Not What We Wanted, But All That We Get

This thesis addresses the opposition between the Left and the Right, using Hegel’s philosophy and dialectical method. The approach to Hegel’s philosophy taken by Slavoj Žižek and Todd McGowan was followed. From a Hegelian perspective, the present is not only the present, but also encompasses the past immanent to it. A historical reconstruction of the development of the Left and Right thus allows for analysis of the present as well. The opposition between the Left and the Right is an ideology that disguises the contradiction that underlies both their positions, which is that social order is unavoidably contradictory since existence itself is contradictory. The opposition between the Left and the Right springs from their stances on what the present social order should be replaced by. The Right sees a resolution of the social order’s contradictions in an undisturbed past and the Left in a future when all antagonism is overcome. Moreover, the Right and the Left express two necessary sides to achieving subjective freedom. The communal constraint that the Right emphasizes is necessary to make self-consciousness and appreciation of freedom possible. The contradiction between existence’s necessary dividedness and the Left and Right’s unacceptance of this is what drives the dialectical development of the social order that they together realize. Both sides of social order, the dialectical Right and the speculative Left, are necessary parts of the dialectic that makes progress of the social order possible. It is concluded that freedom can only be achieved by discarding ideology and facing the contradictory nature of existence. I argue in favor of McGowan’s reading of Hegel that is more radical than that of Žižek in this respect. Instead of accepting contradiction and hoping to someday overcome all contradiction, we must sustain and further contradiction by insisting on non-contradiction. Above all else, we must thus not give up our struggle for freedom but continue to change the conditions of our struggle.