Response to Frances Berenson's "Hegel on Others and the Self"

Response to Frances Berenson's "Hegel on Others and the Self"

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I'd like to start off by saying that this was the most difficult to understand reading I've probably ever done. Or at least, in a while. On the first read-through, it was mostly at the end that I drew the biggest connection (at the time) to the University, when Berenson describes Hegel's consideration of the Master-Slave relationship. "...each person only fully recognizes his own conscious being and belittles any claim to other self-consciousnesses...each self seeks to assert his own claim to other self-consciousness even at he price of destroying the life and self-consciousness of others..." While this does not tie directly into our discussions of humanitarian aid, it does tie into the lack of empathy and appropriate aid-like action toward those on the receiving end. For example, in some of the other articles and podcast such as NPR's Fresh Air with Farmer, where he mentions a general "lack of will" by community leaders and those with influence to provide much-needed [HIV/AIDS] aid, Hegel's idea relates in such a way that describes those people's perceived selfishness and priority of self-preservation. Hegel also speaks about another idea that ties in with an idea important when working with humanitarian aid; empathy. Empathy is essentially the full understanding of another being's way of life and emotions, which differs from sympathy in the level of depth. Hegel says that self knowledge can't only be reached by concentrating on oneself; rather, it must take into account "examination of [one's] relationships with others". In this case, personal interaction with those who need the help versus those who have all the resources to help but choose not to (or in some cases, do).

Honest note: I have no idea whether this reading is supposed to tie into the previous articles, but the ideas within are interested nevertheless (when I can understand the language). And it is much easier to understand some ideas in context with other, "related" ideas.

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