Absolute Freedom and Terror

III. Absolute Freedom and Terror (§582-595)

As the individual self-consciousness identifies with the whole, it understands itself as the universal. The individual will becomes the universal will. The goal of will is utility. The universal will, however, uses its utility because to will an action the will-er must be singular, unique. Even the government discovers this problem, as it must become individual to will one definite thing. As the universal will constantly dirempts into individual representations of it, class and function differences again arise, throwing Spirit back to the beginning of the dilemma. Again, the Spirit runs into a paradox of intention and the impossibility of carrying it out.

The Spirit leaves this realm of paradox for a world in which it is free: the realm of absolute freedom. The Spirit leaves behind the essential negativity of the universal will / individual action dichotomy, and enters a world in which it is sure of its will, divorced from specificity (therefore consequences).

A note on this section: Hegel's comments on the government necessarily becoming "individual" does not apply well to the kind of democracy we have today. Would Hegel say anything different now, with more evidence of functioning democracies, or would he say that the arguing voices in our government is exactly why we, as a country, can't will one definite thing?