Introduction to Hegel: Philosophy in the Sopranos

why would Hegel if he were alive today sit and read the ancient Greek dramatists Sophocles while binge watching The Sopranos well there's a lot of philosophy in The Sopranos and of course the story of the New Jersey mobster takes psychology as its central theme but I think the focus of the show which ran for six seasons between 1999 and 2007 his Tony Soprano's torn identity his existential questioning about who he really is and the ever looming threat of nihilism not least because of James Gandolfini's performance the questions about individual identity and our relationship to the state in the 21st century or I think what makes the series so enduring it's all about the question of who a person really is their search for some stable meaning in life and the antagonism between how someone is expected to act and how someone wants to act Tony is a mob boss a family man a businessman an Italian and American a Catholic and on top of this is torn between being a good and a bad person many of Tony's problems come from these identities coming into conflict causing him existential crises if he were alive today I'm going to say that The Sopranos would be Hegel's favorite show he'd binge it over and over unfortunately for Hegel he lived around the turn of the 19th century though he witnessed the French Revolution and Napoleon's rise in defeat but like Tony Soprano he was searching for some kind of meaning in life he was searching for direction and he realized that for there to be meaning in life there had to be meaning in history was it God that had some grand plan was there a God if not what was moving us forward if anything Hegel's answer to these questions began quite simply he said that the he three of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom he thought that freedom evolved over time but the rest of his philosophy and how he comes to that conclusion is notoriously complex Hegel looks at European history from the Greek city-states to the rise of Christianity to the Reformation the French Revolution and the modern liberal Prussian states that he lived in and he concludes that political and social systems developed to produce an increasing amount of individual and societal freedom he thinks that the way we understand the world the way we come together evolves over time this was decades before Darwin was writing when he looks at conflict and argument he sees two competing ideas battling each other the better way of living wins those who are more free more self-aware and better motivated fitter wiser etc they are going to win he sees history as a kind of mathematical progression through which a universal harmony of interests is developed he sees this happening on a personal and societal level literal and abstract as well for Hegel history progresses dialectically through the development of theses antipathies and synthesis where thesis is just a way of doing something whether it's a chess technique a form of government or a way of fighting a war or building a computer a thesis always comes up against an opposing technique or mentality an antithesis Hegel says that the best parts of the thesis will subsume the best parts of the antithesis and a synthesis of the two will emerge the dialectic process will continue until the best way of doing something develops this is Hegel's philosophy of science and logic and history and it's all driven by what he calls Geist Geist is that ultimate freedom that angle that rushon that we're moving towards one of Hegel's most famous concepts is the negation of the negation and it's difficult to wrap your head around but say I have a view of something and you have a competing view in a discussion your view if it's right it takes something away from my view my understanding it negates something in me I'm potentially wrong about it and I seek to make sure the time right and negate that negation to get rid of it to confirm that I'm doing something the right way but Hegel says that there's usually some truth in both views and so if we're rational which we are according to him because it's rationality that drives history the views synthesized and we move forward it's a kind of negotiation and imagine this happening across an entire society negations are constantly being worked out and negated a scientist might have a hypothesis someone disagrees ideas get synthesized and we move to have a more complete understanding of the world so what's this got to do with Tony Soprano the show centers around Tony's visits to therapy in an attempt to treat his panic attacks like a Greek chorus or a Shakespearean soliloquy this plot device allows us to get inside the character's head to hear his thoughts out loud what we see is a head of conflicting identities primarily torn between being a good family man and a ruthless and effective mob boss like Hegel's dialectic this is a thesis and an antithesis that can't coexist they are a contradiction within Tony's head most episodes center around themes that question what it is to be in the mob or to be a husband or to be a family or an Italian or a Catholic and how they all come into conflict I think the episode called college in season 1 illustrates all of this well Tony and his daughter meadow on a trip looking around colleges for a few days the episode starts with meadow asking Tony whether he's in the Mafia at first Tony is offended but eventually acknowledges that some of his business activity is illegal meadow is trying to understand her father's identity and when he acknowledges it's a reconciliation about the truth is made a synthesis of two opposing views about who Tony is in Meadows head scenes like this one also highlight the question of identity in The Sopranos yeah Branagh Emile a real student at Casa soprano and she looks like one of the models run out of a daily invoke the episode is about different identities being incompatible with each other there is a dialectical process of trying to either have each other coexist or to get the other to recognize the way you live and the reasons for it Tony explains why there weren't many options for the Italian people to justify why he does what he does while Tony and meadow are away Carmela Tony's wife has dinner with the local priest she too is torn between supporting Tony and her family and being a good Catholic but this tension is increased further by father Phil's conflict between his faith and abstinence and his desire for Carmela there's even a scene where father Phil gives Carmela a book about different religions again competing ways of viewing the world meanwhile on their trip Tony sees an FBI informant who went into the witness protection program again he is torn between looking after his daughter who gets too drunk and the codes of the mob he eventually murders the informant he could have had someone else do this but he clearly enjoys it after he kills him he looks up and sees ducks flying his first panic attack back in episode 1 happened after a family of ducks that had been living in his pool migrated in therapy dr. Melfi that the Ducks may have represented his own family leaving him after this he has to lie to meadow about where he's been and she gets offended that he's lying to her then in the next scene he sees this quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne in the university it says no man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which one may be true so why would Hegel like all this so much Hegel found the tension between family life ethics and the state particularly important for the movements of history he especially liked the story of Antigone by the ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles who Tony has a lot in common with in the play written around 441 BC brothers Etta Cleese and polyneices are meant to rule Thebes together alternating their duties each year by decree of their father after the first year though Etta Cleese refuses to step down and Polynices goes to war with him and they kill each other in a duel their closest relative Creon then becomes king he declares that polyneices must not be buried he must be left to rot he decides that the rule of law peace is more important than any war or insurrection and Polynices brought misery Antigone is polyneices and eteocles sister for the Greeks not burying someone means they won't get into the afterlife so this decree by the new king is traumatizing for her she literally can't live with it she attempts to bury her brother only to be called and Creon the King asks if she thinks she's above the law Hegel points out that these are two conflicting positions one of the rule of law of civil society what's right for the community and one of familial values and how the family is when it comes down to it more important to someone than the rest of the community like The Sopranos Antigone is a tragedy about what happens when values contradict each other and how they have to work out these contradictions in some way usually to the detriment of the characters Antigone refuses to refrain from burying her brother Creon refuses to let Polynices be buried Antigone ends up being imprisoned and hangs herself the points of Antigone is that to do the right thing the moral and ethical thing for her she has to be a criminal pay galleon ISM has been hugely influential in philosophy most notably through Marx's belief that the final synthesis of history would be communism and Hegel's philosophy is still argued over today whilst coming under scrutiny particularly for its view of history as being liberal broadly linear and Eurocentric one thing we've learned since Hegel is that history isn't quite as rational as he thought for me reading Hegel helps to look at things differently to try to take the opposing view to see what it has that I don't and to think about what a balanced synthesis might look like as well as taking a long view of history and shifting identity who knows though whether Tony Soprano's story is a tragedy like Antigone's or ended optimistically like Hegel would probably have hoped [Music] if you want to support than annoyed and there's a few ways you can help you can of course subscribe like and share below and importantly click that Bell to be notified of new videos you can also support me on patreon where you'll get access to scripts and audio early I answer questions and can put your name and the credits for as little as a dollar a month thanks to my existing patreon supporters also if you're thinking of buying something on this topic if you do so through my amazon link below in the description i'll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you all of which helps the channel act massively thanks for watching and see you next week

