Maturation into the universal is achieved only at the cost of vitality

Evidence

This opposition to universality defines the period of adolescence. The young man feels ‘stirring’ in himself ‘the life of the genus’ which ‘seeks satisfaction’. However, Hegel states, the youth believes wrongly that this satisfaction is to be attained by transforming the genus itself and by actualizing his own ideal. Only the mature man is able to recognize ‘the essential nature of the world already in existence, completed’. Through work, the mature man ‘finds his place in the world of objective relationships and becomes habituated to it and to his tasks’. He makes himself thereby ‘conformable and adequate to the universal’ and it is in this fashion that he can ‘present perfectly the genus’. But by this very fact his vitality begins to wane and he becomes an old man. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 299

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the dialectic of the ages: conformity to the universal is precisely what extinguishes vitality.
• XREF: This maturation-vs-vitality tradeoff maps onto the plasticity/determination tension in the reader’s brain work. — connects to: Universality is the primitive soul’s initial stage, not its final truth — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 327; Demographically mature societies lack the vitality to be expansionist — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 671; Only vital biological needs hold an unqualified claim to satisfaction. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 116

Broader Connections

• Demographically mature societies lack the vitality to be expansionist #exemplifies (0.85) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 671
• Universality is the primitive soul’s initial stage, not its final truth #qualifies (0.80) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 327