Hegel saw the prussian absolutist state as the epitome of perfection. How could he be so wrong?
My problem with philosophy is that all this thinking is most often turned to its proper use - the justification of some power structure
My problem with philosophy is that all this thinking is most often turned to its proper use - the justification of some power structure
All philosophy that puts forward a theoretical position, and thus is positive in content, will inevitably support some 'model for the world' some 'picture' or some 'state' which results in a particular power structure (since so much is bound up in the 'will to power') retaining dominance.
That's why only the philosophers who have primarily dissembled and worked in negative terms avoid this (Wittgenstein, Foucault, Nietzsche). For example, Foucault does not offer us some structuralist theory of history--he rather applies a structuralist method to historical contents to point out where "the apparently necessary is actually contingent" (the inverse of the Kantian project to discover the necessary among the contingent https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/ [sec. 3]). Just as Nietzsche's whole program was to point out the sinister nature of values, just as Wittgenstein's was to point of the sinister nature of theories or world-pictures. But even Nietzsche was not free from this. Some of his more positive statements and commitments (e.g. the will to power) have been used for nefarious purposes-- thus the nazis latched on to his ideas as justification for their political programs. But what Nietzsche was doing most frequently in practice and what the nazis eventually did with a subset of his ideas are two very different things.
Of course, one could derive some theoretical picture, and thus some vision of the world in which a particular structure (and thus power dynamic) holds by analyzing these thinkers too--e.g. Wittgenstein never offers a direct theory of language, but that has not stopped several people from developing theoretical models of language based on his work and what his 'therapeutic' (negative/disassembling) method revealed.
Whether or not philosophy is used to justify a power structure comes down to the theorist and how she employs theory--the same with science, which can also be utilized and deployed for political aims (e.g. see the ambiguity of data interpretation being used to produce arguments in favor of political action to stop climate change and in favor of nonintervention). It is not a problem inherent in philosophy itself, but it is a latent possible application or deployment of philosophical thought and method.
Even the philosophy of language is used to justify the rule of our species over the animal kingdom. The word of Marx taken as gospel was used to oppress and murder a lot of people, the use of Nietzsche taken as gospel was used to justify the murder of Jews and others, the practical application of the whole subject is soaked in blood up to a point where I am asking myself: has any good ever come out of it?