Plato the Fascist: Was He Serious or Satirical?

A philosopher presents a detailed program for an ideal society: that’s what Plato’s Republic seems at first glance to be. But careful readers often suspect that something very different is afoot: is Plato joking?

The idea that the Republic is an extended comedy seems foreign to those who’ve cut their teeth on the ponderous nineteenth-century scholarship which treats Plato, and the entire Greco-Roman classical canon, with great reverence. Such scholarship attributes great gravitas to Plato, and considers it unlikely that he’d play such a prank.

The text leaves the reader with a choice: either Plato was joking or he was serious.

This choice, however, points to a less comfortable option: if Plato were serious, then he advanced a blueprint for a society that would be both cruel and bizarre. Couched in Plato’s friendly prose are details which would violate any level-headed concepts of justice or human rights.

Plutarch’s account of Lycurgus and the Spartan constitution seem mild compared, e.g., to Plato’s prescription that a child should never be allowed to know who her or his parents are, and that the parent should never be allowed to know who their child is.

There are details about Plato’s plan for an ideal civilization that are so strange and brutal that the plausibility of the Republic as a scheme for social engineering is stretched to the breaking point.

Among these oddities are some self-destructive recommendations by Plato that the activities of writers be severely restricted. Such limits would presumably apply to Plato himself, and, as author Hans Magnus Enzensberger explains, would be the basis for government oppression of written creativity. Enzensberger shows what the literal effects of Plato’s text would be:

The state decides what poets may or may not write — that is a nightmare as old as the Occident. Decency and good behavior must be observed. The gods are always good. Statesmen and officials may not be disparaged in public. Praise be to heroes, no matter what. The crimes of our rulers are not fit subjects for poetry but for committee meetings behind closed doors. Protect our youth! Therefore, there must be no portrayal of unbridled passion unless it is authorized by the state. Irony is forbidden. There must be no effeminacy. Poets, being born liars, are to be assigned to the public-relations detail. The control commission not only assigns topics; it also decrees what forms are admissible and what tone of voice is desired. The demand is for harmony at all costs; this means “good language and good harmony and grace and good rhythm” — in a word, affirmation. Nuisances will be exiled or eliminated, their works banned, censored, and mutilated.

Indeed, Enzensberger makes Plato guilty for a number of problems in Western Civilization’s treatment of creative writing:

These familiar maxims, formulated in a small Balkan state more than two thousand years ago, can be found at the root of all European discussion of poetry and politics. They have since spread across the entire world. Dully, monotonously, brutally, they clang through history with the terrible regularity of a steam hammer. They do not question what poetry is, but treat it simply as an instrument to influence those held in subjugation, as something to be used at will in the interests of authority. Hence the tenacious life of these maxims, for they are tools of power — the selfsame thing into which they are trying to turn poetry. For this reason they are passed from hand to hand through history, like bludgeons, fungible, easily detachable from the philosophy from which they were hewn. Not only do they serve Platonism as cudgels against Aeschylus and Homer, but they serve every political administration.

But Enzensberger’s indictment of Plato is valid only if Plato was sincere in his instructions. Is there a chance that Plato was joking?

The likelihood that Plato did not intend for his directions to be taken literally increases with the consideration that Plato, as an author, would have suffered greatly under his own rules. Consider the constraints mentioned in the text of the Republic, as worded in Jowett’s translation:

The first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorized ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mold the body with their hands; but most of those which are now in use must be discarded.

Plato goes on to suggest that even the texts of Hesiod and Homer be redacted:

The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence.

Through the mouthpiece character of Socrates, who is clearly in no way related to the actual Socrates, Plato asserts that such stories are “not to be repeated in our” republic:

We shall never mention the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives.

Whether the stories are taken as literal or figurative does not matter to Plato: in either case, they must be eliminated: “​​These tales must not be admitted into our” Polis, “whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not.”

This censorship is in no way a self-censorship, or one informally imposed by social custom, but rather a statist enactment:

The founders of a State ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which must be observed by them.

A translation by Paul Shorey confirm’s Jowett’s rendering: “We must not accept from Homer or any other poet the folly of such error.” The state will determine what is true, and will eliminate any text which asserts an untruth. Plato writes that the state “will not approve” or “permit our youth to hear” certain passages from Aeschylus. Plato has named at least three major poets as earning censorship. This amounts, if taken literally, to a frontal assault on the Greek canon.

Which is a good reason not to take it literally.

In his other dialogues, Plato demonstrated affection and respect for Homer, Hesiod, and Aeschylus. Yet in the Republic he instructs the audience to redact, censor, and ban them from his polis. Either he is guilty of blatant self-contradiction, or his comments in the Republic are meant as satire.

The text of the Republic goes on to assert that the state will forbid an individual to “assert” certain things “in his own city if it is to be well governed.” This would be “one of the laws” and “speakers and poets will be required to conform” to it.

Plato goes so far as to assert “we” will not “allow teachers to use” Homer and Aeschylus “for the education of the young.” This proposition does such great violence against Greek sensibilities that it certainly urges the reader to suggest that Plato is joking.

Likewise, a translation by George Grube, revised by C.D.C. Reeve, shows the strict censorship which Plato proposes: “We must supervise such stories and those who tell them.” Plato writes: “We’ll expunge” and “delete” texts which are displeasing to the state. “Names for the underworld must be struck out.” Not only will the state forbid poets to write certain things; the state will also require them to write other things: “We’ll compel the poets.”

Francis Macdonald Cornford also confirms what is in Plato’s text: “We shall have to prohibit such poems and tales and tell them to compose others in the contrary sense.” In these words, Plato goes beyond censorship and conscripts the writers into the service of propaganda:

Then we must not only compel our poets, on pain of expulsion, to make their poetry the express image of noble character; we must also supervise craftsmen of every kind and forbid them to leave the stamp of baseness, license, meanness, unseemliness, on painting and sculpture, or building, or any other work of their hands; and anyone who cannot obey shall not practice his art in our commonwealth.

After deciding that most of the other arts — sculpture, painting, music — should also be subject to strict censorship, Plato concludes that “we could not but banish such an influence from our commonwealth.”

The reader, then, is left with a choice: Either Plato is making a joke — an absurd joke, a provocative joke — or Plato is proposing the most ruthless type of censorship.

On the one hand, history teaches us that such extreme and inhumane censorship is indeed possible: one need only to consider activists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries who sought to forbid the reading of Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Thomas More, Mark Twain, and others.

Censorship is merely one of the brutal measures prescribed in the Republic. Taken together, the sum of the ordinances in the text would constitute a fascist totalitarian program which would locate Plato among the bloodthirsty likes of Joseph Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, and Daniel Ortega.

On the other hand, Plato has already demonstrated his ability to write comedy in the Ion, one of his most humorous dialogues.

Surely, a poet who calls for the banishment of poetry and a creative author who calls for the rigid regulation of creativity must be writing ironically. If Plato’s program were enacted as written, most of his dialogues would be condemned and he would be exiled.

If Enzensberger is correct in seeing Plato as a serious totalitarian, and if Plato was therefore not joking, then the implications for civilization are indeed as grim as Enzensberger paints them.

But if Enzensberger is wrong, and Plato is merely joking — it will be a separate question as to whether his joke is funny — then generations of scholars have misdirected their students into a literal reading of the Republic.

The Blessings of Chaos: The Noisy Public Square Keeps Humanity Humane

As in the past, so in the present: the obiter dicta which an author places into the mouths of fictional characters serve as vehicles for aphorisms on a wide variety of subjects, applying to situations well beyond the central plot of the book in which they appear.

In the novel Persepolis Rising, author James S.A. Corey takes the opportunity to do precisely this, when one character in the book endorses a totalitarian government because parliamentary processes can become bogged down and stuck in discussions. Impatient with such legislative processes and eager for quick and decisive action, the character says, "There has to be a way to come to a final decision."

In response, the interlocutor offers this epigram:

No, there doesn't. Every time someone starts talking about final anythings in politics, that means the atrocities are warming up. Humanity has done amazing things by just muddling through, arguing and complaining and fighting and negotiating. It's messy and undignified, but it's when we're at our best, because everyone gets to have a voice in it. Even if everyone else is trying to shout it down. Whenever there's just one voice that matters, something terrible comes out of it.

