[lit-ideas] Re: Hegel on Hilton
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 09:22:02 -0700
Amazing. Hegel predicted Paris Hilton. I'm convinced.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Bruce" <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 10:16 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Hegel on Hilton
On 18 Oct. 2006, Andreas Ramos wrote:
I don't think that even Hegel could have predicted Paris Hilton ....
Andreas, its time to come back to Germany for your Hegel refresher course! Hegel had
Paris's number 200 years ago!
To paraphrase the master (in English yet!):
Parish Hilton's unhappy consciousness and misguided attempt to 'rediscover
herself'
Ms Hilton is a prime example of wealth pursuing its own interest: something tarnished.
Her 'being-for-herself' is in fact nothing more than a spontaneous renunciation of her
selfhood; the breaking up and tearing asunder of the universal substance - her spirit thus
in an attitude of thoroughgoing discordance. Her wealth, which began as the very principle
of self-esteem, has become something foreign. Her bourgeois consciousness sees itself in
the power of an alien will on which it depends, which may or may not transmit
being-for-itself to consciousness. Dependent on the contingent individuality of an other,
on the accident of the moment, of an arbitrary choice, or some other utterly indifferent
circumstance, Ms Hilton must ultimately see her self-certainty as such to be the most
unessential thing, her selfhood to be the absolute lack of selfhood. In this inner strife
in which the pure ego sees itself outside itself and torn asunder, everything which has
continuity and universality, all that bears the name of law, of good and of right, is
dispersed and destroyed - the pure ego itself is absolutely disintegrated. In the place
of rebellion appears arrogance. And so Ms Hilton is left standing directly in front of an
innermost abyss, a bottomless pit in which all stability and substance has vanished. She
sees in this pit nothing but a common thing, a plaything, a chance result of caprice.
In an attempt to "rediscover herself", Paris Hilton imposed a ban on sexual activity for
one year. "I'm doing it just because I want to. I feel I'm becoming stronger as a person.
Every time I have a boyfriend, I'm just so romantic, and I'll put all my energy into the
guy, and I don't really pay attention to myself." Alas, Ms Hilton has recognized the
alienation, but misidentified its roots. Perhaps some well-meaning soul will lend her a
copy of _Phaenomenologie des Geistes_.
Chris Bruce
Kiel, Germany
P.S. Thanks to Merold Westphal (in _History and Truth in Hegel's Phenomenoölogy_) for help
with direction to the relevant sections in Hegel; and to unidentified contributors to
wilipedia for some help with background on and quotations from Ms Hilton.
-CB
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