Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Elements of the Philosophy of Right' and 'Explanation: the state of play'

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3 ideas

25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / a. Just wars
Wars add strength to a nation, and cure internal dissension [Hegel]
     Full Idea: Not only do peoples emerge from wars with added strength, but nations troubled by civil dissension gain internal peace as a result of wars with their external enemies.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 324 add)
     A reaction: I suspect that Hegel quite likes wars because they accelerate the development of history. I don't think he would have written nonsense like this after WW1 and WW2. Leaders facing internal dissent like small external wars.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / a. Aims of education
Children need discipline, to break their self-will and eradicate sensuousness [Hegel]
     Full Idea: One of the chief moments in a child's upbringing is discipline, the purpose of which is to break the child's self-will in order to eradicate the merely sensuous and natural.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 174 add)
     A reaction: A standard view for his time, no doubt. No sensible parent doubts that children need to be civilised, and taught to recognise the needs of others. I hope the general aspiration in our society to 'break' a child's self-will has now faded away.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
     Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes.
     From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078
     A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book.