James S.A. Corey, which is actually a nom de plume for a two-man writing team, offers an analogue to Winston Churchill’s famous quote:

Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters.

Churchill spoke in 1947; Corey wrote in 2017. The sentiment holds. People who are otherwise reasonable and rational can be seduced into totalitarianism in several different ways; one of them is the simple desire to see things done in an orderly way paired with a distaste for squabbling chaos. Thus it is that totalitarianism sometimes sneaks in under the disguise of being scientific or technically proficient: “let the experts decide.”

But the price of order achieved by means of dictatorship is too high.

By placing the word “final” into mouth of the character who advocates totalitarianism, Corey alludes to Hitler’s National Socialism and its Endlösung — the “final solution.” The word Nazi is simply an abbreviation for the German phrase for “National Socialism.”

As a fiction author not constrained by the academic’s duty to insert all manner of qualifications and cite relevant antecedents, Corey is able to move on with his plot after briefly reminding the reader of a truism about freely elected representative bodies, and of the need to patiently endure annoying and even painful political processes: the alternative is far worse.

The Development of Roman Military Strategy: The Empire’s Army in Different Phases

The last phase of Roman history is the history of the empire: it began around 27 B.C. and ended in 476 A.D. This imperial phase came after both the monarchical phase and the republic phase. This final five centuries of Roman civilization can be further subdivided into three segments, according to historian Edward Luttwak. These three spans reflect three different goals for the imperial military. They are, in chronological order, expansion, maintenance, and defense.

Like most historical generalizations, these three phases of the empire cannot be taken as precise demarcations. There is some blurring of the distinctions and some overlapping of the time segments. Edward Luttwak presents the three phases as he devises them:

With brutal simplicity, it might be said that with the first system the Romans of the republic conquered much to serve the interests of a few, those living in the city — and in fact still fewer, those best placed to control policy.

Even within this first phase, there was development, both of the basic principles of this phase, and of what would become features of the next two phases. “During the first century,” Luttwak writes, “Roman ideas evolved toward a much broader and altogether more benevolent conception of empire.”

Although the first phase was characterized by expansion, it was in 9 A.D., during this first phase, that a German chieftain, known as Arminius or Herrmann, successfully attacked, defeated, and largely destroyed “three legions and auxiliary troops” commanded by Varus. Thus features of the latter two phases — maintenance and defense — are seen already in the first.

The clever act of bestowing fully Roman citizenship on many people living in the colonies or provinces marks the second phase. Enjoying their citizenship, and the rights and privileges it brought, these people developed an attachment to the empire, and were willing to support it and serve in its defense.

Under the aegis of the second system, men born in lands far from Rome could call themselves Romans and have their claim fully allowed; and the frontiers were efficiently developed to defend the growing prosperity of all, and not merely of the privileged. The result was the empire of the second century, which served the security interests of millions rather than of thousands.

During the third phase, in which Edward Luttwak sees the Roman military as largely defensive during the gradual contraction of the empire, echoes of the first phase are seen in, e.g., attempted Roman expansion eastward into Persia and Persian-controlled territories.

Under the third system, organized in the wake of the great crisis of the third century, the provision of security became an increasingly heavy charge on society — and a charge very unevenly distributed, which could enrich the wealthy while certainly ruining the poor. The machinery of empire now became increasingly self-serving, with its tax collectors, administrators, and soldiers of much greater use to one another than to the society at large. Even then the empire retained the loyalties of many, for the alternative was chaos. When this ceased to be so, when organized barbarian states capable of providing a measure of law and order began to emerge in lands that had once been Roman, then the last system of imperial security lost its last source of support, men’s fear of the unknown.

In addition to dividing the military history of the empire into these three phases, Luttwak also conceptualizes the fall of the empire as having one of its many roots in the growing awareness on the part of the Roman populace of the fact that the Germanic tribes could be, and often were, reasonable. The end of the empire would not be a descent into total chaos and destruction, but could be a someone orderly transition of power.

Indeed, when the Germanic chieftain Odoacer ended the empire in 476 A.D., he was careful to observe a number of customs and phrases as he presented himself, and a number of Roman institutions were left functioning in place, like the Senate.

Julian the Apostate: His Ambivalence

The history of Christianity during the Roman Empire is bumpy and complicated. The Roman Empire began around 27 B.C. and Christianity began around 30 A.D.

During the earliest years of Christianity, the Roman officials regarded Christianity as simply a variety of Judaism: Jesus being a rabbi, the events starting the Christian faith having taken place in Jewish territory, and the first groups of Christians being Jews.

After the first few decades, the Romans came to see Christianity as something distinct from Judaism, but this understanding didn’t make a practical difference: both religions were persecuted by the Roman authorities. Thousands of Christians and Jews were arrested, jailed, beaten, and killed.

Despite this oppression, the Christian faith spread rapidly. The new religion gained members from all social classes and in every region within the empire. Conditions, however, gradually began to improve for Christians.

On April 30, 311, the Emperor Galerius issued The Edict of Toleration. Between February and June 313, Emperor Constantine and Emperor Licinius, ruling jointly at the time, issued the Edict of Milan. These two documents established Christianity as a legally accepted option alongside the various forms of paganism in the empire.

Christianity was tolerated, but not accepted. A century later, in 410, Christians were being harassed as pagans blamed them for military defeats, primarily when Germanic tribesmen sacked the city of Rome in that year. Christianity was an all-purpose scapegoat: it could be blamed for any social difficulties in the empire.

After Constantine’s edict in 313 A.D., Christianity did not become the state religion of the empire, as is sometimes reported. Christian baptism was not a legal requirement. Quite the opposite: Christians were a minority of the empire’s population, and Christianity remained on the margins of society.

The imperial career of Julian makes this clear; historian Edward Arthur Thompson reports that

Julian (Flavius Claudius Julianus) (331 - 363), commonly called Julian the Apostate, Roman emperor A.D. 361 - 363, was born at Constantinople, the son of Julius Constantius, a half brother of Constantine the Great.

Julian’s family tree alone gave him a headstart on the road to power and fame. In addition, he was smart, obtained a good education, and proved himself practical in matters of military leadership.

He had a half brother named Gallus. Like Julian, Gallus was destined for leadership roles in the upper levels of the imperial administration. Edward Arthur Thompson explains that Emperor Constantius II promoted Gallus:

In 351 Gallus was elevated to the rank of Caesar and appointed to rule at Antioch; and it seems to have been about this time, when he was associating with the best-known philosophers of the day, that Julian secretly abandoned Christianity.

The career of Gallus came quickly to an end in 354, when the emperor Constantius II suspected him of disloyalty and had him executed.

Julian was aware that Constantius II was paranoid — even if the paranoia was perhaps justified by the ambitions of power-seeking men — and so remained alert for any threats from the emperor. Meanwhile, Julian’s military successes gave him political momentum, and his reputation was so good that the men of his army named him augustus — effectively emperor — by acclamation. He was certainly now a target for the wrath of Constantius II.

Julian’s spiritual involvement was at this point in time ambiguous. Although a pagan, he had occasionally attended Christian worship events, perhaps out of curiosity, or perhaps for the thrill of engaging in an event which was not in the social mainstream. But that would soon change, and his attachment to paganism would become a determining factor in his actions:

On Jan. 6, 361, he attended a church service, perhaps for the last time.

Frequently on the move, as his army’s task was to keep the Germanic tribes away from the city of Rome, Julian spent some time stationed at a city called Naissus, modern-day Nis, in Serbia. It was while Julian was at Nis that he learned that Constantius II had died, probably of natural causes.

Some reports claim that Emperor Constantius II asked to be baptized shortly before his death. Whether Julian received those reports, and how they may have factored into his thinking, is not clear.

In any case, with the emperor’s death, the immediate threat to Julian’s life was removed — of course, there would be others, as was the case for nearly every Roman emperor. Julian would now effectively be emperor and sole ruler of the empire. Perhaps it was this elevation that moved him from an interest in, and attraction to, paganism, toward a commitment to paganism. From the beginning of the empire until Julian’s reign, the vast majority of Roman emperors were pagans.

Julian appears to have become openly a pagan while still at Naissus.

