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hegelian egirl core members

Hegelian Egirl Council

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Related Explainer: What Is The 'Hegelian Egirl Council?' The Controversial Online Philosophy Group Explained

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About

The Hegelian Egirl Council or Hegelian E-Girl Council, often abbreviated as HEC, is a group of e-girls who subscribe to the Hegelian school of philosophy and look to spread the concept of dialectics online. The three most well-known core members of the so-called Hegelian E-Girl Council are Anna (@tenshi_anna), Sanje (@sanjehorah) and Nikki (@returntohegel), who began spreading Hegelianism on X / Twitter as early as May 2024, with the group purportedly starting sometime before this on Discord. There are more than three core members. The group became the subject of memes and discussions throughout mid-2024 for a variety of reasons, including the group's in-drama, the vagueness surrounding what exactly the Hegelian E-Girl Council stands for and does and the absurdity behind the idea of a "Hegelian e-girl" in general. By August 18th, 2024, three of the core members of the group announced their departures from the HEC, criticizing the group for not genuinely engaging in political mediation, but rather, platforming extremists from the left and right to lend themselves intellectual legitimacy.

Online History

The earliest known post to use the term "Hegelian e-girl" was posted on X[1] by @tenshi_anna, one of the core members of the group, on May 27th, 2024, reading, "2024 is the Year of Binah. Hegelian egirl takeover is imminent/immanent," garnering over 90 likes in three months. Later that day, the same X[2] user posted, "Be on the lookout for a new political and intellectual project called Ultraviolet conceived by the Hegelian egirl council as an answer to Infrared."

On May 29th, the same X[3] user posted a photo of herself with @sanjehorah, another of the group's core members, captioned, "The Hegelian egirl Enlightenment is upon us," garnering over 1,100 likes in two months (shown below). In the photo, both women are wearing shirts with the cover of Hegel's work The Phenomenology of Spirit on them. X[4] user @returntohegel is the third core member of the group.


anna kw @tenshi_anna The Hegelian egirl Enlightenment is upon us. nomenology pirit EGEL'S omenology Dirit TRANSLATED BY AY MELL, WITH ANUSIS OFF RD FOREORD BY CLAY HEGEL'S 7:23 AM - May 29, 2024 -90.8K Views тем WITH A--- ARATED DY OF TAILLE AND FOREWORD BY INFIN

August 2024 Hegelian E-Girl Symposium / Sanje's Departure Post

On August 3rd, 2024, the Hegelian E-Girl symposium was held in Brooklyn, New York, with X[5] user @returntohegel sharing a poster advertising the event that day (shown below).


Hegelian E-Girl Symposium Hosts: Sierra Armor Victoria Campbell Theo Thimo Nick Dove Coldhealing Chaeli Dylan Smith Saltypickles Matthew Donovan Beyond Woke and Problematic The Political Compass Haela Hunt-Hendrix VIP ONLY BROOKLYN NY, SECRET LOCATION DJs: Netrunnernobody angel Ray Alirq Introducing the Hegelian E-Girls Effy Faithinspirit Maria Star Dull 10 August 3 Doors 8:00pm Speeches 9:00pm Party 9:30pm

On August 4th, X[6] user @matthdonovan (Matthew Donovan), made a post about the party, writing, "Hegelian e-girl party was cool. An unusual mix of platypus socialists, maga communists, jreg, Joshua Citarella, Jamie Peck, theorycels, guy who officiated Curtis Yarvin’s wedding who is homosexual but not gay, tech bros, and a pro-gamer named Rod who hated the party," garnering over 500 likes in two weeks (shown below).


Matthew J Donovan @matthdonovan Hegelian e-girl party was cool. An unusual mix of platypus socialists, maga communists, jreg, Joshua Citarella, Jamie Peck, theorycels, guy who officiated Curtis Yarvin's wedding who is homosexual but not gay, tech bros, and a pro-gamer named Rod who hated the party. 5:03 AM - Aug 4, 2024 318.3K Views ...

