Troy Southgate

Nov 10, 2024

HAVING explained how Absolute Idealism could work in relation to radical decentralisation (see National-Anarchism: Continuing the Romantic Tradition), I now intend to address two accusations that are often levelled at Hegel’s own interpretation of this philosophy.

Firstly, it is claimed that he was inflating the Absolute to the extent that it becomes some kind of abstract super-entity in the way that Plato alluded to hidden universals existing beyond the natural world. Secondly, that he so deflates metaphysics that the universal is reduced to the particular. Both charges are incorrect and I shall explain why this is so.

Hegel, despite his horrifying statism, wasn’t all bad and this two-sided analysis can be reconciled through Aristotle’s distinction between that which is first in order of explanation and what is first in order of being. As Frederick Beiser explains, the

“universal is first in order of explanation because, to determine what a thing is, it is necessary to ascribe universals to it; we define the essence or nature of a thing through its properties, each of which is universal. The particular is first in order of essence, however, because to exist is to be determinate, to be some individual thing.”

In other words, to suggest that the universal comes before the particular should not imply that it is a cause that is prior in time to the particular itself, merely that it is the actual reason behind it. In actual fact, by way of embodiment its reason or purpose comes into existence precisely through that which is particular. For Hegel, therefore, Aristotle’s subtle distinction allowed him to tread a middle path between the inflationary and deflationary interpretations of metaphysics.

If we relate this idea to National-Anarchism, the “universal is first in order of explanation” on account of providing the umbrella beneath which the particular “as first in order of essence” can thrive. So to suggest that the universal (anarchism) precedes the particular (community) is not to suggest that it is the direct cause, only that the underlying principle comes to fruition in each of its particulars. Thus, National-Anarchism lives through its diverse communities in the sense that it has taken form and this process echoes Absolute Idealism perfectly by reminding us of the way divinity is constantly taking shape through nature. Furthermore, rather than await any kind of distant utopian future National-Anarchism is immanent in the here and now.