Having become emperor in 361, Julian now wanted to build his reputation as emperor. While Jews and Christians had abandoned the practice of animal sacrifice for three centuries, it was still a central activity among the pagans. Julian hoped to solidify his emperorship’s reputation by these pagan rituals. While Christianity was a minority religion in most of the empire, Antioch was one city in which a large percentage of the residents were Christians. Julian received an unenthusiastic reception there:

Envious of Alexander the Great, Julian wished for military glory in the east and entered Antioch on July 19, 362. Associating closely with the pagan orator Libanius, he frequented the temples, multiplied his sacrifices to the gods, but failed to win much popularity with the predominantly Christian citizens.

Although now a dedicated pagan, Julian still pursued the tactic of religious tolerance, at least until late 362. He saw the growing numbers of Christians as a threat and a mystery. They were a threat to the credibility of paganism, and they were a mystery because their membership grew despite the movement’s lack of political, military, or economic might.

Julian hoped to pattern a new version of paganism after Christianity:

On Aug. 1, 362, Julian was still recommending religious tolerance. He decided to reorganize the pagan priesthood, appointing a chief priest in each province, and his letters of instruction to these men were most detailed: he wished to equip the pagans with an organization comparable to that of the Christians.

When Christians expressed disagreement with his paganism, and with some of his harsher actions, Julian abandoned the policies of tolerance, as Edward Arthur Thompson explains:

Christians were forbidden to teach in the schools, certain bishops (including Athanasius) were exiled, taxes were levied on Christian clergy, preference was given to pagans in appointments to high office, etc.

Although Julian was now openly persecuting Christians, he still wanted to see paganism restructured along Christian lines. He wanted the pagans to have the same success that the Christians were having, as Timothy Dalrymple writes:

In the fourth century, a Roman emperor who was so riddled with religious skepticism and pagan ideology that he was known as Julian the Apostate could not help but recognize the transformative power of Christian love and care. In a letter to a pagan priest, Julian wrote, “The Christians support not only their poor but ours as well; all men see that our people lack aid from us.” Julian’s letter went so far as to urge the pagan priest to mimic the charity of the Christians.

Among the Romans, the Christians were sometimes referred to as “Galilaeans.” The full quote from Julian’s letter reads:

For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Galilaeans support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us.

Julian was not the only Roman to notice the counterintuitive growth of the Christian movement. Other texts from the era express similar bemusement and similar observations, e.g., Pliny the Younger in his letters to Trajan.

It puzzled many Romans that such a movement with no financial or legal power could attract so many followers so quickly. Among the Christians, some Roman social patterns were violated. Pliny writes of a Christian gathering led by female slaves; sitting in the audience were free male Roman citizens who listened attentively and regarded these speakers as authoritative. This represented a reversal of the Roman social order: slave vs. free, male vs. female, citizen vs. non-citizen. Yet the movement grew, attracting ever more members from all demographic categories.

The Christians were persistent in providing food and medical care to anyone who needed it. Christian missionaries carried this ethic of service to every corner of the empire. Brian Palmer writes about such activity:

The missionaries don’t profit personally from their work. They are compensated very poorly, if at all.

Julian hoped to instill such determination among the pagans. His death in 363, while fighting in Persia, brought an end to his efforts. It’s worth noting that for the remaining 113 years of the Roman Empire, which ended in 476, all the emperors were Christian.

While many Romans deprecated, admired, or were mystified by the rapid growth of the politically powerless Christian movement, Julian had a slightly different response: he hoped to co-opt Christianity’s method and duplicate Christianity’s success for paganism.

Julian’s plan didn’t work.

Crime and Lack of Punishment

The legal tradition of Western Civilization has long distinguished between crimes against persons and crimes against property. This distinction existed long before the United States became an independent country, and is found in many different countries around the world.

In practical terms, for example, this distinction helps to identify the importance of legal concepts like domestic violence and victims’ rights. Both of these notions deal with crimes against people, and the law views those crimes more severely than crimes against property.

Legal scholar Brian Mackie notes that it is “rare” to have “a judge sentence someone to jail for a property crime” in the United States. Prisons are not “filled with shoplifters, dope smokers, and car thieves.” Instead significant prison sentences are given to “people we should be afraid of.”

Looking specifically at the State of Michigan, Mackie notes “that Michigan is the second most violent state in the Midwest,” with “a violent crime rate more than fifty percent higher than the state of Ohio.” What seem to be high rates of incarceration in Michigan are actually lower, considered as rates, than states like Montana.

Michigan doesn’t “seek jail terms for folks who steal Slurpees,” in the words of journalist James Leopard who reported in 2020 on both Mackie and Mackie’s critics.

Mackie reports that Michigan doesn’t routinely imprison those who’ve committed a crime against property. Instead, “74% of Michigan’s prison inmates are sentenced for a violent crime (a figure which the national ACLU reports).” Those who commit crimes against property are routinely spared prison time, and engage in various forms of rehabilitation or restorative justice.

The tendency to distinguish between ‘crimes against persons’ and ‘crimes against property’ is a tendency that is found in Western Civilization. In other civilizations, there are legal traditions which include severe consequences for theft: the amputation of hands, for example, or the death penalty.

In Western Civilization, the death penalty was and is reserved for only extreme crimes against persons: murder, rape, kidnapping, and treason.

Western Civilization does not allow the capital punishment for burglary, theft, or other forms of stealing. This is a statement about the value of human life.

In non-Western civilizations, capital punishment is meted out for various forms of theft, for adultery or infidelity, and for various ‘thought crimes’ and ‘word crimes’ like blasphemy, defamation, slander, or libel.

The challenge facing the legal system in the United States at present is the growing demand to severely punish various ‘speech crimes.’ This demand represents a departure from Western Civilization, demanding a physical penalty for spoken or written words. This demand would see individuals fined, jailed, or removed from gainful employment because they expressed certain thoughts.

Another challenge to Western Civilization’s value system is the minimizing of rape. Traditionally, rape was considered a serious crime, even in some cases meriting the death penalty. The trend in recent years has been to give lighter sentences to convicted rapists. This undermines the dignity and worth that Western Civilization has traditionally attributed to women.

Likewise, in non-Western civilizations, the status of the victim affects both the legal proceedings and the sentences issued at the end of those proceedings. In some countries, e.g., a driver who negligently kills a pedestrian will be sentenced more harshly if the victim was a man, and sentenced more lightly if the victim was a woman. In Western Civilization, legal doctrine has long decreed that a crime’s sentence — e.g., for negligent manslaughter — should be the same with no regard to the demographic of the victim or of the perpetrator: the sentence should be the same, regardless of gender, age, race, religion, economic status, etc.

This concept, too, is being challenged in the current legal environment: harsher sentences are being demanded based upon the race or gender of the victim or of the perpetrator. This is a direct contradiction of Western Civilization.

The current era will be seen, from the perspective of the future, as a pivotal one: an era in which either Western Civilization’s basic sense of justice held, or an era in which it crumbled.

The Death of Friedrich Schiller: Romanticism, Enlightenment, and Idealism

The history of literature is ever plagued by ambiguities, especially when it tries to sort various authors into various movements, schools, and eras. The roots of imprecision are necessarily rooted deeply in the method of sorting authors into these types of groupings, because the groupings themselves are constructs: they are generalizations made after the fact, and subject to a necessary amount of inexactness.

In discussing the career of Friedrich Schiller, and in describing the influences in his environment, some scholars use a bewildering flurry of terminology, including: Romanticism, pre-Romanticism, proto-Romanticism, Classicism, neoClassicism, Sturm und Drang, Weimar Classicism, and Enlightenment.

Each of those words is alleged to describe some literary trend. Yet when examined carefully, the ambiguities and indistinctnesses multiply. Where do the boundaries of these groupings fall? Which characteristics are defining for these groups? Do these movements overlap each other, include each other, or exclude each other?

There is a clear distinction in methodology: one can compare and contrast two texts, examining the observable concrete details of each, or one can compare and contrast two constructs, muddling through ever more ambiguous generalizations. One can compare and contrast Herder’s Christliche Schriften with Goethe’s Dichtung und Wahrheit, or one can attempt to compare and contrast Weimar Classicism with the Enlightenment. The former can yield well-articulated conclusions, which, even if false, nonetheless have clear content, while the latter will produce merely increasingly vague generalizations about generalizations.

