Abstract
Published at a time when social movements all over the world are reviving, and there is a crucial need for theory to analyze and connect these movements nationally, regionally and globally, Andy Blunden’s Hegel for Social Movements is a genuine attempt and a timely contribution, though it bears notable stylistic, formatting, and conceptual shortcomings. The goal of the book, Blunden notes, is to offer “an interpretation of Hegel’s writings which is appropriate to the needs of the social change activists of our own time” (p. 7). In light of this stated objective, the book aims to be an introduction to Hegel’s philosophy, making Hegel “accessible and relevant” for contemporary social change activists (p. 9). However, the book remains an unsubstantiated attempt at reinterpreting Hegel, without establishing an accessible and balanced argument capable of connecting the proposed theoretical reading to contemporary social movements globally.
Hegel for Social Movements is divided into four parts. Following the Introduction, Part 2 discusses Hegel’s Logic and Part 3 focuses on The Philosophy of Right. The last chapter aims to be an overview of Marx’s criticism of Hegel and establishes conclusions for the social activism based on the study of Hegel. Contending that “it is the norms of human activity which are the subject matter of Hegel’s logic” (p. 5), Blunden suggests that Hegel is the philosopher of social movements as his logic provides the theoretical ground for any movement interested in changing social norms. In line with Walter Kaufman, Charles Taylor, and Robert Pippin, Blunden reads the concept of spirit in Hegel as “human activity.” His approach departs from this literature, however, as Blunden’s “activity” is essentially synonymous with “social practice”; an understanding he has shaped through Soviet cultural psychologists and activity theorists. In conclusion, Blunden proposes the necessity of collaboration and building solidarity between social change “projects” as a solution to the problem of socialism and to build a movement of self-emancipation. As a study on the logic of social norms, and a contribution to the dialectical conceptualization of consciousness, the book discusses subjects foundational to the field of adult education and all interested in critical education.
As an introductory book to Hegel for social activists, the book provides insights on Hegel’s life, his philosophy, expands on its influence, and points to some of its theoretical and temporal limitations. However, the language of the book remains inaccessible for its stated audience in many sections and only sporadically helps activists relate their contemporary activism with the philosophical discussions. Also, introducing or citing some other key texts on Hegel would have helped the reader better understand the range of debates on his philosophy. Blunden reads Hegel’s idealism as an objective one, arguing that the content of thinking in Hegel’s theory is objective. It is noteworthy that in foregrounding Hegel’s objective idealism the author limits his critique of and reference to materialism to mechanical materialism and neglects elaborating on Marx’s dialectical historical materialism. Paula Allman’s (2007) On Marx is a good example of how an “introductory” book can remain true to its scholarly and pedagogic objectives, while conveying the author’s specific reading of the philosophy in an accessible manner.
The understanding of Blunden of the zeitgeist of the time is reflected in his description of the scope and demands of the social movements as well as his analysis of the methods for connecting “collaborative projects.” Blunden argues, “The left itself now already looks like so many independent projects” (p. 273). Contending that the time of coordinated activity of millions of people have long gone, the author claims that “projects” (i.e., collaborated actions) have become the unit of social change, both in theory and in social reality. According to this formulation, what remains crucial for social movements is to learn how to collaborate with other projects; this is where Blunden expands on the need for solidarity. According to him, the principle of solidarity demands for any project to participate in the struggle of other projects under their direction. This departmentalized and project-based unit of analysis reveals that the social activism addressed and theorized in this study is mostly limited to the local and national settings in the context of Western societies. Reading the book at a time when mass street protests in Hong Kong, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Chile, Bolivia, and several other places in the world are occurring, and are brutally suppressed by the ruling states, the concluding analysis of the book written based on the idea that revolutionary and mass street protest have disappeared from the spirit of the time, fails to theorize the complex set of strategizing and learning needed to build solidarity between national, regional, and global movements in an increasingly global capitalist, imperialism social order.