predictions about most things in politics and history tend to be wrong. So why do we keep on doing it?

I think there are good reasons beyond it being fun. Primarily, it gives us coherent models for understanding where we are now and what we might choose to do. It might well be true that international politics is a game far too complex for people to play (where are the Culture Minds when we need them?), but at this point we're stuck having to play it. If your life depended on winning a coin toss, you'd do everything you could to predict the result.

In some ways, I'm more interested in a notional follow-up to this article, where he discusses what useful things (if any) we can glean from all this lmisguided prediction.
posted by howfar at 1:47 AM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


For what it's worth, I found Kroeber's article (Xi is winning) far more convincing than Shambaugh's (the CCP is collapsing). The latter seems mostly to hope that the CCP will get what it deserves; as evidence he cites people being bored at government meetings and Xi's pamphlet not selling. He brings up Gorbachev, but Gorbachev was presiding over a financial collapse. Kroeber has a much better argument: the continuing 7% growth rate and the lack of any serious opposition.

Though Luo Guanzhong is always right in the long run: "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide."
posted by zompist at 1:47 AM on March 10, 2015


I read an article, nor sure if the one mentioned, with that Gorbachev comparison, it's so fatuous honestly - and displays such an ignorance about both Russian and Chinese history.
posted by smoke at 2:25 AM on March 10, 2015


Came for the Hegel, stayed for the synthesis of Hegel and Mencius.
posted by No-sword at 2:33 AM on March 10, 2015


I suppose the title is a reference to Hegel's famous Owl of Minerva bit, the point of which is that philosophical and historical knowledge is retrospective and can provide understanding of a stage of reality or history only after it has occurred. "The Owl of Minerva spreads its wings only within the falling of the dusk."
posted by Pyrogenesis at 3:50 AM on March 10, 2015 [10 favorites]


Earlier this year, in Jan, the Singapore papers were full of anti corruption purges in China, a 'cleansing' so to speak but never did an analyst imply there'd be a downfall. One huge difference in mindset that seems missing from English language mainstream analysis is that of taking the long view. China has been for millenia, and will be for millenia, is an entirely different perspective from your next quarter's popularity stakes or whatever's trending.
posted by infini at 4:15 AM on March 10, 2015


Did that make any sense?

not much
posted by thelonius at 4:16 AM on March 10, 2015


Any Hegel is too much Hegel.
posted by Segundus at 4:32 AM on March 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


Gordon Chang, perhaps the most extreme example, has set several firm deadlines on his CCP collapse theory that have turned out utterly wrong. And yet, he still enjoys “China expert” status along with regular columns and TV appearances.

Is he an economist or a neocon? These are the two groups that I know of with this super power.
posted by indubitable at 4:33 AM on March 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


I suppose the title is a reference to Hegel's famous Owl of Minerva bit, the point of which is that philosophical and historical knowledge is retrospective and can provide understanding of a stage of reality or history only after it has occurred.

In that case, shouldn't they read more Hegel? The alleged academic sin here is wanting owls at the dawn, after all.
posted by thelonius at 5:25 AM on March 10, 2015


Is he an economist or a neocon? These are the two groups that I know of with this super power.

You know not of weathermen and sports commentators?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:43 AM on March 10, 2015 [7 favorites]


How many "USA Experts" are there who are still considered authoritative after getting big things wrong?
From a review of Nate Silver's 'The Signal and the Noise'-
"TV pundits make terrible predictions, no better than random guesses. They are rewarded for being entertaining, and not really penalized for being wrong."
I guess that applies to weathermen and sports commentators, too.
posted by MtDewd at 6:06 AM on March 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


Given that the article can even ask these questions i.e. to make a point about unknowability in a political situation—that in itself indicates something about China's relation to the Western world (& vice versa).

But isn't that a general point - unknowability in a political situation - that you could make about any country? So why would it indicate anything in particular about China?
posted by thelonius at 6:31 AM on March 10, 2015


It really does not apply to weather forecasters and sports commentators.

