Hegel, America, and the Crisis of the Sittlichkeit

This paper examines the contemporary comprehensive crisis of legitimacy in the United States as a collapse of ethical life (Sittlichkeit), the historically constituted unity between individual will and the objective institutions that structure social existence. It begins by tracing Hegel’s critique of Kant’s moral formalism (Moralität), showing that freedom must be grounded not in abstract autonomy but in the rational institutions through which individuals recognize themselves in society. Following Hegel and scholars such as Terry Pinkard, Charles Taylor, Robert Pippin, Michael Lazarus, Karen Ng, and Slavoj Žižek, the paper argues that ethical life is actual when individuals experience their belief, purpose, and actions as continuous with the shared ideals and practices of the community. When this alignment fractures – when institutions are no longer experienced as rational or authoritative – a crisis of ethical life emerges. Drawing from Hegel’s account of Sittlichkeit and a Marxist critique of capitalist political economy, the paper contends that the United States is in the midst of such a crisis. What persists is not an actual ethical life organically grounded and necessary, but a hollowed-out structure experienced as arbitrary and artificial, sustained through mutual misrecognition rather than genuine belief. The result is widespread alienation, distrust, and disunity between people and dominant institutions. The paper concludes by arguing that the only path forward lies in constructing new institutions – dual power formations – grounded in collective freedom, mutual recognition, and human flourishing, which can serve as the basis for a renewed ethical life.