"In an Islamic perspective, the emphasis has always been on Wisdom—and hence, Policy—because Wisdom arrives from the future. Then you'll argue, 'That's seemed from a mystical point of view, but, are there any philosophical ideas support it?'" The moon opened a theme after saying Basmalah and Salaam."Philosophers spend a good deal of time in reflection," she wnt on, "and hey produce ideas, at times strange ideas. Over time however, the ideas of Philosophers have changed the course of human events all over the planet: Philosophy is entirely identical with its time. So, if philosophy is identical with its time, is there a sense in which revolutionary philosophers bear the spirit of their own age in so far as they arrive from the future? Might it be the topos of exile of what mostly belongs to us, to our time; the distant within and the within in the distant. If the revolutionary thinker does indeed come from afar, his/her arriving must be the measure of our own distance from the future.Plato is perhaps the paradigm case of the revolutionary philosopher in our sense of the philosopher arriving from the future. According to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a German philosopher, the idea of the just polis that Plato formulated in The Republic was the most philosophically thinkable in Plato’s time. Even though Plato’s ideal was so far from the then given state of affairs that it seemed hardly recognizable to his contemporaries, it was nevertheless out of its thinking that Plato was able to comprehend the rational moment embedded in the sophists’ polis in which he lived. Having elaborated his ideal city, a city powerful enough to accommodate the philosopher, Plato was then in a position to cross the abyss between the ideal and the real in order to re-visit and once again embrace his own city as a whole. His thinking showed the city of Athens to be part of the world of the thinkable and in doing so it brought together the ever-changing finite body of the city with its eternal idea.For this reason, the city that condemned the philosopher to death, could nonetheless be thought as part of an ongoing becoming that oriented it toward a future. For Plato this future was thought in terms of the polis of justice in which Plato the philosopher dwells conceptually and from which he arrives, albeit invisibly, to be welcomed by those who are prepared to think in the embrace of his thinking. Having arrived from afar in a way that also made it possible for him to dwell in the world in a radically immanent manner, Plato didn’t lose himself, like a tourist, amongst the shiny trinkets and the trivialities of market life. Nor did he abandon himself to the shallow wisdom of the local. rather, as the bearer of the ideal and in so far as he found the strength to withstand the infinite schism between the real and the ideal, his thinking entirely embraced the historical moment of his world and thus allowed the spirit of the age to manifest itself with his thought. Herein lies the determination of Plato’s thought as revolutionary philosophy that arrives from the future in its own precise moment.In this respect Plato the philosopher came to give effect to the conceptual transformative power of the revolutionary practice of his time, in a way that Socrates before him, was unable to conceive. Plato’s thinking grew out of Socrates’ failure to convince Athens to re-enact itself in accordance with the principle of radical self-knowing. Although we can say that in his capacity as a revolutionary, Socrates also comes from the future, only the philosopher succeeds in thinking what the revolutionary practice announces but fails to achieve. So the thinking of the philosopher takes place in the retreat of the future that the failed revolutionary practice announces. This was the fate of philosophical thinking in Plato’s time.So, what about Hegel's own view? Hegel took history seriously. In contrast to Kant, who thought he could say on purely philosophical grounds what human nature is and always be, Hegel accepted Schiller’s suggestion that the very foundations of the human condition could change from one historical era to another. This notion of change, of development throughout history, is fundamental to Hegel’s view of the world.Hegel’s Philosophy of History contains a good deal of historical information. One can find in it a kind of outline of world history, from the early civilizations of China, India, and Persia, through ancient Greece to Roman times, and then tracing the path of European history from feudalism to the Reformation and on to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.Hegel accepts the view that the French Revolution was the result of the criticisms of the existing order made by French philosophers. France before the Revolution had a nobility without real power, but with a confused mass of privileges which had no rational basis. Against this utterly irrational state of affairs the philosophers' conception of the Rights of Man asserted itself, and triumphed.Yet, the immediate result of this ‘glorious mental dawn’ was the Revolutionary Terror, a form of tyranny which exercised its power without legal formalities and inflicted as its punishment the quick death of the guillotine. What had gone wrong? The mistake was to attempt to put into practice purely abstract philosophical principles, without regard to the disposition of the people. This attempt was based upon a misunderstanding of the role of reason, which must not be applied in isolation from the existing community and the people that make it up.The French Revolution itself was thus a failure. Its world-historical significance, however, lies in the principles it passed on to other and particularly to Germany. The short-lives victories of Napoleon were sufficient to bring about within Germany a code rights, to establish freedom and freedom of property, to open the offices of the state to the most talented citizens and to abolish feudal obligations. The monarch remains as the apex of government and his personal decision is final; yet because of the firmly established laws and settled organization of the state,what is left to the personal decision of the monarch is, says Hegel, 'in point of substance, no great matter’.But Hegel obviously did not think of his Philosophy of History as merely a historical outline. Hegel himself said that ‘the philosophy of history means nothing but the thoughtful consideration