Both of those use their expert knowledge to make predictions. A good weather forecaster or sports commentator will acknowledge the uncertainty in their predictions and admit when they are wrong. The sports guys are also primarily entertainers, their predictions do not affect economic or other governmental policies.

The "economist or neocon" mentioned by indubitable ignores their expert knowledge. They only make "predictions" that align with their political predispositions, and never make predictions that disagree with their political inclination. These politically based predictions never admit error.
posted by plastic_animals at 6:34 AM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also, stereotypes aside, weather forecasters are very close to the mark more often than not.
posted by flabdablet at 6:57 AM on March 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


How many "USA Experts" are there who are still considered authoritative after getting big things wrong?

Paul Krugman spills much virtual ink on these many pernicious characters (a recent post, out of hundreds.)
posted by klanawa at 6:59 AM on March 10, 2015


American academic here: no one reads Hegel and this is a feature not a bug.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:20 AM on March 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


China has been for millenia, and will be for millenia
infini

But China has collapsed, and been rebuilt, and undergone enormous changes over those millennia. People may not know what's going to happen in the future, but "China's been around forever" papers over all of that change and flux and is largely a propaganda line pushed by those in power for nationalist reasons. China isn't eternal and unchanging any more than any other part of the world.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:23 AM on March 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


You'll not top Schopenhauer in the Hegel-hating department:
Schopenhauer despised Fichte and Schelling, but he hated Hegel and described him as ‘that clumsy and nauseating charlatan, that pernicious person, who completely disorganized and ruined the minds of a whole generation.’ On almost any square foot of ground in the landscape of his writings a geyser of wrath may suddenly erupt, spewing out imprecations against the same three men. ‘What was senseless and without meaning at once took refuge in obscure exposition and language. Fichte was the first to grasp and make use of this privilege; Schelling at best equalled him in this, and a host of hungry scribblers without intellect or honesty soon surpassed them both. But the greatest effrontery in serving up sheer nonsense, in scrabbling together senseless and maddening webs of words, such as had previously been heard only in madhouses, finally appeared in Hegel...’ Hegel, said Schopenhauer, was ‘a commonplace, inane, loathsome, repulsive and ignorant charlatan, who with unparalleled effrontery compiled a system of crazy nonsense that was trumpeted abroad as immortal wisdom by his mercenary followers...’ I do not think anything in the whole history of philosophy compares with this invective by one now world-famous philosopher against another, especially when one considers that they were near-contemporaries and colleagues.
Bryan Magee (from Confessions of a Philosopher, 1997)
posted by thelonius at 7:24 AM on March 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


This isn't really about China, it's about the uselessness of predictions by "experts" in general:
But prediction sells. It’s hard to get media outlets to give you op-ed space or air time if you just say “things are complicated and we don’t really know what’s going to happen.” Making a bold prediction gets noticed and it has little downside....
China is just a convenient current example.

Also, I wish Nevin would show up and explain what the hell the Hegel reference is supposed to mean.
posted by languagehat at 8:29 AM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


The Hegel reference is, surely, simply a reference to the notion that history has a "plot"--a "World Historical" trajectory which makes its future unfolding broadly predictable.

How many "USA Experts" are there who are still considered authoritative after getting big things wrong?


There are lots of good studies out there showing that in most complex fields of human action (politics, economics etc.) "experts" are typically less accurate than monkeys throwing darts at dartboards.
posted by yoink at 9:25 AM on March 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


More specifically, the Hegel thing is likely a reference to the Fukuyama End of History thesis.
posted by jpe at 9:31 AM on March 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


> The Hegel reference is, surely, simply a reference to the notion that history has a "plot"--a "World Historical" trajectory which makes its future unfolding broadly predictable.

Hardly a notion peculiar to Hegel.

> More specifically, the Hegel thing is likely a reference to the Fukuyama End of History thesis.

