According to Hegel, the “life of Spirit” is not bare life, which merely “shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation”; rather, it is “life that endures devastation and maintains itself in it.” Spirit owes its liveliness specifically to the capacity for death. The Absolute is not “something positive, which closes its eyes.” Rather, “Spirit looks the negative in the face and tarries with it.” It is absolute because it dares to venture into outermost negativity — which it incorporates, or, more precisely, encloses within itself. Where the purely positive — positivity to excess — prevails, no Spirit exists.
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Byung-Chul Han discussing Hegel & Spirit:
According to Hegel, the “life of Spirit” is not bare life, which merely “shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation”; rather, it is “life that endures devastation and maintains itself in it.” Spirit owes its liveliness specifically to the capacity for death. The Absolute is not “something positive, which closes its eyes.” Rather, “Spirit looks the negative in the face and tarries with it.” It is absolute because it dares to venture into outermost negativity — which it incorporates, or, more precisely, encloses within itself. Where the purely positive — positivity to excess — prevails, no Spirit exists.
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