Banana Pudding and the Hegelian Dialectic

Having a thesis and an antithesis requires synthesis. Having an Id and a Superego requires an Ego that can satisfy both’s needs. Eating banana pudding works too.

When I was looking for a topic for my senior thesis in college I stumbled on the work of the 19th Century German philosopher, G.W.F. Hegel in the library of the Jesuit University I attended. I didn’t remember reading about the Hegelian Dialectic in philosophy classes or discussing him in any of my ethics seminars. The simple premise that we conjure up a thesis in life and are then challenged on that thesis with antithetical data was intriguing to me. That the resultant synthesis was a mere starting point for reconciliation of the next thesis was right up my alley.

The understanding of metaphysical conflicts was exactly the thing I had come to College to study. I was addicted to understanding the process of a mental process. That there was a systematic way we could explain this thing I was going through called growth, which was transforming me from a little ghetto brat into a soon to be graduate student blew my mind. That I was simultaneously reading Carl Jung was just icing on my intellectual cake and a new theory of the self was beginning to blossom in my peanut of a brain.

Pretty heady stuff for a 25 year old high school drop out using her brain for the first time for things other than getting it stoned. I came up with a theory of my own from this journey down philosophy lane and that goes something like this:

1. We all have a set of believes, norms, customs, etc. that we use to measure our existence against. Our “Thesis” of our life, in Hegelian terms. Maybe something called an Ego if we are Carl Jung.
2. As we experience life our “Thesis” is often challenged by nonconforming experiences, urges, or ideas which we need to fit into our world view. Hegel’s “Antithesis”, or a nudge from our “Id” in Jung’s vernacular.
3. We then seek to assimilate these contrary experiences, whether mental or metaphysical, with our existing reality. Hegel would call this the “Synthesis”, Jung might say our “Superego” police have come to restore law and order to our selves.
4. The new Thesis we form through this Synthesis would then become our new normal. Our Jungian Ego would be adjusted and the process would begin again.

I wrote that paper, which I cannot find in any of the cardboard boxes I’ve been lugging around for the last 35 years, for my senior project. It garnered me an “A” and has left me with a haunting feeling that the concept of synthesizing data to adjust one’s inner view of the world and see that world though a new lens, repeatedly, is all the human condition really is. I think that the Hegelian Dialectic can describe most of what drives human behavior.

We like being comfortable in our thoughts and feelings. Something comes along that disrupts that comfort so we have to build it in to our reality in such a way that we can continue to function. We move forward with a slightly skewed belief, a new perspective or a heightened awareness. End of story.

So what does that have to do with banana pudding? Nothing. I was just eating a bowl of delicious, homemade vanilla pudding with bananas and vanilla wafer’s as I began writing this morning.

At 6 a.m. I was wide awake with an empty day ahead of me. Now typically I would roll over (after getting up to pee) and let myself sleep for another 2 hours, but there were these three bananas on my kitchen counter and I wanted to use them in some way that didn’t involve turning on my oven. God forbid I let three perfectly ripe bananas go to waste!

That was when the banana pudding idea came to me. I had never made banana pudding, at least not from scratch, but I believed I had all of the ingredients, and Google happened to be available, so I looked up a recipe. The resulting loveliness, a smooth creamy vanilla pudding with both bananas and vanilla wafers floating in it was exactly what I needed after a tough week.

Comfort food in a new form, my Thesis for using ripe bananas had been shifted by the Antithesis of pudding which meant not having to turn on my oven on a hot, humid day to bake banana bread or muffins. A small psychic shift, but a shift none the less.

The resultant Synthesis, light and cool, velvety in my mouth, is just what I needed. It was what I was savoring as I began to write this, after taking a mid-morning nap and giving the mixture enough time to chill in the fridge. I had a new normal, a go to for ripe bananas, a new weapon in my comfort food arsenal.

Banana pudding is my new thesis. I can really get behind this new version of myself on a humid, cloudy Saturday morning when I have nowhere to go, no one to entertain and no children to feed. My life is forever changed for the better. Hegel would be proud.