Two scholars, Julius Maria Roth and Paul Schulmeister, describe the death of Friedrich Schiller:

Als Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) mit nur 46 Jahren in Weimar verstarb, waren die Ärzte, die für die Obduktion des Dichters zuständig waren, höchst verwundert — vor allem darüber, »wie der arme Mann so lange hat leben können«. Seine Lunge hatte sich fast aufgelöst und war mit den verknöcherten Rippen und dem Herz verwachsen; das Herz selbst war laut medizinischem Bericht ein darüleerer Beutel», fast ohne Muskelgewebe; ähnliche Befunde lieferten Niere, Milz und Gedärme. Woher hatte Schiller überhaupt die Energie, zu schreiben, genommen? Die Antwort lässt er seinen Wallenstein geben: »Es ist der Geist, der sich den Körper baut.«

Note the transition from precise concrete details to generalized constructs as these same two scholars continue, in their next paragraph:

In der Aufklärung rückten vor allem die erzieherischen und selbsterzieherischen Aspekte in den Vordergrund: Die Distanzierung von den Affekten und leiblichen Dringlichkeiten, von Naturzwängen und Trieben wurden als Emanzipation verstanden. Die Freiheit des Geistes sollte in jedem entfacht werden und ihn zu einem mündigen Bürger machen. Schiller ist der leibhaftige Beweis, dass es sich dabei um mehr als nur leere Worte und windige Ideen handelt.

It is not merely the use of abstractions which characterizes the second paragraph, but rather the exclusive use of abstractions, and specifically abstractions which have no clear method verifiability. The second paragraph probably contains some specific meanings, but a great deal of interpretation would be necessary to distill those meanings and to relate them to any observable or concrete phenomena — even the phenomena found in a literary text.

Abstractions can be used in salutary ways, and are not to be banished from all writing. But abstractions carry more meaning, and carry it better, when connected to concrete features of a text or of a historical event.

A grammatical analysis might reveal features in Schiller’s texts: how often verbs are used in the imperative mood; how often in the passive voice. A semantic analysis might reveal how often concrete nouns are used in comparison to abstract nouns; how often the subject of a sentence is specified; how often the metrical structure of a poem is maintained or violated.

It requires a great deal of self-discipline for a scholar to confine herself or himself to the concrete details of a text or the concrete details of an author’s historical context. The generalizations of constructs about movements and genres is ever enticing and seductive.

Formulaic Art Is Not Necessarily Bad Art

All too often, commentators lazily dismiss a work as “formulaic.” This practice needs to be examined and greatly reduced.

As ever, definitions are in order: Nearly every work of art is in some way “formulaic” in a broad definition of the word. If “paint on canvas” is a formula, then all paintings are formulaic. If “words on paper” is a formula, then every novel, poem, or essay is formulaic.

In less obvious and more meaningful examples, the sonnet is a form: Should one dismiss every sonnet because it is formulaic? The landscape or the portrait is a formula: Should all such paintings be dismissed?

Some critics dismiss the waltzes written by Johann Strauss II as formulaic. He composed more than 100 of them. But could ‘formulaic’ be in some sense a virtue rather than a vice? The composer found a way to create music in a pattern; this is perhaps an achievement rather than a crime.

Shakespeare wrote more than 150 sonnets. There are certain similarities among them. Should they all be dismissed as formulaic?

So also with the more than 130 marches composed by John Philip Sousa.

To be sure, there are examples of lazy and uninspired artists who rely on formula, and formula alone. The distinction should be made between those who use formula, and those who rely solely on formula.

In the end, both lazy critics and lazy artists are at fault. The concept of ‘formula’ is not at fault.

Timeless Principles: What Are They?

Over the course of centuries, human beings have discovered eternal truths: Principles that are true at all times and in all places. These discoveries form a part of the foundation for knowledge, civilization, and science.

During Hellenistic Age of Greek History, Euclid compiled some of those truths and founded what is now known as geometry. The Hellenistic Age began roughly with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. and lasted for approximately two centuries. Two thousand years later, Euclid’s collection of axioms and definitions still serves not only students everywhere, but also engineers and architects. Euclidean geometry contains timeless principles.

In the realms of geometry and mathematics, more such principles accumulated over the centuries, as people discovered non-Euclidean geometries, trigonometry, algebra, and calculus.

Physics also contains timeless principles, the discoveries of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein and many others. The fact that Newton physics differs from Einstein’s physics does not detract from the reality that both men discovered absolute principles.

Just as the quadratic equation is an eternal truth in mathematics, so also in society and civilization there are eternal truths about how to structure communal life.

In the same way, thinkers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke have discovered timeless truths about human nature. Hobbes and Locke wrote in the 1600s. In the late 1700s, their works would play an important role in American history. In the history of the United States, the authors of foundational documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights began by looking to ancient and modern philosophers to collect some of these timeless principles, as Ben Shapiro writes:

The Constitution was created to deal with flaws in human nature, not to cope with technological advancements: we may have better means of communication than we did in 1787, but we don’t have better people. People are the same as they ever were. The founders constructed the Constitution on the basis of three main realizations about human beings. First, they realized that human beings are imperfect, selfish, driven by self-interest. They will go to war with each other to assure the victory of that self-interest. The founders agreed with the central theory of Thomas Hobbes, that without government, man reverted to constant warfare: “No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

In writing the Constitution, the founders took into account that human nature is essentially imperfect, flawed, and limited. Hobbes had gone on to suggest that the best way to deal with human nature was to establish a powerful and unchallenged government, which would then control people to prevent them from running wild.

The founders rejected the solution proposed by Hobbes, even while accepting the principles he had discovered: yes, human nature is imperfect, but, no, the best solution to that problem is not to establish an absolute dictatorship. Ben Shapiro explains:

But they disagreed with Hobbes that the only way to solve this conundrum was a great and powerful ruler. They believed that such rulers were similarly capable of brutality in their own self-interest. They adopted this philosophy from John Locke, who wrote, “The end of government is the good of mankind; and which is best for mankind, that the people should be always exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes liable to be opposed, when they grow exorbitant in the use of their power, and employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation of the properties of their people?” In other words, if rulers invaded the rights of others, they ought to be curbed.

John Locke argued that the purpose of government was not to control human beings, but rather to protect their lives, freedoms, and properties. The founders wove into the Constitution ideas from Hobbes and Locke, combining two sets of eternal truths.

They rejected the idea of Hobbes that an absolute, all-powerful, unlimited government was the solution. So what did the founders of the United States do instead?

So, how could society survive without an all-powerful ruler checking men? By a series of mutual checks and balances. As James Madison famously stated in Federalist #51: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”

If the founders decided that having an absolute dictatorship was not the way to go, then which type of government would be better? The answer lies in limiting government: making sure that the government doesn’t get too powerful.

It’s important to avoid a powerful government, because if it is powerful, then it will try to control its citizens rather than protect their freedoms.

One way to limit a government's power is to divide the government into parts, and then pit the parts against each other. This system of “checks and balances” is usually known as “separation of powers.” If the different parts of the government are busy battling with each other, then they won’t have the time or energy to try to control the citizens, and then the citizens have their liberty:

Checks and balances were designed to prevent government from overreaching its boundaries; only widespread agreement could overrule such checks and balances. The judiciary was therefore designed not to lord over the executive and legislative branches, but to interpret the law “under the Constitution”; it was checked by its requirement of funding from Congress and execution from the executive branch. The legislative branch was designed to pass laws in concurrence with the Constitution; the president was given the power to veto laws. Congress itself was checked by distribution of power between the House, chosen by population, and the Senate, chosen by state. The executive branch was checked by the legislature; the executive couldn’t create laws or self-fund, and the legislature could always impeach an incipient tyrant. The federal government as a whole was checked by state governments, all of which had their own checks and balances.

Even though human beings are by nature essentially imperfect and flawed, they still have rights. A limited government works to protect those rights. An unlimited government will work to violate those rights.

People sometimes forget that the U.S. Constitution is not a set of laws for citizens to follow. It is a set of rules for the government to follow. Citizens do not need to obey the Constitution; the government must obey the Constitution.

The structural Constitution, not the Bill of Rights, is the essence of American government. And it has nothing to do with technological progress. It relies on the same vision of human nature held by the founders, and the same vision of human rights: that because you are a human being, you have inviolable rights that cannot be removed from you by majority vote.

