In fact, nothing is unconditioned; nothing carries the root of its own being in itself. [Subject and object, man and matter,] each is only relatively necessary; the one exists only for the other, and hence exists in and for itself only on the strength of a power outside itself; the one shares in the other only through that power’s favor and grace.
Hegel, “love”
Since I first read these words in college, I’ve often found myself muttering them to myself. Nothing is unconditioned. Nothing carries its own root within itself. It’s from Hegel’s “Fragment on Love”. While I am not a strict Hegelian, it has always been the shortest way for me to describe my understanding of history, as well as many other things
We tend, especially when we are young, to think that our consciousness and our experience of it is entirely self-sufficient. We exist, perhaps only we exist. This kind of solipsism is natural, but completely untenable for the historian.
Hegel suggests that consciousness depend on each other for existence. One cannot exist without an Other. Each is conditional, conditioned on the being of the Other. A consciousness floating in a void of objects would have no meaning, no being. We are entangled, dependent, rooted in each other for our own understanding of ourselves.
This applies not just to individual consciousnesses, but to history. Our moment is conditioned by other moments. There is nothing in history that exists sui generis. Nothing comes from nothing. To study history is to acknowledge our interdependence, to realize that nothing stands on its own, to see that Self and Other constantly create each other.
So, this is why I teach history. To push against the solipsism and individualism that fuels capitalism, war, and despair. To show that what is made can be unmade, remade into something better. To prove that we are bound together, inseparable.