Then why not reference Fukuyama?
posted by languagehat at 10:10 AM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


This article is weird. I mean of course no one can predict what happens next in any country. But the general trend of China is pretty clear; a hell of a lot clearer than Iran, say, or Greece. Much less Russia. Everyone assumes a recession is coming and that may put things a bit off-kilter, but basically it's a remarkably stable and growing country.

For the past few years The Economist has been doing some great reporting on China. It's worth reading if you want to keep up with (a British/American view of) the basics of what's going on.
posted by Nelson at 10:30 AM on March 10, 2015


Hardly a notion peculiar to Hegel.

Pretty much. See also: scholasticism, positivism, the Enlightenment, marxism, anyone talking about emancipation, Reason, progress... or actually, don't, see instead Popper's The Poverty of Historicism. Especially because it has the bonus of being very short. The understanding of history as contingent, lawless, and unpredictable is I'd say mostly a mid-to-late 20th century invention. Though I'm sure there were forerunners.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:32 AM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Hardly a notion peculiar to Hegel

No, but his is the most fully developed version of the idea and it is one that is strongly associated with him (it is, after all, one of strongest debts Marx owes to Hegel).

There are providential versions of history before Hegel, of course, but they tend to be explicitly Christian (or otherwise religious) in nature, giving an anagogical account of history as a preparation for post-history. It is Hegel who gives us the idea of an immanent rationale shaping world history into an organically unfolding--and necessary--development.

The understanding of history as contingent, lawless, and unpredictable is I'd say mostly a mid-to-late 20th century invention


Actually there is widespread fascination with the idea of contingent and chaotic historical development in the C18th and C19th in European thought. Alexander Herzen is one of the better known examples of the theme (and a hero of Isaiah Berlin's for that reason).
posted by yoink at 10:43 AM on March 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Actually there is widespread fascination with the idea of contingent and chaotic historical development in the C18th and C19th in European thought. Alexander Herzen is one of the better known examples of the theme (and a hero of Isaiah Berlin's for that reason).

Oh? Interesting. Do you have any other names and/or sources? All the stuff I know about is pretty straightforwardly historicist, but, granted, I'm mostly familiar with the obligatory "great names", epistemology, and philosophy of science, and they all tended either to believe in the lawlike change of history or reason, or didn't care about the theme.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:53 AM on March 10, 2015


China isn't eternal and unchanging any more than any other part of the world.
posted by Sangermaine


Its more like an ancient oak whose leaves change with the seasons and fall off and bud again. That kind of eternal. Not static. Its a long view that comes from a sense of history.

But also too stuffed full of dumplings and stir fried veg to move. Wouldn't be surprised if that was their real secret weapon.
posted by infini at 11:22 AM on March 10, 2015


Oh? Interesting. Do you have any other names and/or sources?

David Hume's monumentally (and monumentally influential) History of England insists upon the large role of "accident" in English history (and it was written explicitly to counter the teleological "Whig History" that was ascendent at the time). Cuvier's catastrophism in biological history was highly influential in European literature, combining with a larger cultural fascination with ruins (think Gibbon's Decline and Fall) to suggest the fragility and vulnerability to chance of all social/cultural orders. Diderot's Jacques Le Fataliste is a good place to look (along with Sterne's Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy) for some broader cultural meditations upon accident and contingency in our lives.
posted by yoink at 12:46 PM on March 10, 2015 [6 favorites]


All I will say is that most US finance people are AXED for China to collapse. I mean it's like every day for the past several years I see some finger waving article in the financial news or whatever talking about "China is a hoax" or "China is a bubble" or whatever to the point where it's basically the consensus view. But maybe, JUST MAYBE, they actually have their shit together, and they will pull this thing through. I think that is the tail everyone is ignoring. I honestly think people are not being 100% objective in their analyses and its their own personal biases that make them so pessimistic about the country. The other meme I hear is "Chinese are gamblers (so their stock market/country is doomed to crash)" which is like, what? How can you possibly base an investment thesis on some random stereotype? Sure their stock market might be/ end up being in a bubble but that's like looking at the NASDAQ in 1999 and saying "Americans are gamblers", it's a completely pointless trope that serves nobody.

