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Why are people sometimes unable to change, even if they want to? Why is it so difficult to change political institutions, or to abandon outdated ways of thinking? This book suggests that we can understand the phenomenon of resistance to change in individuals and institutions by returning to Hegel, one of the most influential philosophers of historical and political change. Hegel exposes the paradox inherent in the notion of resistance: on the one hand, resistance to change is necessary to allow for identity and survival in a changing world, and to make stable societies possible; on the other hand, resistance to change also causes obsolete, irrational or repressive ideas and institutions to persist.
This book not only presents a theory of inertia, a concept of great importance for philosophy and political theory, but also offers a wide-ranging interpretation of Hegel's philosophy, discussing his views on the will and on habits, on obsolete institutions and revolutionary transformations.
"This is an original, provocative and utterly compelling reading of Hegel that systematically dismantles the old-style myth of Hegel as the ideologue of inexorable teleological progress (ultimately stabilized by an endpoint of reconciliation and rest). In recent years it has become almost de rigueur - whether from a "non-metaphysical," Lacanian, or new materialist perspective - to challenge that myth by discovering in Hegel a far more unsettled thinker of radical difference, contingency, and finitude. Bart Zantvoort discovers something far more unsettling: Hegel is a thinker of stuckness, stagnation, inertia, and delay. Contradiction is not only the motor of development and progress but can be its greatest obstacle; the ultimate contradiction is between movement and stasis. He shows that it's possible and necessary to move beyond a "left-Hegelian" critique or condemnation of ossified institutions, convictions, and habits, and to give an account of why and how these persist. In this wide-ranging and sympathetic (but by no means apologetic) reading of Hegel's major texts, Zantvoort tracks the many varieties of this persistence, from the individual to the social, from the psychological to the epistemological. At a time of unbearable psychic and political paralysis this should be an essential reading." - Rebecca Comay, Department of Philosophy / Center for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, Canada
About the author
Bart Zantvoort
is a lecturer in continental philosophy at Leiden University. His research focuses on the relation between social change and resistance to change in individuals, institutions and social structures more generally. He is the co-editor of
Hegel and Resistance
(2018) and
Reimagining Europe
(2024).
Summary
Why are people sometimes unable to change, even if they want to? Why is it so difficult to change political institutions, or to abandon outdated ways of thinking? This book suggests that we can understand the phenomenon of resistance to change in individuals and institutions by returning to Hegel, one of the most influential philosophers of historical and political change. Hegel exposes the paradox inherent in the notion of resistance: on the one hand, resistance to change is necessary to allow for identity and survival in a changing world, and to make stable societies possible; on the other hand, resistance to change also causes obsolete, irrational or repressive ideas and institutions to persist.
This book not only presents a theory of inertia, a concept of great importance for philosophy and political theory, but also offers a wide-ranging interpretation of Hegel's philosophy, discussing his views on the will and on habits, on obsolete institutions and revolutionary transformations.
"This is an original, provocative and utterly compelling reading of Hegel that systematically dismantles the old-style myth of Hegel as the ideologue of inexorable teleological progress (ultimately stabilized by an endpoint of reconciliation and rest). In recent years it has become almost de rigueur – whether from a “non-metaphysical,” Lacanian, or new materialist perspective – to challenge that myth by discovering in Hegel a far more unsettled thinker of radical difference, contingency, and finitude. Bart Zantvoort discovers something far more unsettling: Hegel is a thinker of stuckness, stagnation, inertia, and delay. Contradiction is not only the motor of development and progress but can be its greatest obstacle; the ultimate contradiction is between movement and stasis. He shows that it’s possible and necessary to move beyond a “left-Hegelian” critique or condemnation of ossified institutions, convictions, and habits, and to give an account of why and how these persist. In this wide-ranging and sympathetic (but by no means apologetic) reading of Hegel’s major texts, Zantvoort tracks the many varieties of this persistence, from the individual to the social, from the psychological to the epistemological. At a time of unbearable psychic and political paralysis this should be an essential reading." - Rebecca Comay, Department of Philosophy / Center for Comparative Literature,
University of Toronto, Canada
