Preface to Action by George E. G. Catlin

Author:George E. G. Catlin [Catlin, George E. G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Essays, History & Theory, Political Science, American Government, General
ISBN: 9781000328806
Google: Hg0xEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 55322616
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

§ ii

Is the Nation the Community?

Persistently, in the contemporary world, explicitly or tacitly, one is confronted with the claim of the nation to be the final and morally satisfying form of human community. Usually this amounts to the claim that the nation is always right and that, when it is wrong, it is to be treated as right. This opinion is sustained by the support of many eminent philosophers. Its more thorough examination must now be undertaken.

The first objection with which we are confronted, in that study of social relations which is politics, is that there is, in a sense, no such thing as human nature and no such corporate being as humanity towards which men may feel loyalty. As de Maistre said, there are Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans, but none who are just bare men. As for Man, "if he exists, it is without my knowledge."1 The answer to de Maistre is that, in the same sense, there are no such persons as Frenchmen, but only individuals. The sense of nationality is, nevertheless, a reality, although nationality itself can scarcely be defined, as Renan discovered, save in terms of the sense of nationality. 'Tis thinking makes it. so. Certainly there is the historical experience of a common tradition, but sometimes the sense for it flows merely from the association of individuals or groups, for example, of immigrants, with the stem of such a tradition.

1 OEuvres (ed. 1815), I, p. 68.

The sense of nationality is natural and healthy as the expression of a certain like-mindedness in a group. It has fruits in co-operation, self-respect, and subtleties of character. The claim of a people to cultural autonomy is part of the proper development of human liberty. The sense of nationality only becomes immoral, let us repeat, when the "we-group," constituting a certain nation, regards itself as subject to no higher moral claims; proclaims the nation no part of any larger moral whole; asserts that the interest of this or that particular group is deserving of a paramount and unquestioned allegiance; declines to offer any justification for its claims in terms of some broader rational purpose; and abrogates the universality of the moral law.

Briefly, the problem of the community as nation assumes the shape: How to destroy, not only the current, Austinian theory of the state, but also the sacro egoismo— the sacred egotism—of the nation, without destroying sound civic sense and the emotion of loyalty in the performance of public duty?

Nationalism is the modern counterpart of tribalism; its most customary (but not invariable) characteristic is a belief in the common blood of the whole group. This belief is its characteristic myth.

It is, however, superficial to brush aside this myth as contrary to demonstrable fact and merely superstitious. It issues in the practical accomplishment of a necessary social work, the binding together of the members of large groups. In the East it has probably still a work to accomplish, although, with its threat of revolution and boycott, it will be one which Western administrators and traders must necessarily be inclined to look upon with very mixed feelings.

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