[tyre]

Hegel is useful to read if only because he had a meaningful impact on others (whether inspiration/building upon him or, at the very least, reacting to him.) But I could be convinced that spending an hour wrapping one’s mind around the Hegelian Dialectic is enough of an 80/20.

Similar with Kant. Bang your head against the categorical imperative at least. It’s a concept to be familiar with. I agree that a deep read of Kant is too far down the rabbit hole to start with.

[libraryofbabel]

For Hegel I’d just say read a short modern secondary source that summarizes the main ideas and traces their influence on subsequent thinkers. Honestly the main point of knowing about Hegel anyway is because he deeply influenced Marx, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and many other philosophers that you might actually want to read and apply to your life and worldview. Peter Singer’s Hegel: A Very Short Introduction is short, clear, and has all the information you’d need (https://www.amazon.com/Hegel-Short-Introduction-Peter-Singer...).