Inspired by “The Net (31)”
Is there something fundamentally transformative about a “return” that we simply cannot gain from staying? Can releasing something to return us back to a previous state change that previous state?
This is a short piece meant to highlight an idea discussed in “Hegel’s Justification of Hegel” by O.G. Rose, as found in The Absolute Choice, which was also discussed in “The Net (31).” In Science of Logic, Hegel is in the business of exploring and discussing not just “a category of” x, y, or z, as Hegel is not interested in “the thought of” x, y, or z. Rather, Hegel is interested in “the category-as-such,” meaning what arises to a category, what proves to the be the source of the category, and how a category is applied. Similarly, Hegel is not so much interested in thoughts but “the thought-as-such,” which is to say an examination of how a thought moves and “unfolds” in itself. This is a strange notion, but if we can grasp it we can better understand what Hegel is trying to accomplish in his Science of Logic. How do categories arises? How do thoughts move?
In addition to “category-as-such” and “thought-as-such,” I would like to add “return-as-such” and “release-as-such.” By this, what I mean to say is that there is something that occurs in the act of leaving a notion and returning to it that changes us, which couldn’t occur if we stayed in the notion and never left it. This seems odd, for if “we start in x,” then we’re in x; likewise, if we “return in x,” we’re in x — what’s the difference? Well, it would seem something happens in “the return-itself” which is transformative and important, and it really doesn’t matter “what” we leave and return to: what matters is “the act of returning itself.” Empirically though, there’s no difference between “staying in x” and “returning to x,” and yet in Hegel there is a critical difference. The movement itself changes us, or at least it can: where there is “a return,” there can be “a (re)turn.”
It doesn’t matter if we start on a farm or start in a city, for it is “the return-itself” which contains the transformative power. Likewise, many cultures have different understandings of “the human subject,” and the idea of personhood found in one country might be profoundly different from the notion of “Western personality” which emphasizes the individual ego. And yet regardless if we start in “Subject Notion 1” or “Subject Notion 2,” what matters is leaving that idea of self and returning to it. With whatever abstraction we start with, we must negate it, and in this we make possible a sublation of our original abstraction, changing it forever, even though it seems to be the same subject. For Hegel, it is “the return-as-such” we should focus on and consider. The mystery is in the movie.
Similar to “the return-as-such,” there is the consideration of “release-as-such,” by which I have in mind how we seem to gain something in gaining an ego we let go, versus if we never developed an ego in the first place. For the Kyoto School, we start in a “Pure Experience” (before Lacan’s “Mirror State”) where we are yet to sense a “subject/object divide,” which basically means we lack individuation, meaning the ego hasn’t formed. We later though develop an ego, which begs the question of if we would have been better to simply stay in egoless “Pure Experience” or if something special can be incurred by gaining an ego we then let go, versus us never develop an ego in the first place. For Hegel, indeed, there is a significant difference between “releasing the ego” and “never having the ego,” even though it seems “for all practical purposes” there is no difference at all. Yes, “releasing the ego” means we have to develop an ego, which comes with all kinds of risks (as leaving common life for the Ivy Tower entails necessary risks in Hume), but these are risks Hegel seems to believe we must take on. Otherwise, a transformation we need cannot be experienced; a sublation must be lost.
Now, there are forms of return and release which can prove detrimental, such as a desire to “return to the womb” in Freud or a release of something that we’re afraid to keep, so we are not claiming that any and all “returns” and “releases” are good. However, there are certain “returns” and “releases” that are very important, and they seem to have something to do with more “macro” and even “metaphysical” entities like egos, lifestyles, or the like. The notion of the self, for one, is something we need to “(re)lease,” while home also seems to have something to do with “(re)turn” (not that we must “move back home,” but we do need to “face home” for “true infinity”). The details of this have to be examined, but to go about this examination as well, Hegel wants us to understand that our focus should be on “the return-as-such” and “the release-as-such,” not so much on what is left and returned to or what is held and released. When we are interested in a journey to “(no)where,” it is indeed the journey that proves to be the end.
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