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Is It Still Possible to Be a Hegelian Today?
von Slavoj ZizekCan one still be a Hegelian after the post-Hegelian break with traditional metaphysics which occurred more or less simultaneously in the works of Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Marx? After this break, is there not something inherently false in advocating a Hegelian “absolute Idealism”? Our wager is that the “official” post-Hegelian anti-philosophical break (Schopenhauer-Kierkegaard-Marx), although it presents itself as a break with idealism as embodied in its Hegelian climax, ignores the crucial dimension of Hegel’s thought, i. e., it ultimately amounts to a desperate attempt to go on thinking as if Hegel did not happen – the hole of this absence of Hegel is, of course, filled in with the ridiculous caricature of Hegel the “absolute idealist” who “possessed absolute knowledge.”