Because the Constitution is based on, and contains, timeless principles, it “is a timeless document.” It is backed up by the experiences and reflections of several thousand years — from Babylonians, Egyptians, and Hebrews to Greeks, Romans, and the highpoints of medieval Europe. These principles have been shown to accurately address all human beings, at any time, at any place, of any race, religion, or ethnicity. These are universal principles.

An Unexpected Lesson from Martin Luther: How Social Media Affects Writing in the Twenty-First Century

If a writer is trying to create some introspective and meditative prose in the current era, she or he may well learn some valuable lessons from Martin Luther, who wrote in the first half of the sixteenth century. Luther’s lack of media made him a better writer.

Although Luther found himself in the midst of the most heated debates in centuries, he was also able to shut out the passion and invective for days, weeks, and even months at a time. This allowed Luther to think, and to think without interruption: to reflect, to analyze, to ponder.

Luther was able to write without instant feedback. He was able to write without worrying about the immediate reaction he might receive. To be sure, he would receive reactions, both friendly and hostile, but he would receive them at the pace of pen on paper, and at the pace of a mail delivery system which travelled by foot over dozens of miles, requiring days and weeks before a letter reached its destination.

Considering Luther’s writing process, historian Jonathan Kay notes:

Saul Bellow, in his introduction to Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, makes the memorable point that great and important writing is possible only when one is able to shut out “the noise of history.” This is what Luther managed to do when he created his 95 theses, his translations and the other texts that became part of the Reformation’s early canon. As a writer (not a religious one), I deeply admire his dedication to the craft.

I envy him, too. Five hundred years later, there are few writers, artists, designers or intellectuals who do not feel impelled to deliver regular updates on their work online, or at weekly grad seminars, shareholder meetings or workshops with colleagues. And all of us, whatever our professional subculture, imagine ourselves as plugged into some larger intellectual “community” that sits in judgment of an idea’s worth.

Comparing Christianity in the 1500s to Islam in the twenty-first century, Jonathan Kay points to the ways in which thoughts are shared in writing. Could the publishing styles shape something so profound as major religious movements?

These networks make us more professionally productive and accountable. But they also can make us more cautious, since we know that any new idea can expose us to instant censure from complete strangers in other parts of the world who know nothing of our local circumstances. This phenomenon goes by different names — groupthink, political correctness, herd mentality. But in every form, it serves the interest of the orthodox and frustrates the heretic.

This may help explain, for instance, why the path of religious reform has been halting in so many parts of the Muslim world in recent decades: The same miraculous technology that allows would-be reformers to communicate their modern, pluralistic interpretations of Islamic liturgy also allows hard-liners to brutally suppress them.

The speed at which ideas travel shapes history. Luther was able to get his ideas spread across Europe quickly, thanks to the printing press. His famous 95 theses were printed mechanically; multiple printings occurred in various cities within a few months of their appearance.

Luther’s ideas spread quickly, but not too quickly: there remained the quiet weeks between mailing a copy of his theses and receiving a reply — friendly or hostile — from the recipient. This gave Luther time, not to react, but rather to respond: time to craft thoughtful, analytical responses.

This timing also slowed Luther’s enemies. They could not create a “flash mob” to “shout down” Luther’s insightful questions.

In Bangladesh, for example, Islamists have engaged in a systematic campaign of extermination against bloggers who express even moderate critiques of their religion. In Pakistan, a man recently was sentenced to death for posting criticism of the prophet Muhammad on his Facebook page. Even in my Toronto neighborhood, in the heart of one of the most liberal and tolerant nations on Earth, a friend of mine who leads a group of ex-Muslims takes pains not to reveal the location of her monthly meetings, lest such information attract the attention of extremists on the other side of the planet. If modern Islam had its Luther, we might never know, because he could be silenced, or worse, before his ideas could take root.

Luther lived in that historical sweet spot between the invention of the printing press and the invention of the telegraph, when communication was not quite too fast nor quite too slow. As such, he was able to tune out the noise of history — not to mention the threat of death at the stake — and transform his demons into an idea that set the world ablaze. Since then, there has not been a religious revolutionary like him. My guess is there never will be again.

Twenty-first century technology plays all too easily into the hands of violent extremists, allowing them to silence thoughtful observations.

Europe in the 1500s was situated so that its communication was fast enough that Luther’s 95 Theses could be spread across the continent in a few weeks or months, but slow enough that it was the rationality of the responses which shaped the discussion rather than the quick large numbers of emotional reactions.

For those whose research and discoveries are in some obscure corner of the natural sciences, the speed and tone of discourse is not significant. If a researcher invents a new and better way for empirically measuring the halflife of isotopes, a social revolution or cultural upheaval is not at stake. He may share his results quickly or slowly, and the only difference may be to his professional and academic career.

But for those whose work is liable to create change in society or culture, the ways in which they communicate can make a major difference. Reasoned responses from opponents are welcomed as part of a dialectic, but virulent reactions from enemies are not constructive. The communication methods of the twenty-first century make it sadly easy to shut down, shout down, and ensure that reasonable ideas are neither heard nor read.

Defining Communism: Politics or Economics?

The word ‘communism’ is frequently used, and most people who use it have at least a vague idea of what they mean by it. But when asked to give a precise definition, most cannot. In the absence of a clear definition, it is probable or even certain that people in a conversation might have differing or even contradictory meanings in mind for this word, each assuming that the other shares this definition.

This would explain why many discussions about communism are fruitless.

If ‘communism’ is ambiguous, so is ‘socialism,’ and the relationship between the two.

Surveying the many possible definitions of ‘communism,’ one sees that most of them fall easily into one of three categories: economic, political, or a mixture of the two.

An economic definition of communism usually includes the communal ownership of the means of production and prohibition of inheritance. A political definition often centers around a command economy and the dictatorship of the proletariat. A mixture of these two approaches includes the power of the state used to enforce the economic doctrines of communism and state ownership as the practical expression of communal ownership.

Amplifying the ambiguities of communism are the adjectives which often precede the noun ‘communism’ — consider: Marxist communism, Stalinist communism, Leninist communism, Maoist communism, and many others.

So far, this survey has considered only modern political communism, of which Karl Marx is usually considered to be the father. The confusion multiplies if one includes ancient and non-political forms of communism.

Hoping to lend clarity, historian Gary Allen writes:

In keeping with the fact that almost everybody seems to have his own definition of Communism, we are going to give you ours.

In most discussions of communism, the tension between “communism in theory” and “communism in practice” is mentioned. While the tension is real, it may not be as significant as is sometimes alleged. Most concrete situations and conditions were anticipated by communist theorists.

Those who advocate communism are aware that resistance will inevitably arise when a doctrine like the abolition of private property is implemented. They are aware that, in order for communism to have even a chance at succeeding, force will need to be directed against such resistance.

Herein lies the question: If force is a necessity in the implementation of communism, then are those who are tasked with applying such force doing so out of an ideological loyalty to communist doctrine, or are they doing so because they see for themselves a chance to gain some amount of power? Gary Allen proposes:

Communism: an international, conspiratorial drive for power on the part of men in high places willing to use any means to bring about their desired aim — global conquest.

Pointing to both the economic and political mechanisms associated with communism, Gary Allen argues that they are the instruments which communism uses, but that they themselves are not communism. He dismisses attention to the details of communist economics as “Gus Hall communism,” in reference to the American communist leader who spent much of his time and energy working with labor unions.

To understand Allen’s point, it is necessary to conclude that the word ‘communism’ itself is a misleading misnomer.

The origin of the word is ‘common,’ as in ‘to have things in common.’ In words like ‘communal’ the same root is obvious.

If, however, the word is a deception, then the reader will see that the leaders of modern political communism use its ideology and nomenclature as camouflage to hide their purpose. Their goal is to obtain and maintain power. Any ostensible concern for people or for ideology merely serves as the justification for their seizure of power.

While there are sincere and good-hearted people who may follow communism out of a desire to make a better or more just world, those who lead the movement demonstrate their motives by their actions.

At this point it is good to emphasize the distinction between communism and movements which claim to be communist. Isolated individuals who read political and economic texts and are willing to consider that the systems proposed in them might be beneficial to humanity are, if those texts are the texts of Marx and his followers, communists.

