[lit-ideas] Herrschaft and Knechtschaft (Was: Hello/Goodbye)

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:48:01 EDT
Paul: 
 
>I know little Hegel and less Greek,
 
Not that you would necessarily be interested, but I found this in  Wiki:
 
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-slave_dialectic_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-slave_dialectic) 
The Master-Slave _dialectic_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic)  
(Herrschaft  und Knechtschaft, or Lordship and Bondage is a key element in 
_Hegel_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegel) 's philosophy.
 
"Man was born and history began with the first struggle, which ended with  
the first masters and slaves. Man is always either master or slave; and there  
are no real humans where there are no masters and slaves. History comes to an  
end when the difference between master and slave ends, when the master ceases 
to  be master because there are no more slaves and the slave ceases to be a 
slave  because there are no more masters. A synthesis takes place between 
master 
and  slave: the integral _citizen_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen)  of 
the universal and  homogenous _state_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State)   
created by _Napoleon_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon) ."
 
That is where I believe Geary would take side (against).  Geary writes:
 
>I've often wondered whether  the [slave] 
>was just too stupid to realize that  the 
>[master] had to be killed, or  were 
>[the slave is] too  decent to do it? I 
>think the latter [Namely, that  the slave
>is too decent for Geary. JLS].  While it's 
>true, no doubt, that if  the [master] didn't 
>need [the slave -- for the lead  mines. RP], 
>[the master would] have killed [the servant] 
>long ago [by Homer's time. JLS]. It occurs to 
>me that without the [master],  there'd be no 
>[slave] jobs [but there'd still be  the lead
>mines. JLS] -- so maybe the reason [the
>slave] hasn't killed [the  master] isn't
>because [the slave is] too decent,  but 
>because [the slave  is] just as greedy 
>and selfish and  self-aggrandizing as 
>[the master  is].  
 
You see, following "Master" Geary  in this train of thought is what I called 
real "MMM" mental  training.
 
I'm using Hello and Goodbye in  Geary's sense (""Herrschaft" is not a concept 
that will be obvious to our  pupils. Nor is "Knechtschaft". So I propose, in 
these lectures, to use instead,  'hello' for the former, and 'goodbye' for the 
 second").
 
Incidentally, talking of  'training', "bondage" (knechtschaft, as in "God 
Save The Queen", confuse their  'knavish' tricks) reminds me of "Training Rita" 
by Willy  Russell:
 
          At  the hairdresser's
 
          PATRON  (to Rita): What's that book you're reading?
          RITA  (solemny), "Of Human Bondage", by Somerset  Maugham.
          PATRON:  Oh, my husband likes them books, too.
          RITA  (surprised). Whoa? He likes Somerset Maugham  books.
          PATRON  (sneering). Nah! He likes _bondage_ books.
 
Cheers
 
JLS
   Memphis Ministry  Metaphysician
           Buenos Aires chapter



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[lit-ideas] Herrschaft and Knechtschaft (Was: Hello/Goodbye)

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