UNDERSTANDING HEGEL 16
OR: NO MORE THESIS — ANTITHESIS — SYNTHESIS

Win Corduan

Part 16 Hegel, Bauer, and Marx

The so-called Right Wing Hegelians ("RWH" from hereon out, both as noun and as adjective), were fighting it out with the Left Wing Hegelians ("LWH" ). The RWH believed that Hegel was an orthodox trinitarian theist, while the LWH maintained that whatever orthodox views Hegel might have expressed theologically only existed in his writings as stages to be transcended by his philosophy. When you came right down to it, they argued, Hegel was an atheist and pantheist. (I'm not sure how you can apply both labels meaningfully at the same time; they appear to me to be either inconsistent or redundant, but they I can't change that.) 

As we now know, The Trumpet of the Last Judgment over Hegel the Atheist and Pantheist had actually been written by Bruno Bauer; it was a scathing denunciation of Hegel  from the point of view of a conservative Christian who methodically exposed the anti-theistic and anti-Christian statements supposedly in Hegel' writings. If you think about it a little longer, you may realize that publishing this pamphlet in this particular style was about as brilliant a move as a Left Wing Hegelian could make in support of his case. If he were simply to give an exposition of Hegel that supported his own point of view, everything he said would be questionable as to content and motive. His opponents could accuse him of deliberately slanting his interpretation of Hegel so as to suit his case. In fact, as we mentioned already, the debate between the left and right wings was a noisy and passionate one. We need to take into account that it's not really plausible that the Trumpet would have come from the RWH since an RWH would insist that his own interpretation represents the correct reading of Hegel; it makes no sense to think that he would write an exposé of Hegel's supposed atheism. The recognition of Hegel's alleged perniciousness would have to be attributed to someone outside of Hegelianism altogether, let's call him Jerry Dobson. Then Bauer's case would really be strengthened. He could say, "Look, it's not just me, the liberal, who's saying this, but even Jerry Dobson acknowledges that this is the correct reading of Hegel. Only, he repudiates it, while I embrace it, but we're both agreed on the fact that this is the message that Hegel is really conveying."

This is the pinnacle of good rhetorical strategy. Whenever you can mine the opposition's records for expressions that validate a premise of yours, particularly if your opponent rejects what you do with that premise, you have gained a lot of plausibility for your case. So, if you can find such indirect support for your view in the opposition's writing, that's great. If not, you can always make like Bauer and invent one.

The Rise and Fall of Bruno Bauer. Our trumpeter was one of Hegel's best students. After Bauer had completed his degree, he stayed around Berlin for a while, teaching a few courses. He was a theologian by label, not a philosopher, and he appeared to be a devoted member of the Hegelian Right. Among his students and friends was the somewhat younger Karl Marx (1818-1883). [Thus, making my little cartoon picture anachronistic, but I'm just displaying Marx in his most recognizable appearance. Actually, Bauer was nine years older.

Not only is the transformation of Bauer from RWH to LWH unclear; it is not even certain that there was a real change. Bauer was far more interested in biblical criticism and theology; he was an opponent of Christianity in general, and did all he could do to take the Jewish element out of what he considered a proper reading of the New Testament. If there was a change it coincided roughly with the time of his move to Bonn, his first (and last) official teaching job. In Bonn he and Karl Marx apparently collaborated on the clever Trumpet, though the main credit usually goes to Bauer, and Marx's only contribution may have been to giggle along as Bauer was reading out loud what he had written.

Bauer was now professor of theology in Bonn, contributing to the theological formation of Catholic priests (since the Rhineland was overwhelmingly Catholic). It turned out, though, that Bauer himself fit the description that he had satirized in the Trumpet, viz. open atheism.

Furthermore, we're not talking about the kind of confused pseudo-atheism that would be advocated in the twentieth century by, say, Thomas J. J. Altizer, who wanted to dismiss God and retain Christianity. The newly emerging Bauer was not fond of Christianity at all. He saw it essentially as a poor appropriation of the Hellenistic philosophy of Stoicism, and he believed that Judaism actually had not much of a role in the formation of Christianity. Not that such an association would have improved Christianity in his eyes, because, as Bauer continued to teach and write privately, he, too, became increasingly vocal in his anti-Semitism. Thus, despite his attempts to become a test case for academic freedom or to depict himself as martyr to the Prussian government's infringement on academic freedom, he was deprived of his lectern.---Academic freedom means that, if I'm hired within the bounds of the clearly stated principles of my institution as, say, professor of history, there is no limit as to what I may study, teach, or publish as academic work in history, even if others consider my conclusions to be false, unfounded, or absurd. This freedom is maintained with the practice of granting academic tenure. However, I would not have a license to step outside of my area and start to provide instruction in, say, dentistry or chemistry. Academic freedom has no vertical limit, but of necessity it must have lateral boundaries, if you can follow that description. 

One must add that the Catholic Church had little confidence that Bauer was preparing his students for later priesthood, since Catholic theology, is insisting that priests or congregations should not dismiss God from their faith. It's simply not done. So, the new Prussian minister in charge of religion, his identity as a Protestant notwithstanding, cancelled Bauer's position in Bonn. 

 Bruno Bauer had a brother named Edgar, and they promoted their views together. But neither of the Bauers association with Marx was to last forever. In fact, if "forever is a long time," it didn't even come close. Politically, Bruno Bauer was not a socialist, and, thus, particularly when Marx's association with Engels had solidified further, the split became inevitable, and it came fast. The Trumpet was published in 1841; in by 1844 Marx and Engels wrote The Holy Family, or, The Critique of the critical Critique: Against Bruno Bauer and his Accomplices, a howling satire of post-Hegelian thought as embodied by Bruno Bauer and his brother Edgar, who constitute the "Holy Family" in the title. Bauer received the title "St. Bruno," and their leading associates were endowed with similar canonizations. Edgar Bauer (1820-1886) was politically by far the more radical of the two brothers, promoting anarchy in word and deed. After some time in jail and then in exile in England, followed by a stint of working for the Danish secret police, Edgar was able to return to Germany, becoming increasingly conservative. He ended his days as editor of a church paper.

Marx and Engel's point, as one can guess, was that neither the theoretical expostulations by Bruno Bauer nor the random acts of terrorism that "St. Edgar" advocated at the time, would take the world any closer to improving the economic lot of the proletariat. And, thus, we can leave Bruno Bauer, the trumpet having been sounded over him by the same man who, only three years earlier, had played in the same brass duo with him (so to speak). Bauer retired from public life and lived out his career writing tomes devoted to biblical criticism.