But the leaders of political parties, nation-states, and revolutions show their lack of belief in communism, even as they constantly and loudly proclaim that they are the representatives of true communism, as Gary Allen explains:

You will notice that we did not mention Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, bourgeois, proletariat or dialectical materialism. We said nothing of the pseudo-economics or political philosophy of the Communists. These are the techniques of Communism and should not be confused with the Communist conspiracy itself. We did call it an international conspiratorial drive for power. Unless we understand the conspiratorial nature of Communism, we don’t understand it at all. We will be eternally fixated at the Gus Hall level of Communism. And that’s not where it’s at, baby!

To explicate, one might note the historical examples of Lenin and Stalin. In these examples, the tension between “communism in theory” and “communism in practice” shows itself to be a necessary and inevitable conflict. Lenin, whose detailed writings reveal his mastery of communist economics, abandoned those ideals in his “New Economic Policy.”

After leading a communist revolution, Lenin implemented communist policies in the Soviet Union. The result was misery and hardship for the lower and middle classes. Lenin saw that communist economic thought, when applied, was driving the Soviet Union into deeper and deeper poverty. The only way to save the country, he wrote, was his New Economic Policy, in which “a free market and capitalism” are “permitted and are developing.” Further, he announced that “socialized state enterprises are being put on what is called a profit basis, i.e., they are being reorganized on commercial lines.”

In sum, Lenin, while still claiming to be the leader of a communist movement, and while still claiming to be an expert on communist ideology, took actions which were clearly and diametrically opposed to any concept of communism.

Likewise, Stalin at first implemented communist thought by closing churches, imprisoning or executing Christians, forbidding study of the New Testament, and using propaganda and indoctrination to work toward the goal of statist atheism. Yet by 1942, it was clear that a general demoralization of the people in the Soviet Union was underway: a loss of confidence and hope. This was seen, e.g., in the early days of the Battle of Stalingrad. Needing to find a source of encouragement for the people, Stalin abruptly reversed his policies and acted directly against communist doctrine by releasing Christians from work camps, reopening churches, and urging the people to find reassurance in spiritual faith.

So Stalin, like Lenin, pragmatically acted against communist theory.

The actions of Lenin and Stalin reveal both that they did not fully trust or believe in communist theory, and that they were driven to act in ways which would secure their hold on power rather than ways which would fulfill communist theory.

In the first decades of the twenty-first century, there are leaders of movements, political parties, and nations who declare themselves to be true representatives of authentic communism. If circumstances arise in which their hold on power is threatened, will they also depart from communist orthodoxy, thereby revealing that they, too, value their own power more than communist ideology?

Communism and those who sincerely embrace it as a way to improve the world may unwittingly provide a facade behind which lies nothing other than a desire for power and control.

Sometimes Teamwork isn’t the Best Way: Luther Alone

There can be no doubt that the ability to publish and distribute Martin Luther’s ideas on paper was a key factor in the Reformation. His pamphlets and leaflets often made their way hundreds of miles in all directions within a few days of their production.

The writings of Luther, an isolated thinker in an isolated town, appeared quickly in Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Holland, and other nations.

Luther’s predecessors — other would-be reformers — didn’t have this technology, and worked in obscurity.

But there’s more to the Reformation than merely Luther’s access to mass communication. The printing press was a revolutionary invention, no doubt, which changed the world. But many people had access to printing presses. Why did Luther become so prominent? Because he had something to say.

The medium is important, but so is the content. Historian Jonathan Kay writes:

A simplified version of the Reformation that many people hold in their heads typically goes something like this: Disgusted by the corrupt sale of indulgences, Martin Luther rose up against the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. And thanks to Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, he was able to get his message out quickly and widely.

“In this way” Luther’s Reformation was “as much about a communications revolution as it is about a phase shift in Christian theology.”

“All that is true,” grants Kay, “but” scholars who “study the process by which Luther developed, refined and published his ideas,” find “another, overlapping truth.”

Luther had more to offer than contempt for a handful of dishonest priests who were exploiting the Roman Catholic system. Luther had a thought-out, systematic, articulated worldview.

While Luther was indeed able to leverage a communications technology unavailable to his reform-minded predecessors, he did the vast bulk of his work in isolation at the friary of the Hermits of St. Augustine. And even once he’d gone public, it took years for religious authorities to fully digest the importance of his ideas.

Luther spent hours, days, weeks, and months reading and reflecting. The Reformation was not a reflexive reaction to a corrupted system. It was the emergence of a new thought system, based on a careful analysis of the old thought system. Luther knew the Roman Catholic system well, and even admired parts of it. He could often explain it better than its defenders.

But he’d also analyzed its faults and flaws. He’d traced the ripple effects of those errors as they affected other parts of the system. He understood that systematic thought has to be rigorously and carefully thought out. Such thinking takes time, isolation, and long periods of silence.

Modern professional culture encourages collaboration through instant communication and globalized networks. But Luther’s legacy as one of history’s most influential thinkers shows us that there are certain epic projects — such as the systematic rethinking of foundational dogmas — that require time to mature and space to germinate before they are safe for universal exposure. Without that window, they die.

Luther was not obsessively quiet. He delivered insightful lectures and stirring sermons to large groups. He did not hide his thoughts: he published more handbills, fliers, broadside, songs, poems, and flysheets than any other person of his time or earlier.

His voluminous production was, however, the fruit of contemplation: hours spent alone, reading and thinking.

From Isaac Newton to Immanuel Kant to Albert Einstein, this pattern can be seen.

The lesson for the twenty-first century is this: collaboration is good, communication is good, but it is a necessary precondition for individuals to be able to clear their desks and minds, to focus without interruption, and to thoroughly explore their thought and their thought’s objects.

That is one of the many lessons that Luther’s Reformation still offers, five centuries later.

Germany’s Measured Steps Toward a Nation-State: Why Hurry?

The world, in modern times, is organized mostly by nation-states. What is a “nation-state”? A “nation” is an ethnic or cultural group; a “state” is a defined geographical territory with its own government. A “nation-state” is a combination of the two.

In ordinary language, the word “country” usually describes a nation-state. Examples include Japan, Norway, Poland, and Greece.

In previous millennia, however, nation-states were not the primary ordering structure of the world. Dynasties, i.e. royal families, were often the principle defining factor in geopolitics. The authority over inhabitants was not mainly decided by their ethnicities and cultures, nor by defined geographical boundaries and institutional governments, but rather by an inherited right to rule, passed down from one generation to another in the dynasty. Likewise, a citizen’s allegiance was not principally to his people, to his geographical home, or to the political ideals of his government; it was to the dynasty.

An overarching trend in the history of the world is the transition from dynasty to nation-state. The pace at which this change happened varied from place to place. In many cases, this transition included a consolidation and centralization from smaller territories into a larger unit, as historian William Hagen writes:

In 1789 the German-speaking lands were, with few exceptions, encompassed within a sprawling geopolitical entity aniquatedly named the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. They were, strange as it may seem, divided into some three hundred and twenty-five separate principalities.

At first glance, the independence of the many small German states might seem to place the Germans at a disadvantage. Other European nations moved quicker to form nation-states, William Hagen reports:

Comparing Germany with France, England, or Spain, the question arises: why did the medieval and early modern German lands not evolve, as these and many other European countries did, from the condition of a loosely strung together medieval feudal kingdom into a stoutly forged centralized “national monarchy,” such as that of France’s might Louis XIV, the seventeenth-century “Sun King”? Premodern monarchies on the French or British model created unitary frameworks for subsequent political democratization, such as preliminarily began in England with the Purity and Glorious revolutions of the seventeenth century and in France with the revolution of 1789.

But was the race to form nation-states truly an advantage? Perhaps a more measured pace of construction had benefits. France, England, and Spain did not “evolve” as suggested. Their change of political structure was deliberate and conscious. To say that they “evolved” makes the formation of a nation-state seem the inevitable product of unconscious and random processes.

Likewise, the Germans refrained from the formation of a nation-state knowingly and as the result of reflection. The notion of national identity, often packaged with the Romanticism movement, had appeared prior to 1789 in, e.g., the writings of Johann Gottfried von Herder. That notion, however, was challenged by anti-national sentiments. The Congress of Vienna, organized by Klemens von Metternich, resisted the trend toward nation-states.