Later that day, one of the group's core members, X[7] user @sanjehorah, made a post claiming she left the council a week prior, writing, "my concern is that the HEC project claims to do be doing political mediation but is effectively platforming the worst of both sides and lending them intellectual legitimacy." She posted numerous additions to the thread in which she calls the movement "sub Hegelian," relying on a "vulgar understanding of dialectics," and criticizes the other members for straying from their promises of "political mediation" by propping up potentially problematic people and ideas (shown below, click to expand).


sanje horah @sanjehorah i was one of the core "Hegelian egirls", and i left the Hegelian Egirl Council a week ago. my concern is that the HEC project claims to do be doing political mediation but is effectively platforming the worst of both sides and lending them intellectual legitimacy. i sincerely believe that anna and nikki are good people with good intentions but i am afraid of the consequences of their actions. i played it like i'm a peripheral member, but anna was my best friend and i had been entirely committed to her project and vision even beyond HEC. i was deep on the inside. i know how they operate. i know what they do beyond their takes on twitter. i effectively ran cover for nikki and anna. i was becoming someone i don't want to be. i deeply regret my participation in the project on ethical grounds. sanje horah @sanjehorah Aug 4 a lot of anna's and nikki's standing relies on their general incomprehensibility. it relies on their closest supporters not quite understanding the purpose of this project or how its goals can be achieved by the actions taken. it drew on our willingness to have faith 8 1723 sanje horah @sanjehorah Aug 4 403 Ill 68K 1 their standing relies on the general public not understanding them, but understanding that they are knowledgeable and brilliant and knowing that they are definitely smarter than you 3 116 sanje horah @sanjehorah Aug 4 321 55K what is understandable promises something prosocial and visionary. something people can get behind. something i got behind. thing is, i'm not sure there is any actual valuable philosophical content backing the project sanje horah @sanjehorah Aug 4 when i started doubting this project, i talked to our mutual friends. a lot of them expressed that they feel insane for not seeing the vision or generally confused about the whole deal. a lot of us kept on because we thought it's our personal skill issue 178 1 sanje horah @sanjehorah Aug 4 233 47K when i engaged more with hegel, and talked to people who understand hegel a lot better than i do, i realised that the "hegelian egirl council" is quite literally subhegelian. it relies on a very vulgar understanding of dialectics Edgar @hegelenjoyer · Jul 30 Okay I don't think me and the hegelian egirls are are reading the same hegel I mean zizek I mean lacan 6 1740 427 72K sanje horah @sanjehorah Aug 4 sanje horah @sanjehorah - Aug 4 • after i left, i had expressed to nikki that i think they are misusing hegel she told me that they're inspired by how zizek takes terms from other philosophers and makes them his own by his use applying them to the real world 9 178 sanje horah @sanjehorah Aug 4 244 42K i sympathise with the appropriation of terminology, drawing inspiration from the original but making them your own i think it becomes a lot more dangerous when the intellectual legitimacy it lends is used to forward a political agenda ○ 2 175 221 Il 38K litvrgy had been a close friend of anna's, and in our inner circle witnessing our actual planning process and activities. she is right about the fundamental deceptiveness of this project's promised premises Litvrgy @LITVRGY • Aug 4 Replying to @LITVRGY and @tenshi_anna Belied by the fundamental deception of your project, which is that you are happy to troll leftists but won't make anyone on the right mad, which you privately ‘explain' to your leftist friends as because you need to keep your ‘secreť (aka non existent) leftist views quiet so you Show more 227 sanje horah @sanjehorah this deception of leftists is "justified" because HEC equally deceives the right. anna and nikki have thrown their lot in with the maga communists nikki is openly a member of infrared, an organisation championed by Haz, leading the maga communist movement behind the american communist party I'm secretly the ACP's strongest soldier. Haz recognizes this I think Replying to sanje horah 233 Ill 76K 口 this works because left reactionaries and right reactionaries are happy to entertain each other on reactionary grounds. what is alienated are the centrists and moderates. how can you mediate sanje horah ✔ @sanjehorah - Aug 4 to reiterate, i don't think the HEC are bad people. they genuinely believe in their stated vision. i just think the failure to live up to your promises becomes extremely dangerous when you are granted the leniency to play with political extremism because you promised mediation. when you can't mediate with centrists? ○ 6 18 ❤219 Ill 32K 口↑ 4 sanje horah @sanjehorah Aug 4 i myself am a centrist, an "esoteric neoliberal" in anna's terms. i received pushback at every turn when i tried to keep HEC living up to its promises of political mediation and not become a left reactionary psyop or right reactionary psyop ○ 3 t 10 sanje horah ✔ @sanjehorah 178 ill 32K the deceptive behaviour of HEC continues. i am still not sure if the HEC party venue really received violent threats. perhaps they did. perhaps the explanation is very complicated and would reveal more of something that they don't want to reveal. anna and nikki has not offered an explanation in response to JP's thread. i find this suspicious. 227 sanje horah @sanjehorah Aug 4 158 lil 28K i understand that some amount of machiavellianism and cloutchasing is 1 needed to run an ambitious project like this. i think the HEC goes way above and beyond. ○ 2 273 134 ili 24K 1 sanje horah @sanjehorah Aug 4 i had been complicit in this deceptiveness. my participation in HEC made me realise the limits of my own machiavellianism. ○ 1 271 ❤ 137 ili 23K ☐ 1 sanje horah @sanjehorah Aug 4 i feel defeated. i feel lost. the project still carries the imprint of my soul. people say that HEC is another nyc fad that will fade out. i have too much faith in anna for that. i think it will be big, and then a big disaster. i hope that my words have weight.