Channel: Then & Now

Views: 61,690

Rating: 4.8922157 out of 5

Keywords: Then & Now, Then and Now, History, Philosophy, Politics, introduction to hegel, philosophy in the sopranos, phenomenology of spirit, dialectics, hegelianism, logic of science, lectures on the philosophy of history, understanding hegel, negation of the negation, sopranos analysis

Id: WwtsKgsZAtM

Length: 13min 22sec (802 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 18 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/nahuatlwatuwaddle]

Saving this shit for later, thank you OP

[u/lewlewwaller]

This is an introduction to the basic concepts of Hegel’s though through the Sopranos. It argues that because of the similarities with Antigone by Sophocles, Hegel would like the character of Tony Soprano and the contradictions that arise from his torn identities – Italian, catholic, American, mobster, family man, good and bad person. Tony’s existential crises manifest as a symptom of him trying to reconcile and synthesise these conflicting theses.

Tony Soprano is used to introduce concepts like the dialectic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis), Geist, the negation of the negation, while going on to compare him to the story of Antigone, the tragic figure who had to chose between the ethics of the rule of law and the ethics of familial love. Finally, it summarises the influence of Hegel’s thought.

[u/probablylamecomment]

As a big fan of the Sopranos I was happy to learn about Hegel through the actions of Tony Soprano. Thesis -- Anti-thesis -- Synthesis, the refinement of knowledge, the negation of the negation. Pretty cool.