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Originally Posted by Sadre Spinegnawer [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

For Hegel, "the labor of the negative" is another name for human history.

A human being faces the constant objective reality of their own negation -- end, ruin, death, etc. This is a logical opposition, because the human being is definitively *not* a negation, but is "the being who affirms."

We make claims. Constantly. We claim, which means we are not a negation but an affirmation. A negation simply ends, or is "never-ending ending."

History is the long story of human beings struggling against that which would negate them. Since Hegel was not a nihilist, his view was, eventually we end this labor. History for Hegel is not Sisyphean -- just damn long, and a "slaughterbench" [Hegel's own term!].

This thread, if Hegel is correct, bears testimony to the long labor of the negative. Of Spirit spending blood to try to get past the blood. And that is why I always say, quoting my dear friend,

The eschaton cannot be immanentized. Stop trying, everyone dies!

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