Q.Examine critically Hegel's conception of the state and its relation to the individual.
Ans. HEGEL'S THEORY OF STATE
Hegel's political philosophy aimed at the complete reconsruction of modern thought. It regarded the state in high erms. The state is the final embodiment of world-spirit. It is the final stage in the process of social evolution.
1. Dialectical Evolution of Spirit: In his analysis of the origin and nature of the state, Hegel started with the assumption that the ultimate reality in this universe is Spirit of Reason, which seeks to reach the final form of revelation through the process of dialectic. Man is the highest physical embodiment which reason has attained. Beyond man, there is no further physical evolution of Reason. On the non-organic side, Reason unfolded itself first in the form of the state. Family, according to Hegel, is the first embodiment of Reason on its social plane. But family is too small for the adequate satisfaction of all needs of man with the result that men left for bigger unit which is the bourgeois society. This society is the antithesis of family and comes into conflict with it.
2. Origin of State: As a result of conflict between the family (thesis) and the society (antithesis), the state (the synthesis) is born. State preserves what is best in the family and the society but swallows neither of them. Instead it gives harmony to both. Thus, state is a super organism which isboth family and society raised to higher power. To quote Hegel, "The essence of the modern state is that universal is bound up with the full freedom of particularity and the welfare of individuals, that the interest of the family and of burgeois society must connect itself with the state, but also that the universality of the state's purpose can no be advanced without the specific knowledge and will of the particular, which must maintain its rights. The universal must be actively furthered, bit on the outside subjective must be wholly and vitally developed. Only when both elements are there in all their strength, can the state be regarded as articulated and truly organised".
3. Suprme Importances of the state: Hegel thus, putls a much emphasis on the state. He called it the 'divine idea on earth', the manifestation of the spirit in its march on history. State was to history what the individual was to biography. It was the actualisation of freedom, the embodiment of reason, the image of a rational conception. It was a perfected rationality.
4. The state as true ethical order: The state is the true ethical order. It was the incarnation of general will and true freedom. Theindividual consisted of obeying the laws of the state and looking it as his substantive purpose and the foundation of his self.
5. Collectivism: The state is something that stands over and above the individuals and other organisations in society. It is collectivistic or organic. It is not a sum total of the individuals who are its members.
own 6. End in itself: As the highest and perfect embodiment of reason state is an in itself. It has a will and personality of its 3 different from and superior to the wills and personalities of the individuals who constitute it.
7. State as super organism: The state has interests, it has passions and can act as an individual. And since it embodies the universal principle of reason, it can nevr be defeated, it can never be wrong.
8. State is not contractual: Sir Earnest Barker says that in. the state man has fully raised the outward self to the level of his inward self of thought, his free will has found the broadest expansion which its positive quality demands and, and the highist expression which its objectives character requires.
9. Dynamic concept of state: Hegelsl conception of state is not a static one. It describes the state as a relative organisation an expressing at each stage of its development of the degree of rationality at which mankind has arrived.