Yeah they have a ton of problems and things are opaque, but I mean, if you were looking at the US in the 1970s, I mean this country looked FUCKED. Shit changes.
posted by pravit at 3:50 PM on March 10, 2015


Sheeeeit, the minute I saw the "wsj" in the URL on the China crash article I knew it was hokum bullshit. Must be a requirement to work there. "Your resume looks pretty solid Mr. Hokum, but are you prepared to write three China alarmist articles a year for us? Yes? You're hired!"
posted by telstar at 4:18 PM on March 10, 2015


Also, I wish Nevin would show up and explain what the hell the Hegel reference is supposed to mean.

First and foremost, I try to write a catchy title for my posts (most of the time). As for Hegel, others have already explained better than I can what I was trying to say with my pithy title. While a reference to Fukuyama may be more immediately understandable, I think Hegel is hardwired or baked into Western thinking. It's a flaw.
posted by Nevin at 5:53 PM on March 10, 2015


(Sorry for the radio silence, by the way... I'm in Japan in a different time zone and posted this the other night before going to bed... just as most Mefites were starting their day in N America. And then I kind of forgot about the post!)
posted by Nevin at 6:13 PM on March 10, 2015


You'll not top Schopenhauer in the Hegel-hating department

You're probably right, but Kierkegaard would like to say his piece:
If Hegel had written the whole of his logic and then said, in the preface or some other place, that it was merely an experiment in thought in which he had even begged the question in many places, then he would certainly have been the greatest thinker who had ever lived. As it is, he is merely comic.
posted by jomato at 8:02 PM on March 10, 2015


I think Hegel is hardwired or baked into Western thinking.

How can I, a non-philosopher, easily check whether I've been infected by this?
posted by polymodus at 2:16 AM on March 11, 2015


Also:

Pretty much. See also: scholasticism, positivism, the Enlightenment, marxism, anyone talking about emancipation, Reason, progress... or actually, don't, see instead Popper's The Poverty of Historicism.

"However, there is wide dispute whether Popper's description of "historicism" is an accurate description of Hegel, or more a reflection of his own philosophical antagonists, including Marxist-Leninist thought, then widely held as posing a challenge to the philosophical basis of the West, as well as theories such as Spengler's which drew predictions about the future course of events from the past."—wikipedia/Historicism

Anyone able to shed light on this apparent rebuttal? The validity of it. In layperson/beginner's terms please.
posted by polymodus at 4:07 AM on March 11, 2015


I had no idea mentioning Hegel would prompt such a discussion! I will remember this in the future when I want a post to get noticed and prompt interesting discussion!
posted by Nevin at 6:47 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Anyone able to shed light on this apparent rebuttal?

I don't want to get into a detailed discussion of Popper--which would take us even further down the branch line we've headed onto in this discussion--but simply on the question of using "Hegel" as a shorthand for "teleological historicism" here's a useful little snippet from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which we can plausibly take as a summary of broadly-held views within the community of historians of philosophy:
Hegel's philosophy of history is perhaps the most fully developed philosophical theory of history that attempts to discover meaning or direction in history (1824a, 1824b, 1857). Hegel regards history as an intelligible process moving towards a specific condition—the realization of human freedom. “The question at issue is therefore the ultimate end of mankind, the end which the spirit sets itself in the world” (1857: 63). Hegel incorporates a deeper historicism into his philosophical theories than his predecessors or successors
However much the specialist Hegelian or historiographer might want to quibble with the details of this account it seems sufficient to justify Nevin's shorthand use of Hegel in his/her title.
posted by yoink at 9:05 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


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