For Hegel plasticity means mobility and freedom, opposed to rigid virtue

Evidence

In all these instances ‘plastic’ clearly stands for that which ‘has the character of mobility’. In comparing Athens to Sparta, Hegel describes the former as the cradle of ‘plastic individuality’, the exemplary home of ‘great industry, excitation and stimulus, intense development of individuality within the sphere of a moral spirit (eine große Betriebsamkeit, Regsamkeit, Ausbildung der Individualität innerhalb des Kreises eines sittlichen Geistes)’. But in Sparta, ‘we see on the other hand a rigid, abstract virtue (die starre abstrakte Tugend), a life devoted to the State. But in which the mobility and freedom of individuality are repressed (aber so, daß die Regsamkeit, die Freiheit der Individualität zurückgesetzt ist)’, (p. 262, translation modified; Suhrkamp 12, p. 319). — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1305

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the core contrast: plastic individuality as mobility and freedom of individuality against Sparta’s starre abstrakte Tugend (rigid abstract virtue) — the two poles of plasticity’s Greek exemplars.
• XREF: This Athens/Sparta polarity directly underwrites the plasticity-vs-brittleness axis that later reappears in Malabou’s own brain-plasticity work, where plasticity is set against rigidity. — connects to: Plasticity for Hegel means the future exceeding itself and time exceeding itself — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 210; Plasticity constitutes the unforeseen future within and of Hegel’s philosophy; Hegel’s plasticity joins a capacity to receive form with a capacity to produce form — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 228 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Plasticity means mobility of character, not rigidity or abstract virtue #corroborates (0.95)
• Hegel’s plasticity joins a capacity to receive form with a capacity to produce form #expands (0.85) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 228
• Plasticity for Hegel means the future exceeding itself and time exceeding itself #expands (0.82) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 210
• Freedom depends on theorizing the plasticity of transition #expands (0.78) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 229
• Plasticity constitutes the unforeseen future within and of Hegel’s philosophy #expands (0.75)