Rather than ask why the Germans didn’t “evolve” more quickly into a nation-state, one might ask where, among the English, Spanish, and French, were the reflective voices which might moderate the rush into nationalism?

There were advantages to being a “loosely strung together” entity. Retaining a hint of feudalism emphasized the mutuality between governed and governor. In the Middle Ages, the vassal’s oath to the lord was reciprocated by the lord’s oath to the vassal. Each owed the other. By the late 1700s, feudalism was long gone from German-speaking lands, but the distant echo of feudalism shaped societal thinking and reminded rulers that they had obligations to their subjects. The modern nation-state, on the other hand, could subject the individual to the “General Will,” in Rousseau’s phrase.

It is also debatable whether or not the advent of the nation-state was salutary to the process of democratization. It would be odd to regard the reign of Louis XIV as being somehow a forward movement toward democratization. By contrast, Germany without a nation-state was able to maintain and expand participation by means of elected town councils and regional assemblies.

To be sure, England and France enjoyed some advantages by forming nation-states before Germany did. They had more military might and more diplomatic clout. National policies facilitated industrialization. But the hasty formation of nation-states was not unambiguously salutary. Germany’s more measured progress toward a nation-state allowed it to retain a more flexible and responsive regional structure for a longer time. While Germany’s industrialization lagged, its development of mathematics and science excelled, as did its global reputation for academic excellence and artistic achievement.

Threads of Political Thought Converge: Millennia of Civic Philosophy Produce the American Revolution

Over several thousand years, patterns of thought about society emerged, developed, and intermingled with each other in the course of civilization. Many of these strands of thought came together in the creative fusion of the American Revolution.

In a wealth of texts produced during the second half of the 1700s, the significant thinkers of the previous centuries, and previous millennia, contributed concepts about government and civic virtue. The names of those thinkers form a list which looks like a good syllabus for a class in the history of civilization.

Starting with Hammurabi and Moses, the list includes the writers of Greco-Roman classicism, the medievals, and the Renaissance thinkers. A synthesis and distillation of those works was produced by the political thinkers of the Enlightenment, including those in North America.

The work of John Locke, Edmund Burke, and Adam Smith rested upon foundations laid by Thucydides, Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Tacitus, Augustine, Aquinas, Ockham, and dozens of others. All of which led to Thomas Paine, Sam Adams, James Otis, and Patrick Henry.

The courageous authors of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights were educated in both ancient and modern history, and among them were those who could read Greek, Latin, Hebrew, German, Italian, and French.

Having mined the world’s classics for ideas, these authors set about fitting them intricately together. The political tradition of the Enlightenment was based upon abstract reasoning about human nature, and rational reflection about the nature of human intelligence. The result fit together well, sometimes congruing and sometimes complimenting the spiritual treasures of the Judeo-Christian tradition, as scholar Harvey Cox writes:

In the United States, there was a combination of biblical Christianity and of Enlightenment virtue. So you have in the early founding documents the famous phrase, “We hold these truths to be self-evident” (an Enlightenment phrase) “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (a religious phrase). This constituted a wedding of two not completely separate traditions, because some of the founding fathers were mild Calvinists with Enlightenment leanings, some were stricter Calvinists, and others were Episcopalians.

Thus it was that Thomas Paine, who rejected most or all forms of organized religion in favor of a rationalist deistic concept of God, was part of the same movement as the passionately spiritual George Washington.

The phrases and ideas woven together in the founding documents of the United States, as well as in the tracts and pamphlets which surrounded them, appeal to the rationalist and the mystic, the cynic and the idealist, the Jew and the Christian, the deist and the pietist.

Together, the texts which gave birth to the American Revolution, composed during the second half of the eighteenth century, form a catalogue or compendium of civic thought spanning five millennia. To understand the documents of the American Revolution is to survey political philosophy from its earliest moments onward.

Explore the Canon, Don’t Discard It: The Forgotten Treasures of the Deep Canon

It has become fashionable among certain people to pointedly reject the canon of Western Civilization’s various cultures. Some academics are generously paid and build entire careers by libeling, slandering, and defaming the canon.

The canon — with one ‘n’ not two! — is a collection of works, usually artistic works, i.e., paintings, musical compositions, sculpture, architectures, but most commonly literary works. The “canon” is a list of texts considered to be of enduring value, high quality, and worth studying.

One feature of the canon is that its boundaries are indistinct: its edges are not precisely defined. There has never been a precise and exhaustive list of what is in the canon. There is a feel or intuition about what is in the canon: a casual consensus about which types of things belong in the canon.

The Oxford English Dictionary explains this particular use of the word ‘canon’ as follows:

A body of literary works traditionally regarded as the most important, significant, and worthy of study; those works of esp. Western literature considered to be established as being of the highest quality and most enduring value; the classics.

The OED goes on to note the existence of sub-canons, like a ‘comedy canon’ or a ‘Norwegian canon,’ and the use of canon with other artforms like music or architecture.

This usage of the word ‘canon’ seems to have appeared in the early twentieth century, and become common in the jargon of literary criticism after the middle of the century.

The canon is broad and deep. The genres, centuries, authors, cultures, ethnicities, and spiritual traditions represented in it are numerous. Some who attack the canon imagine it to be narrow, but this is not the case. Even if there is some ambiguity at its margins, it can easily fill vast libraries.

It would be good to devote increased attention to what might be called the “deep canon.” There is a small subset within the canon of material which is often studied. The frequent texts occupy too much space, and thereby edge other texts into the shadows of neglect.

Shakespeare wrote more than thirty plays, but five or ten of them monopolize much of the high school and university reading lists. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is well known, but her The Last Man languishes. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men are often assigned, but what about his The Moon is Down?

Given the institutional habit of assigning repeatedly a limited number of works from the canon, a student may be forgiven for gaining the mistaken perception that the canon is shallow and narrow. When that student later becomes a published scholar, she or he may attack the canon based on that impression.

Not only would the exploration of the full canon demonstrate more creative and more rigorous scholarship, but it would also defend the canon from its detractors.

Despite some vagueness about its borders, the canon still serves the valuable purpose of directing students and instructors to significant texts. To be sure, there is some small element of subjectivity in assigning value to texts — perhaps this bit of subjectivity is responsible for the equivocation about the canon’s boundaries — but it is clear that some texts are of more value than others.

There are different ways to measure a text’s value, and that fact that there may be a little subjectivity in that measurement is no reason to abandon or ignore the larger idea that some texts are worthy of inclusion in the canon and others are not. Bluntly stated: some texts are better than others, objectively.

To explore this notion of objective worth, knowing that there is a bit of subjective evaluation of the objective worth, a number of metrics are in play. One of them is the oft-cited notion of ‘critical thinking.’

Ironically, “critical thinking” is frequently mentioned by those who attack the canon. Yet the canon is the continual and continuous source of critical thought. The notion of ‘critical thinking’ arises from, and is fed by, the canon. The creative tension between Plato and Aristotle, between Augustine and Aquinas, and between the Rabbis in the Talmud is the source and essence of critical thought.

Whoever might wish to arouse critical thought in a student does so best by directing the student’s attention to a text which has value in this regard. A student may learn the skill of critical thought better by examining a text by Raymond Chandler than by examining a text by Laurie Halse Anderson: which is to say that The Big Sleep, as a text, has more intrinsic and inherent value than Speak. Simply put, Chandler offers more to think about that Anderson does.

These two propositions are related: (a) The canon is deeper and broader than is commonly supposed, and (b) the attacks on the canon are ill-founded or unfounded.

Many who assault the canon do so with charges of its alleged narrowness, its alleged shallowness, and its alleged homogeneity. A more rigorous exploration of the canon reveals that that such allegations are untrue, and that therefore such attacks on the canon are baseless.

Ironically, many who assail the canon do so with calls for more or better efforts at teaching students how to “think critically.” The irony is two-fold: First, such assaults on the canon dissolve under the scrutiny of the very critical thought demanded by the assailants; second, the practice of critical thinking is best carried out within the context of the canon.

To think critically, one must have something about which to think. There must be an object toward which critical thinking is directed and on which critical thinking operates. Critical thinking is a form which needs content.

A student who wishes to exercise critical thought will find more and better opportunities to do so with the texts of Hildegard of Bingen than with the texts of Toni Morrison.