Anna's Departure from the Hegelian E-Girl Council Project

On August 17th, 2024, X[10] user and core member Anna made a post announcing her departure from the Hegelian E-Girl Council, garnering over 480 likes in two days (shown below). In the post, she writes that the project "was based on the naive idea of the possibility of brute force convertibility between metaphysics and culture."


I'm announcing that I'll be stepping back from the "Hegelian egirl" project and taking an extended break from most social media as well as the NYC cultural scene. Instead, I will be focusing much more thoroughly on my studies. A full manifesto I wrote in the name of the project (including and expanding on the "mini-manifesto") will still be published in the September edition of ŠUM, which I am looking forward to, mainly as a clarification of my political standpoint and as the first elaboration of some key theoretical concepts I will continue working on (in particular what I'm calling "meta-Christianity"). The fullest lesson I can extract from the "Hegelian egirl" experience is this: it was based on the naive idea of the possibility of brute force convertibility between metaphysics and culture, which can easily be read into Žižek (a reading I'd nevertheless expect him to repudiate), and what it feels like I have learned is that this convertibility is one-sided. Culture can be understood in light of metaphysics, but culture doesn't really help us to understand anything distinctly, it only helps us to enjoy, in the full Lacanian sense of jouissance. The trouble with this cultural jouissance is that it partakes in a violence of the signifier which it cannot rationally avow-my claim is that another (more holy) jouissance is possible, but it has become clear to me that the culture is not ready for it. No matter how liberal or "tolerant" in form, and no matter how resistant to either extremes of populism or elitism, beginning from cultural premises can only ever be reactionary, because they are the premises of the reactive defense of a symptom against possible threats to its enjoyment, not the premises of the discernment of a universal symbolic violence before which the individual's symptom is humbled (what Simone Weil called "decreation"). This is also why I think the universal spirit of Christianity can only be fully carried forward by speculative metaphysics; any identitarian Christian "culture" is a re-paganization. I have no interest, either, in promoting "traditional" or "aristocratic" values (just as I have no interest in promoting "woke" values). Any merit these culturally stereotyped ideas have quickly devolves into self-defeating hypocrisy (that's dialectics at work). There's an underlying contradiction between “mere” culture and the standpoint of absolute knowing in a way that Hegel already articulated pretty well in the Phenomenology of Spirit. I'd add that to reach absolute knowing you have to risk the "loneliness of decision" (in the sense of a separation from the abstract self-alienation of spirit in culture, and the discovery of the concretely irreducible alienation of spirit in its absolute, i.e. divine, limit), so the danger of having a culture which encourages that (a genuine Enlightenment culture in the Kantian sense) is that without sufficient systems of sublimation, the loneliness of decision selects for self-destructive criminality more than it does for intelligence (Hegel already discussed this apropos the passage from the Enlightenment to the French Revolution as "Absolute Freedom and Terror”). I think this has actually happened in much of the West, and to a certain extent I blame Marxism, though paradoxically I think Marxism also contains the seed for the solution. Marx's philosophy is the transformation of freethinking intelligence into criminality, and its premises can be used to endlessly justify the latter clothed in the appearance of the former, though at the same time it's Marx who I think confronts us with the immanent metaphysics of our current form of sociality, which do have to be confronted, in turn, with competing metaphysical possibilities. He was just wrong to assume that the issue could be resolved on the level of culture (in the broad sense, inclusive of class struggle)... nothing can truly be resolved on the level of culture, it is a race to the bottom (i.e., one-sided, sacrificial violence—in the abstractions generated by its secular self-alienation, culture reduces itself to nature, and becomes truly evil through ignorance of its own irreducible evil, a profanation of humanity's divine task). We must make culture more intelligent, not let intelligence get mired in the repetition compulsions of symptom-defending cultural warfare. I am still committed to building philosophical connections with culture outside of academia, but I now think that what is required is principally a spirit of rigorously self-activated pedagogy. This also demands that I hold myself to higher intellectual standards than those I have been holding myself to thus far. "The state of nature is not unjust; for that reason one must leave it." — G. W. F. Hegel.

