Hegelian History Article

Elliott Weinberg
Western Civalization

History is the study of the past and how it will affect the future due to what happened in the past. You can see this is most in the Hegelian study of history. The Hegelian study of history is basically a cause and effect kind of history. It states that each action has an equal and balanced reaction.
One way the Hegelian way of studying history is better than the other three ways of studying history is that this history can teach us more about why things happened in the past, not just that they took place. When we study history we want to look at not only the events that happened in the past but the things and events that caused them to happen and why. Everything has a reason as to why it happened. For one example, the civil war didn’t just happen because people wanted to fight each other. The north and the south disagreed so much on so many important issues that each side thought that they needed to go to war to resolve those problems. Wars usually happen because two sides or groups of people disagree on a matter. Other wars happen because of events that happened before them. Take Pearl Harbor for example. The Americans didn’t necessarily want to fight the Germans and the Japanese but since they bombed Pearl Harbor they weren’t going to let that happen without a consequence. By studying what caused the war, we can learn how to avoid them.
Another way the Hegelian way of studying history is better than the other three ways to study history is that this type of history looks at the consequences of our bad decisions. Every action we do has a result or consequence to it. If you don’t do your chores for example, you’re going to get in trouble. If you start a war, the consequence can be very costly in terms of the loss of people and, in some cases, total governments. By studying the consequences of bad decisions, we can make better decisions in the future.
Even though there are a lot of bad consequences that can come with decisions, there are also a lot of good results that come out of decisions. One example of this is when we do charity acts all over the world like helping Africa fight their AIDS epidemic and helping to get them the food, water, and supplies that they need to survive. The most recent way we have been helping people is what we are doing to help the people of Haiti after the earthquake that just hit them. We have been sending food and doctors over there to help the wounded. Some families have also been adopting children of Haiti that are orphans now because the earthquake killed their families. Many of these acts have been started because if we study our history, we know that is better for everyone if we help people when there is a natural disaster rather than letting them try to recover by themselves.
Another way the Hegelian way of studying history is better than the other three ways to study history is that this type of history is a step by step type of history. Even though it is cause and effect, other things happen in between those two events that allow the outcome to change. Say one day you are riding your bike down a hill, this would be step one. The next step would be you either fall off the bike or successfully ride down the hill. If you were to fall off your bike, that would be step two. The third step in your sequence would either be getting up from the fall without many bruises, or that you severely hurt yourself and need to go to the hospital. If you would have picked the step as riding down the hill successfully, then you would have had a completely different outcome. This outcome would be finishing riding your bike and then going home. These steps in between the cause and effect are just as important to the final outcome as the cause and effect are. By studying these in between steps, we can learn to look at options for planning our future activities.
The Hegelian way of studying history is better than studying linear history because linear history just gives you the important things that happened and when they happened. There is no way to know why things happened. The Hegelian way to study history focuses not only on twhat happened and when, but also focuses on the way we react and respond to these various events that are happening around us. The Hegelian history also focuses on not just the important parts of history, but also focuses on the smaller things in history like what you did yesterday. The Hegelian history provides an explanation for us as to what will happen in the future based on the events that happened in the past. Linear history only covers the events but does not apply them to the future or give a possible solution or explanation as to what could happen based on the events that have already happened.
The Hegelian type of studying history is better than the cyclic type of studying history because the cyclic type of history states that the circle of life is never ending. Using this way of looking at history, you are born, then you die, and then are born again. This is different from the Hegelian history because the Hegelian history happens in steps not cycles. In the cyclic history there is no end, it keeps going and going forever. The Hegelian history has an end but there are steps you need to take in order to get to the end. Hegelian history is more useful because it has a resolution or outcome to a group of events whereas in cyclic history, events just keep going and going on without an end. Since there is no end, there is no resolution of a group of events.
The Hegelian type of studying history is better than the vortex type of studying history because in order for you to move on in the vortex history, a civilization needs to be destroyed for a new one to form in its place. The Hegelian history does not need to have one thing destroyed for another thing to take its place; it just needs to have the next step in the process to move forward toward the outcome to the event.
Using the Hegelian type of studying history, we can learn the most from our past actions and apply what we learn to our future decisions. For this reason, I think that the Hegelian type of studying history is the best.

Citations :http://www.historicalinsights.com/dave/hegel.html - "Hegel's Philosophy of History." Historical Insights: The House Detective and Genealogist. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. .

http://gyral.blackshell.com/hegel/heghist.html - "Hegel's Philosophy of History." It's a real word. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. .

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hegel.jpg - "File:Hegel.jpg -." Wikimedia Commons. Web. 30 Jan. 2010. .