Has the American continent been "the land of the future"? Hegel and the Americas 200 years later

Abstract

By considering America to be a «new» continent «by virtue of its wholly peculiar character in both physical and political respects» Hegel reproduces the increasingly dominant image of America in the Europe of his time. This image crystallized in the context of the consolidation of the colonization process. According to Europeans, the inhabitants of the colonized lands were far less civilized than the inhabitants of Western Europe. Not a few thinkers found the explanation for that cultural difference in the natural difference of the respective geography, climate and race. In this general framework, Hegel considered the American Indians as people without history; as for the history of America after its conquest and colonization, it is in his eyes nothing else than an episode of the history of Europe itself. Insofar as it is through Europe´s history that human beings have attained self-consciousness of their essence, namely, freedom as autonomy and self-determination, Europe seems to be a non plus ultra of the ideological development of humanity. However, as seen from the 21st century the intellectual and political history of Europe can hardly be identified with the full awareness of the value and dignity of each human being as such. Since the countries of the American continent rely on the principle of civic nationalism and not on that of ethnic nationalism, which is typical for Europe, they mean in this respect a step forward with regard to the «principle of the European mind».