ABSTRACT

The concepts of mechanism and organism are among the central tools that these German thinkers use to conceptualize the relationship between society and the state. The purpose of this chapter is to prepare the way for discussing this issue in Hegel by looking at how his Romantic predecessors use the concepts of mechanism and organism in a political context. The chapter will admittedly be selective, pursuing mainly the thought of J.G. Herder, Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis, so as to give a coherent picture of some of the most significant political theorists in Germany to develop an ‘organic’ notion of society. Hegel’s political thought is radically different from that of the Romantics, mainly because of the difference in how Hegel conceives of the relation between society and the state: while the Romantics follow Herder in viewing the organic forces of culture, religion and moral custom as the real core of society, and thus see modern political institutions as incapable of providing a unifying core for society, Hegel’s mature political thought is occupied with the vital function that new, modernized political institutions must play in giving a truly sustainable form to evolving social practices. For the Romantics, society is to be seen as ‘organic,’ while the modern state is ‘mechanistic.’ Further, because of the ontological nuance that they give these notions, the mechanism of the state cannot be reconciled with the organism of society, and can only act in a destructive manner upon it. For Hegel, on the contrary, society is mechanistic, since it is driven primarily by the engine of people’s individual desires to fulfill their selves through participating in exchange, while the state represents at least the possibility of taking this ‘mechanistic’ substratum and giving it a form that is organic, i.e. a form of more pervasive integration and sustainable sovereign activity. Thus for Hegel, the notions of mechanism and organism are not irreconcilable antitheses, but two distinct organizational aspects of any social body that can and should coexist in a truly realized modern state.