Tentative Response - Hegel

Application 2:  The election of Trump has often been seen as the ‘spirit’ of a particular, important set of people. How would you describe that using Hegel’s terms and analysis?

Hegel’s phrase World Historic Individuals is reserved for people who play a major role in shaping world history. He believes that people are not aware of the spirit, that is a force that humans are not aware of, and the role of the World Historic Individual is to make humans conscious of the spirit in order to establish a new state. Trump represents a silent minority in the United States, that is frustrated with the status-quo, or current state, of the American political system. Americans were not conscious of the way this population of people were being being ostracized by globalization, both technologically and socially. Trump was “the spirit of the people,” bringing their concerns to the forefront of the election. With his election, there was a union of the human will to freedom and the abstract spirit, which is infinite and universal. What this means that Trump’s America, or the new state, is built through the particular wills of the frustrated minority. Hegel also separates subjective morality from universal principles, which he claims is outside of the scope of philosophical history. As a result, Trump’s personal character is exempt from scrutiny under this lens.