In response to the post, Sanje, who announced her departure from the group on August 4th, made a comment on Anna's X[11] post about how she tried to warn her of the group's downfalls, writing, "I hope destroying our friendship was worth it" (shown below).


sanje horah @sanjehorah - Aug 17 i told you a month ago that this project was doomed, and you dismissed my every attempt to bring it up as "political disagreements". i hope destroying our friendship was worth it. Q7 127 190 28K anna kw+ @tenshi_anna - Aug 17 It was; I needed out. The political disagreements are real and irreconcilable. Precisely for the reason that the girls I involved in the project are symptomatically incapable of mediation with each other, I have to turn against every one of them. My work is now principally mine alone, and I will not refrain from struggling against the premises in everyone else's project that I see as feeding the sacrificial cycle that my entire orientation is devoted to ceasing. Q7 27 11 sanje horah @sanjehorah 39 ill 32K 1 you hurt me and dismissed me. i begged and begged you to reconsider, you ignored my dms with various amounts of avoidance vs contempt. i vented in frantic, inelegant terms about how this is evil and we are being evil and this isnt cracking eggs to make an omelette bc the omelette we want to make is metaphysically impossible. you always said that hysteria is a message from the unconscious. but even now you won't recognise in yourself how you have ignored the message from the unconscious. how you have failed your principles and your friendship. it's unkind that you would say it's "worth it" to destroy our friendship because you needed out because you didn't like that i was feeding a sacrificial cycle. i explicitly told you that HEC is making me realise that i have been being evil and that it's making me discover ethical limits i didn't know i've had had. but maybe it's too much to ever expect responsibility from you. 8:57 PM - Aug 17, 2024 13.5K Views

Online Presence

On August 6th, 2024, Matthew Donovan published an article on Medium[8] about the party, titled, "I Hosted the Hegelian E-Girl Party and All I Got Was Called a Fascist." The article focuses on the reactions he received to his post about the party to X, with many calling him a fascist and denouncing the HEC as a fascist movement, which they have denied.

On August 9th, Ross Wolfe then published an article on the symposium to TheCharnelHouse,[9] titled, "Preliminary materials for a theory of the Young-Hegelian E-Girl."

Appearance On the Horseshoe Theory Podcast

On August 13th, 2024, the three core members of the Hegelian E-Girl Council appeared on an episode of the YouTube[12] podcast Horseshoe Theory, co-hosted by content creator and YouTuber Jreg, during which they explained Hegel's philosophy, the origin of their group and their aims, garnering over 12,500 views in six days (shown below).

The podcast was likely filmed prior to July 28th, 2024, the day that Sanje purportedly left the HEC, according to her announcement of leaving made on August 4th, although the date of filming is unclear.



Hegelian E-Girl Council Project Ideals / Philosophy

During an interview on the Horseshow Theory podcast, Nikki, Sanje and Anna attempted to explain Hegelian thinking and the ideas behind their group. The group seems to have a focus on spreading Hegel's philosophies relating to dialectical thinking, which centers on understanding change and development in ideas and reality with an ongoing three-step process: a thesis (an idea), an antithesis (a conflicting idea) and synthesis (a resolution combining aspects of both).[13]

Nikki says during the show, "Hegel is more of a signifier for dialectical thinking […] One of the major problems in society today is black and white thinking and the ability to resolve contradiction […] Dialectical thinking helps resolve contradictions."

Anna explains that the goal behind the Hegelian E-Girl Project is to "Introduce Hegelian dialectical thinking into popular conversations outside of academia, and intervene in the existing culture in social media." She explains that on social media, people face an "abyss of freedom" on social media that makes everyone very aware of divisions. The project looks to give people a way of improving their lives and interactions.

According to the core members, the movement is described as having anti-centrist ideals and leans more on the side of "left-Hegelians" than "right-Hegelians." Throughout the podcast, they criticize both members and ideas from the left and right. They refer to themselves as "Hegel-pilled" throughout the appearance.

During the podcast, they refer to Slavoj Žižek as someone who has displayed a good understanding and implementation of dialectical thinking.

Search Interest

External References

[1] X – tenshi_anna

[2] X – tenshi_anna

[3] X – tenshi_anna

[4] X – returntohegel

[5] X – returntohegel

[6] X – matthdonovan

[7] X – sanjehorah

[8] Medium – matthewdonovan

[9] TheCharnelHouse – Preliminary materials for a theory of the Young-Hegelian E-Girl

[10] X – tenshi_anna

[11] X – sanjehorah

[12] YouTube – Horseshoe Theory

[13] Collins – Hegelian dialectic

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