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The hatred of academics for the 'Occident' began of course with the 19th century German anti-rationalist and incoherent theorist Hegel. Hegel was the first of the power-seeking, professional academics, men drowning in theory, incapable of working in reality, and desirous through ideas, to dominate their society. Hegel was the most powerful 'intellectual' – a moniker which should be reserved for those who can't think – in the early to mid nineteenth century and who developed nonsense parading as historical inevitability. Hegel's stage theory was the basis of 19th and 20th century fascism. It was Hegel who laid the pattern of academic Western hating – a cancer today which has spread to nearly all the soft-'intellectual' disciplines and which has changed Western culture for worse.
Hegel was a disaster and one whose impact was sadly profound. Like most academics he was incapable of real work. He came to the fore in the early part of the 19th century as a 'philosopher' – a rather meaningless term ascribed to anyone with strange ideas which are incomprehensible. He became a professor and researcher during the time of Napoleon and lasted until the age of Marx. Indeed Marx was one of his students.
Hegel's so-called 'great contribution' to mankind was the nonsense that history and society move in some sort of dialectical arrangement. Opposing ideas and cultures will meet, synthesize and repeat the process. Through this recombination of opposing forces, society will move in a certain direction. Those who understand the prevailing ethos of the forces at work, can by definition, help to control the direction of mankind. This idea was and is of course, a lot of gibberish and anti-rational mystical nonsense.
Hegel's fantasy world leads to the impersonalisation of mankind and anti-humanism. There are no stage progressions in history. History is complicated. Events happen for many reasons. Individuals are often decisive. There is no mass of inexorable forces at work, nor some collective clashing of ideas which are re-synthesized into something new. Society is shaped by many factors including the elitist view of the world, the culture of those who are running society, education, the media and the links of traditions, history, blood, alliances, geography and economics, to name some notables.
Hegel's work is about as real and as pertinent as the theories underlying Globaloney Warming. They are irrational and anti-scientific and are not supported by facts or evidence. Herein lies the academic world of mysticism – facts and reality are indeed unimportant. What is important are ideas and how the academics can use them to attain power. It is power which fascinates the academic, not human life. Indeed most academic theories around society, history and civilisation are decidedly anti-humanistic. The greatest defenders of the fascism's of communism, Hitlerism, Islamic extremism, Castro, Chavez or China have always been academics.
The more violent the ideology of anti-humanistic hate, the more interested the academic becomes. In 1806 Hegel declared that Napoleon represented the end of man's development and that the world would better off under the control of this 'super man'. Thus the academic's glee at the end of history – a millenial pre-occupation which informs the university world to this day. Hegel's 'idea' of the super-man [or his stupidity in declaiming the 'end of history'] would give rise to German supremacist ideas embedded in Wagner, Fichte, Heidegger and Nietzsche of the super-man-will to power and the creation of a new world through the magnificent of a new leader, who will develop a new man and a new society and destroy the old. Everyone knows where such ideas ended up.
Hegel's anti-humanist 'collective' remark and his support of a pre-cursor of 20th century fascism – Napoleon – of course never hurt his career. He want on from that point to write even more nonsense which had a far greater impact on the development of man.
Hegel loved power. Like most academics he was in love with himself, viewing his own efforts as the gigantic struggle of shedding light onto the uninformed masses and denuded peasants – to give them some glimpse of higher truth and power. His stage theories are so opaque and meaningless, that we owe to Hegel the concept of academics not as a mission to understand reality, or to question fact and natural law or to add knowledge or skill to society, but as a career dedicated to little points of arcane matter, with no connection to the world of humans or of rationality. It was Hegel who fully developed the great uselessness of academia. It was for him, simply a tool to get close to power.
Hegel was high in the German pecking order of power. His stupid ideas and ravings impressed the powers of the German court, monarchy and military. His opinions were sought after. It was Hegel who helped develop virulent German nationalism, turning 'stage theories' into a pre-text for German greatness and inevitable domination. This then became the purpose of Hegel's gibberish – to inform Germany that the synthetic arrangements of history would predict her dominance of Europe. And we all know where that idea ended up.
Like most academics today Hegel hated the West but was a complete and utter hypocrite about its blessings. He hated modernity - but enjoyed its comforts. He hated the individual - except himself. He hated markets - but demanded that Germans buy his books. He hated working - except on what he deemed important. He hated money - but wanted alot of it for himself. He hated the chaos of a liberated society - except where his own freedom was concerned. He hated uncertainty - unless he was the one with the answers. He hated free speech - except that of his own. He hated anything which could not fit into his little toy models of thought. He hated anyone who disrupted or disapproved of his anti-humanism. He hated that the modern world would give rise to more individualism, more markets, more business and more freedom - items that the academic could not control.
Hegel was the archetypal academic hypocrite and control-freak.
Like most academics today, Hegel simply hated the Western tradition. Ironically it was this tradition which gave this mediocrity his power and his purpose. Sadly Hegel's fascistic outlook and anti-humanism is alive and well in every corner of the academic world today. Which is why university is becoming increasingly a meaningless endeavor – one of propaganda – not one of inquiry and free thinking.
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