Rules of Reading Hegel:
Rule 1: Never (ever) actually read anything by Hegel. First of all, of course, you cannot just come out and say you never read Hegel. No one reads Hegel, but no one ever admits to not having read Hegel. It’s a sacred law of (not) reading Hegel. In fact, you cannot ever say you are reading Hegel when you are reading Hegel for the first time (if you have committed this atrocious act, see Rule 2), you are always re-reading Hegel. Here is how you do it:
I have been re-reading Hegel’s Jena Lectures recently. Some fascinating stuff, really helps you understand [insert more known works by Hegel], don’t you think?
When you send things back to other pretending Hegelians, you are projecting confidence in your ability to fake having read Hegel. Don’t be afraid to use this move – they haven’t read Hegel either so they are not likely to come back with an objection to your interpretation.
Second of all, be sure to buy Phenomenology of Spirit and Science of Logic. Open them at about 10-20 page intervals, glance at a page here and there, underline a few sentences, insert an occasional “Hmm…” and “Bullshit!” comment in the margins, close the book and never open it again. Make sure the spine is sufficiently broken (and get only paperback editions) in case anyone grabs the book off your shelf. If you are brave enough, actually tear the spine of your paperback and have the book in a kind of torn-up state on your desk for a while. Insert various notes into it, make bookmarks using post-it notes, spill some coffee in an obscure part of Logic (don’t go for Master-Slave dialectics, everyone non-reads that part). Needless to say, a broken paperback communicates a clear message: I read this book so many times, it fell apart.