Hegelian Drift in Modern Culture

 Part 1 in the Series: How Hegelian Thinking Shapes Our World

Many have never heard of Hegel, but almost everyone feels the effects of his ideas. One of the most influential is his view that truth evolves through conflict and compromise. Instead of holding firm to a standard, Hegel’s system assumes:

• Every conviction (a “thesis”)

• Will be challenged by its opposite (“antithesis”)

• And the two will merge into a new, blended idea (“synthesis”)

Then that new synthesis becomes the starting point for yet another compromise cycle.

The result?
A culture that no longer believes truth is fixed — only “evolving.”

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1. Culture has shifted from conviction to negotiation

In previous generations, culture still had anchored moral assumptions — family structure, personal responsibility, male and female distinctions, objective right and wrong.

Today we see something different:

• “Live your truth.”

• “My truth and your truth can both be valid.”

• “Morality is a conversation, not a command.”

• "Do your own thing!"

That is Hegelian to the core:
Truth is not something you hold; it’s something you shape through compromise.

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2. Cultural values now change by manufactured tension

Much of modern entertainment, news, and social media functions on this pattern:

1. Create conflict

2. Highlight opposing views

3. Wear people down until they accept a blended middle

4. Call the blend progress

5. Repeat

People grow exhausted by constant cultural battles.
When tired enough, they accept the “synthesis” simply for peace.

But each synthesis is usually one step away from historic standards and one step toward a redefined norm.

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3. The drip effect: slow, steady downward drift

Our nature tends toward the path of least resistance.
That’s why Hegelian drift slants downward, not upward.

Given enough cycles:

• entertainment normalizes what used to shock

• language morphs to erase distinctions

• humor desensitizes

• social pressure rewards compliance

• disagreement becomes “hate”

Not because society “studied and improved,” but because it compromised itself into comfort.

Hegel’s system gives a philosophical excuse for moral erosion.

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4. A culture trained not to resist

A Hegel-shaped society becomes:

• less anchored

• less convicted

• less courageous

• less certain of anything

• and less capable of saying “No, that’s wrong.”

Truth becomes flexible clay.

Convictions become optional.

People become “tolerant” in the sense that they have nothing solid left to stand on.

That’s the end product of Hegel’s cultural influence:
A society so committed to blending opposites that it forgets there ever was a right and a wrong.

By the way I'm in this boat  with you and we're bailing as fast as we can.

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Coming Next (Part 2): Hegelian Thought in Education

We’ll look at how classrooms, curriculum, and even teaching philosophy have adopted Hegelian patterns — sometimes openly, sometimes unknowingly.