$187 quote: “The relation of both self-consciousnesses is thus determined in such a way that it is through a life and death struggle that each proves its worth to itself, and that both prove their worth to each other – They must engage in this struggle, for each must elevate its self-certainty of existing for itself to truth, both in the other and in itself” (Hegel Phenomenology pg.111, $187).
In Hegel’s view, the willingness to gamble all that you have—your life—is a necessary step to achieving self-consciousness: a definitive part of freedom. This becomes particularly relevant when one consciousness encounters another as they vie for dominance—as any being driven by desire would.
The world is chock full of such instances, particularly relevant in matters of religion and government, high up on the list of causes for which people would die. The late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny is a marquee example of this struggle to prove oneself to his opponent, his audience, and perhaps most of all himself. For those unfamiliar with the circumstances, Navalny was the main opponent of Putin in the pseudo-democratic political sphere before he was poisoned by Russian secret services. He was left in a coma, treated back to health in Germany, returned to Russia to continue the fight, and was rather predictable imprisoned on bogus charges, and died under suspicious circumstances not too long after.
I suppose in this case, Navalny’s rival in this Hegelian showdown would be either Putin or the monolithic Russian government as an extension of Putin.
At any rate, Navalny’s expeditious and mildly foolhardy return after a close call with Novichok speaks to a desire to prove his worth. To prove himself to himself he wanted to be seen fighting Putin from the front lines, not from the insulation of Western political asylum. The question then arises of Putin’s role in this showdown. Of course, there is debate whether Putin was directly responsible, but for those who know Russia, as I do, this is a distinction without a difference.
Within Hegel’s framework, both Navalny and Putin were aiming to establish self-certainty, not only for the sake of recognition by the counterparty but also in the eyes of a disenchanted Russian electorate. Faced with this scenario, Hegel might assert that Navalny had no choice but to go back, lest he fail to be “recognized as a self-sufficient self-consciousness”(pg. 111, $187).
We can apply this test of mettle, if you will, to many other public-facing steps towards mortality. Some examples that may also be interesting to explore: assisted suicide, suicide by cop, and martyrdom (for any cause).
I thought it was very interesting how you related Hegel’s dialectic to Alexei Navalny’s struggle against Putin. It does properly reflect the life-death struggle to prove self-sufficient consciousness as Navalny was very adamant about risking and sacrificing his life to the cause. You can also somewhat see the “Master-Slave” dialectic also taking place here, as I would categorize Putin as the “master”. I am not sure if Navalny would be considered to be a “servile-consciousness” as he obviously didn’t submit to Putin and actively opposed him. I thought you did a great job at making a connection between Hegel’s writings to something quite important that recently occurred.
I agree with Spencer: Navalny’s recent and tragic case of public resistance to absolute power at the risk of virtually certain eventual annihilation illustrates the key moment of ‘struggle’ in the master slave dialectic really well!
Now, the question Spencer raises about whether Navalny would, in this scenario, be the servile self-consciousness is on the money and deserves further exploration.
In class I spoke of more and less fruitful outcomes of the ‘struggle.’ The dialectically most fruitful one (for purposes of the story of the Phenomenology) was the path Hegel chose: one of the two flinches and decides that ‘staying alive is more important to me than self-sufficiency and freedom.’ Now, that’s clearly not Navalny. So, what would the Hegelian dialectic say about the specific Navalny scenario? What did Navalny prove? What did he fail to prove?
But also: if we follow Hegel and say that the servile self-consciousness contains the seeds of truly self-sufficient self-consciousness (through its experience of fear, labor, and obedience), then what does that say about Navalny? Would Hegel think Navalny’s self-sacrifice was the authentic height of self-conscious independence? Or would Hegel say that a dramatic self-sacrifice of this sort is still an inauthentic form of self-consciousness, perhaps too single-mindedly heroic or idealistic, too unconcerned with the biological basis of life, to be the genuine freedom of a fully realized self-consciousness?