of it’. While this may be his own definition, however, it conveys a less than adequate idea of what Hegel is up to in his Philosophy of History. What Hegel’s definition leaves out is his intention that the ‘thoughtful consideration’ of history should seek to present its raw material as part of a rational process of development, thus revealing the meaning and significance of world history.Hegel says that the whole object of the Philosophy of History is to become acquainted with Geist—the spirit of an individual or group—in its guiding role in history. Without some knowledge of this idea, therefore, one can have only a partial grasp of Hegel’s view of history. In the Philosophy of Right, too, the concept of Geist is never far away. Hegel refers to the state, for instance, as ‘objectified Geist’.In German the word 'Geist' is common enough, but it has two distinct,though related meanings.It is the standard word used to mean ‘mind’, in the sense in which our mind is distinct from our body. For example, ‘mental illness’ is Geisteskrankheit literally, ‘mindsickness’. Geist can, however, also mean 'spirit’ in the varied senses of that English word. Thus ‘the spirit of the age’ is der Zeitgeist.Philosophers are challenged to experience philosophy as such as the happening of Zeitgeist. Through its happening, Zeitgeist has explicitly become the age of key Hegelian concepts understood, not as themes, but as happenings of thinking itself, whether of history, the future, manifestation, alienation, recognition, otherness, reconciliation or philosophy. Zeitgeist is an invisible agent or force dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history. Zeitgeist can be interpreted as an atmosphere that exists or arises in every society, which seems to be a 'mysterious' consensus, which is characterized by being able to change relatively quickly or dynamically, not statically, characteristic of a certain historical time level, as a whole, in all areas of life.Then, what are the implications of the Zeitgeist? Since 2001, Google has published the yearly Google Zeitgeist. Google Zeitgeist is a collection of talks by people who are changing the world. On the basis of a statistical analysis of its search queries, the company provides a number of interactive graphs depicting what people have been most interested in during the past year. In an explanatory note, the developers write how in their view, the zeitgeist—being 'the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era—becomes visible 'through the aggregation of millions of search queries Google receives every day.Hegel believed that culture and art reflected its time. Fashion has become what art had wanted to be: the Zeitgeist expressing itself in visible form. Its stage is no longer the aristocratic salon or the gatherings of select society at the theater, opera or racecourse. Fashion is now made, worn and displayed, not by the bourgeoisie or the aristocracy, but on the street. The great cities–London, Berlin, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Rome–are the theatrum mundi on which it makes its entrance. Baudelaire’s irresistible passerby, carried by the crowd, with a flourish of seam and frill, past the spectator-poet, his red-haired beggar woman, craving cheap costume jewelry, are early symptoms of this change of scene. They indicate a new relation of beauty and ideal, one which continues to exercise a latent effect until the end of the following century.Hegel believed that culture and art reflected its time. Fashion has become what art had wanted to be: the Zeitgeist expressing itself in visible form. Its stage is no longer the aristocratic salon or the gatherings of select society at the theater, opera or racecourse. Fashion is now made, worn and displayed, not by the bourgeoisie or the aristocracy, but on the street. The great cities–London, Berlin, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Rome–are the theatrum mundi on which it makes its entrance. Baudelaire’s irresistible passerby, carried by the crowd, with a flourish of seam and frill, past the spectator-poet, his red-haired beggar woman, craving cheap costume jewelry, are early symptoms of this change of scene. They indicate a new relation of beauty and ideal, one which continues to exercise a latent effect until the end of the following century.In June 2020, barely six months since the pandemic started, the world is in a different place. Within this short time frame, COVID-19 has both triggered momentous changes and magnified the fault lines that already beset our economies and societies. Rising inequalities, a widespread sense of unfairness, deepening geopolitical divides, political polarization, rising public deficits and high levels of debt, ineffective or non-existent global governance, excessive financialization, environmental degradation: these are some of the major challenges that existed before the pandemic. The corona crisis has exacerbated them all. Could the COVID-19 debacle be the lightning before the thunder? Could it have the force to ignite a series of profound changes? We cannot know what the world will be like in 10 months’ time, even less what it will resemble in 10 years from now, but what we do know is, we do something to reset today’s world."Laluna closed the topic by singing,
Roda jaman menggilas kita[The wheel of time is crushing us]Terseret, tertatih-tatih[Dragged, limping along]Sungguh hidup terus diburu[Truly life continues to be hunted]Berpacu dengan waktu[Race against time]Tak ada yang dapat menolong[No one can rescue]Selain Yang di sana[Other than the One out there]Tak ada yang dapat membantu[[No one can assist]Selain Yang di sana *)[Other than the One out there]
Citations & References:Afterwards, she said, "The Age continues to revolve beyond human control. Indeed, every man should use their hearts and minds to be able to answer the call of the age—Zeitgeist, otherwise they will be crushed by the wheels of time. And Allah knows best."
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, Cambridge University Press
- Paul Ashton, Toula Nicolacopoulos and George Vassilacopoulos (Ed.), The Spirit of the Age, re.press
- Alexandre Kojeve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, Cornell University Press
- Peter Singer, Hegel - A Very Short Intoduction, Oxford University Press
- Barbara Vinken, Fashion Zeitgeist, Translated by Mark Hewson, Berg
*) "Menjaring Matahari" written by Ebiet G. Ade
