Hegelian Synthesis

There is a guy who sits everyday in Euro class. He's not a student, or at least not a high school one. His scruffy clothing, reliance on coffee, and stately square glasses give him the air of a slightly unruly grad student, probably getting a PhD in one of those cutesy-dutesy liberal arts majors. His wardrobe consists of wrinkled dress shirts and Crick-like iterations of monochrome sweaters. The hair is cropped and straight , the kind of looks like it's graying even though it really isn't. Face up, he looks like a younger Mr. Beck, though he is much taller--maybe a bit too tall for comfort since he has a hunch, much like the model Zulema so berated on Project Runway (Okay, weird comparison, but it's true.) Everyday, he sits in our class and observes. I think he is a student teacher being mentored by Green.

So Green promised to explode our minds today, but the closest my brain has ever gotten to exploding was imploding out of boredom. Today's discussion on Hegel and German nationalism followed this pattern, dulling my alertness until I was ready to check into Sleepsville like every second period. Strangely enough, however, the class actually got somewhat into Hegel and his philosophy. For me, second period isn't the height of my critical powers, and I usually accept all presented philosophies without a second thought, scrawling it into my notes to decipher another day. This evidently isn't the case for some, since I could really detect a hint of ire in Laurel's voice when she questioned Hegel's elitist views on Germany.

I should make clear that I really don't like the philosphy-lite approach that Green takes to teaching Euro. His lectures on Descartes, Bayle, Voltaire, etc. have struck me as oversimplified and twisted to fit the arguments of his grand scheme of history. He tries to philosophize and teach history at the same time but really just does a poor job of both. Actually, what really bugs me is that he tries too hard to incorporate the often off-base responses of my classmates, which only ends up warping the original philosophies of the thinkers. Not that I'm the final authority on any subjects philosophical, but I do mean it when I say Euro is philosophy-lite. Yes lite, not light.

So back to the whole brouhaha of German eliticism. The fact that Green linked the ideas of Hegel directly to Nazism (a bit too explicit, no?) probably set off a few alarms. But still, that our class was so averse to Hegel really surprised me, still in my semiconscious stupor.

In steps Mr. Guy Who Sits in Our Class. I'd never really paid much attention to him before, though he did strike me as endearingly geeky. But don't you love it when people pleasantly surprise you? He made a compelling defense of Hegel, bringing up a interesting comparison of the state to a house. I was totally blown back by this...really, this made more sense than anything Green had droned on about for 35 minutes. At the end of the class, he made a remark about how Hegel's German nationalism corresponds exactly with the predominant American conscious. Yes, I completely agree again! Thank you for schooling those people who so hypocritically criticize the nationalism of other countries. From a sociological perspective, it is perfectly normal, and desirable, to believe your "group" is superior to others.

From now on, I will pay complete attention to everything this guy says because his two lines have shown more insight than Green has shown all year. (At least on a percentage basis. Small sampling size be damned.) I should probably try to find out his name first. Okay, stalking time.