Of recent date, civics
teachers have a new challenge. That is
to explain what it means to have a president of the US claiming he is a
nationalist. What does that mean? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Is it a position that advances the interests
of the US, especially in the long run, or is it a precursor to serious
international tensions, like those that led to World War I? One of the identified reasons for that global
conflict was the nationalism that existed early in the twentieth century.
As a government teacher, this writer
presented and reviewed the political spectrum.
He drew a horizontal line on the board (they were green then) and then
marked the line with five short vertical lines equally spaced. Going left to right, each vertical line was
labelled as follows:
socialism/communism, liberalism, neutral, conservativism, nationalism, fascism/Nazism.
Without
going over the whole explanation, he generally distinguished main ranges of
ideas that separated the left end of the spectrum from the right end. The point was, as one went out from the
middle, the distinguishing beliefs became stronger. So, as one goes from the center of the
spectrum or continuum, the beliefs become so strong, a qualitative difference
takes hold.
For
example, there is an orientation toward an international bias or concern on one
end of the line stretching toward a parochial bias or concern on the other
end. On the left, internationalism is so
strong, the socialist notion of a global alliance of labor is a central tenet
of communism. On the other end,
nationalism is so strong it is defined as a racial allegiance under Nazism.
Nationalism,
not necessarily fascism but akin to it, can be seen as a palatable attachment
to an “us” versus a “them.” There is a
“we,” as a superior segment of the world population, against a “them,” an
inferior (in some sense) segment of that global population. Nazism, a form of fascism, extends this
notion to a racial level where there is a belief the national group is
basically represented by a single racial grouping. That was the case under Hitler.
One
can, with the rise of nationalism, both here in the US and in various European
nations, question what is going on. Are
these countries revisiting these earlier, hateful conceptions? While the work of Friedrich Nietzsche was
distorted by the Nazis, a bit of his work can be considered when one wants
to understand what nationalism is promoting and, in that earlier time, became
useful to that ruthless regime.
Central
to Nietzsche’s ideas was his claim that religion no longer provides a sense of
morality a people, a nation, or a polity can count on. Religion used to provide that external
standards of morality, but no longer.
After all, God had died. Jonathan
Glover,[1]
in his study of twentieth century moral development, addresses this turn, this
“crease” in history.
He
simply states, “In our time, the problem is how to accept [Nietzsche’s] skepticism
about a religious authority for morality while escaping from his appalling
conclusions.”[2] The conclusions are not of concern here,
instead this posting addresses how Nietzsche's ideas provide some insight to
nationalists’ arguments. And out of
necessity, to do this, one needs to begin by reviewing Nietzsche’s basic
argument.
In terms of Western devotion to
religious authority, one sees its institutionalized status being established in
Europe during the middle ages – the age of nobility. But religiosity undermined the very basis of
power upon which those nobles’ positions rested. And to understand, one needs to go back
further in history.
With
the fall of the Roman Empire, any centralized source of power in Europe was
destroyed. This left the chaotic
situation in which politics depended on local power holders – i.e., the barbarians
who settled after their series of invasions of the former Roman territories and
exploited their positions of power. But
how to maintain their power was a real concern.
These barbarians saw it necessary to utilize the already established
psychic allegiances of the local populations in devising their approach to
ruling these conquered peoples.
Chief among these was the allegiance
to Christianity (and with it, the Judeo traditional beliefs that had been
incorporated into Christianity). This
Judeo-Christian religiosity entailed a morality – a view of goodness and
evil. The nobles, while benefiting from
a more compliant, subjected people by adopting this view of morality,
sacrificed a basic tenet of their power to an undermining set of beliefs.
Their
power was established through an expression of will – i.e., these barbarians’
force of will to dominate. It made them
the superior and their subjects, the inferior.
But by adopting a morality of the inferior, they undermined their own
basis of power. As Glover describes
it: “The values of the barbarian noble
caste, these more complete human beings, were subverted and replaced by the
‘moral’ values of people inferior to them.”[3]
And
of particular harm, the process diminished values of power and strength –
values of the superior – toward compassion and love – values of the
inferior. The obvious implication is
that with this development, the superior nobles disempowered themselves by
opting to adopt the conquered peoples’ value systems.
And this tradition of powerlessness
can be traced to Christian forebears, the Judaic people. There is a history of a conquered people who,
up to the time of Nietzsche, had lost their very homeland. These enslaved people preached those very
values: the virtues of the weak and poor
– that of losers. And yet, what seems to
be a Nietzschean recognition, one no longer can see this irony as an irony
because the religious values of the weak have won – they are mostly assumed
among people as what should be the moral basis of a civilized people. Go figure!
But this problem does not seem to
deter Nietzsche; he poses two basic questions:
In terms of good and evil, what value do these qualities afford
societies? And, should moral values
support abundance, will-to-action, courage, certitude, and the future or should
they reflect impoverishment, distress or indeterminateness, and degradation or
deterioration?
Nationalism
assumes one chooses – virulently – the former set of values or
dispositions. It also sees values of
community (especially beyond immediate settings), collaboration, even
partnership (beyond those established for immediate, short-term purposes) as
weaknesses undermining the will of the lone actor seeking his/her desires.
One,
with these biases established within one’s understanding of Nietzsche’s
message, can begin to see how individualistic nationalism can be. External moral commitments lead one to hand
over to “metaphysical” views – these include the views of religion and science
– one’s opportunity to self-create.
On
the other hand, if one refuses to adopt such debilitating ideas then one can
take on an approach to life that reflects how all of existence – outside human
society – goes about the business of existence.
This includes animal life and physical forces. Each of these entities just do their/its
thing with no regard to moral concerns.
This, as it is applied to people, almost takes on a Lockean view of
pre-societal humans.
As
for meaning to life or existence, those who seek it or believe they have found
it, assume a set of beliefs about the world.
Yet, Nietzsche didn’t believe in any transcendent or intrinsic meaning
to life or existence. If one does away
with any “objective” meanings, then in life one is free to create – called
self-creation – one’s own life.
“Self-creation
is how the ‘will to power’ expresses itself in human life and Nietzsche sees
the will to power throughout nature.”[4] A “do your thing” sense is upped to the
ultimate degree. Not for the world in
general, but for that part one inhabits.
In that world, not much concern is extended to a common good, the common
takes care of itself as it competes with other common or collective
entities. One nation acts as a single
entity through the efforts of that leader who willed him/herself[5]
to power in an amoral environment.
This
theme needs a bit more words to describe it.
They will be offered in the next posting. But for now, what is described here can give
one a sense of how nationalism seems to be an outgrowth of an individualism that
defies any external standards. With each
person taking on a totally free sense, all interactions become competitions and
zero-sum calculations take on the common way to engage with others. Any sense of binding with others undermines
the strength of one’s will to action.
This is true at the individual level and at the national level.
[1] Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the
Twentieth Century (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1999). This
posting’s analysis is based on Glover’s account of Nietzschean philosophy.
[3] Ibid., 12. In
no way does this writer accept this historical view.
[4] Ibid., 13.
[5] It should be pointed out, Nietzsche had little
expectation for women; he saw them weak, religious, and irresolute.