A student will learn the skill of critical thinking better from Immanuel Kant than from Frantz Fanon — and as an added benefit, Kant’s critique of imperialism and slavery is more rigorous than Fanon’s.

Simply put, some texts are better and more valuable than others. The canon collects those texts. The fact that there is some ambiguity at the perimeter of the canon, and the fact that there is a bit of subjectivity in discerning this perimeter, cannot be used as arguments against the canon. The canon is not purely arbitrary and subjective.

The task, then, is this: to honor the canon by exploring it and allowing it to nurture critical thought, and in the process, to discover the hidden riches of the obscure neglected corners of the canon.

What Voltaire Did Not Write: Does It Matter 250 Years Later?

In a high-profile case of misattribution, the French author Voltaire is often cited as the author of a sentence which he never wrote.

In 1758, Voltaire was informed that a book, written by Claude-Adrien Helvétius, was being publicly denounced. Copies of it were being burned. While Voltaire disagreed with the book and its author, he did not endorse the abuse. While the following sentence captures Voltaire’s sentiment, he never wrote it:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Yet centuries later, this quote is often credited to Voltaire.

The sentence was actually written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall. She wrote it while describing Voltaire’s attitude. Her words captured his spirit so well that people quickly confused her words for his.

Hall’s words and Voltaire’s ethic both summarized one aspect of the Enlightenment. The ‘Age of Enlightenment’ is a phrase used by historians, but it is difficult to precisely define when it began or ended. But it is safe to say that there were common threads which connected a series of philosophers, thinkers, and writers who lived during the 1600s and 1700s.

Whatever, and whenever, the Enlightenment was, it included a political philosophy which has since been called ‘classical liberalism’ and includes Voltaire’s ethic of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of belief, and freedom of religion.

The high value which the Enlightenment placed on free speech shaped not only that era, but also subsequent eras. The values of ‘classical liberalism’ were foundational to Western societies during the twentieth century. The phrase ‘Western societies’ can refer to the nations of Europe, as well as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. ‘Western societies’ can also refer to much of Central America and South America.

During the late twentieth century, however, ‘Western’ culture ceased to be limited by lines on maps. All parts of Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world began to absorb distinctively “Western” ideas. These Western concepts that now are felt in all nations include an emphasis on the individual human’s dignity and value, an emphasis on freedom and liberty, and an emphasis on equality across economic classes.

Another Enlightenment concept asserted that all human beings are rational, and that their desires for freedom, peace, justice, and prosperity transcend the superficial differences of race and gender. All people desire peace: in light of that fact, gender and race are irrelevant. All people desire prosperity: that desire is not peculiar to any race or to either gender.

But as the twenty-first century unfolds, a challenge is being posed to humanity: will society continue to value freedom of speech? Will Western Civilization continue to hold Voltaire’s view, expressed in words which Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote? What will become of the ethic which demands that the individual respect the freedom of others to write or say nearly anything?

There are movements afoot in various nations to limit freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of belief, and freedom of religion. There are political trends to label certain beliefs as unacceptable, and to punish those who express such beliefs.

To be sure, the individual has a responsibility to voluntarily self-limit her or his own utterances. This may fall under the simple heading of ‘politeness’ and is a way to show respect for the sensibilities of others. But in no way can this responsibility be externally imposed. One person’s responsibility to refrain from offensive speech does not equal another person’s authority to silence or intimidate the speaker. While the speaker has a responsibility to never say things which are hateful, the audience has a responsibility to allow the speaker to say those very things.

Of course, the audience also has the right to simply stop listening.

If a nation loses the fundamentally human view that each person is primarily a rational being, seeking peace, liberty, prosperity, and justice, and that therefore race and gender are at most secondary to personhood — if a nation loses that view, then it loses its ability to full recognize and acknowledge the humanity of each individual.

One component of this view is the notion that freedom of expression is essential to the human community.

Western Civilization preceded the Enlightenment by many centuries. The Enlightenment is a product of Western Civilization, and reveals some deep essential parts of Western Civilization. At the same time, the Enlightenment exists in a tension with some other aspects and products of Western Civilization.

The Enlightenment, as one arm of Western Civilization, gradually crept into the thinking of every continent. One sees everywhere, then, Western concepts like universal suffrage, legal equality for women, the dignity and value of every individual human, and a desire for freedom. Ironically, when non-Western nations criticize the West, they do so on an intellectual basis composed of Western concepts.

What is at stake, then, if society ceases to value freedom of speech? It would lose one piece of a system which expresses what it means to be human.

By the same token, if society ceases to value an individual’s moral responsibility to limit her or his own speech — a responsibility which may never be external imposed or enforced — it also loses an important aspect of humanity.

The fact that there will always be a small number of individuals who fail to limit themselves -— who say something hateful, hurtful, or offensive — never justifies limiting the freedom of speech.

A limitation placed on free speech is as destructive and dehumanizing as any hateful utterance.

In the new millennium, would a pro-abortion activist give his life in war so that a pro-life activist could publicly speak? Or the reverse?

The challenge to the nations of the world, then, in the twenty-first century is to recommit to words which Voltaire never wrote. The existence of many modern nation-states, the places in which humanity finds a chance to flourish, is due to patriots who were willing to fight — willing to risk their lives — for the rights of people to speak freely. They died fighting for the rights of people with whom they passionately disagreed.

The Word That Brings Peace, The Word That Brings War: Nationalism

Nationalism has been a feature of the world since the early 1800s. For almost 250 years nationalism as an ideology, and the word ‘nationalism’ have made an imprint on history.

Both the word and the ideology have given rise to fear, confusion, and war. But both have sometimes been used as labels for thoughts and movements which contribute to global peace. Why this confusion?

Different authors use this word in different ways. In the 19th century, we can see at least three successive versions of nationalism. In the early 1800s, it was a liberating movement to throw off the oppressive yoke of Napoleon. In the mid 1800s, it was an ethnic movement allowing people to group themselves with those who shared their cultures and languages, to ask for written constitutions, and to de-emphasize the hereditary influence of dynasties and aristocracies. By the end of that century, it had become a appeal by authoritarian governments to persuade the masses to submit.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, two additional meanings for the word ‘nationalism’ have arisen. The uglier of the two refers to a value system which requires the individual to rank the existence, power, and growth of the nation-state as the highest value; if that does become the highest value, then it follows that any other potential value — family, friends, relationship to God, art, music, science, duty, honor, etc. — is at best subordinate to the nation-state, and at worst must be sacrificed for the cause of the nation-state. It is this warlike version of nationalism that is responsible for violence, destruction, and death.

Yet, at the same time, different authors have used the same word for something salutary and beneficial. This type of benign ‘nationalism’ is a synonym for a gentle patriotism. It is a fondness for one's own nation, and an appreciation for the nation’s accomplishments. This friendly version of nationalism is actually a factor in promoting cooperative relationships between nations. It allows the individual to cherish her or his own nation, while at the same time admiring the achievements of other nations.

These two sentiments — one, warlike and aggressive; the other, peaceable and harmonious — are paradoxically known by the same word: ‘nationalism.’

There are sinister forces which will deliberately exploit this linguistic ambiguity. One need only to consider the rise of Naziism in the 1930s. The word ‘Nazi’ itself is an abbreviation for ‘National Socialism’ and stands for a movement which hijacked decent patriotism and turned it into a violent force.

The National Socialists, like the Soviet Socialists, played on the vocabulary of patriotism and nationalism, as historian Jill Lepore writes:

Confusing nationalism with patriotism is not always innocent. Louis Snyder, a City College of New York professor who witnessed the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1920s, once explained why, in a book called The Meaning of Nationalism. Nationalists, he observed, “have a vested interest in maintaining a vagueness of language as a cloak for their aims.” Because it’s difficult to convince people to pursue a course of aggression, violence, and domination, requiring sacrifices made in the name of the nation, nationalists pretend their aims are instead protection and unity and that their motivation is patriotism. This is a lie. Patriotism is animated by love, nationalism by hatred. To confuse the one for the other is to pretend that hate is love and fear is courage.

It might seem pedantic to examine the definitions of words. Those accustomed to the rough-and-tumble rhetoric of popular politics might call it “hairsplitting” to analyze terminology at this microscopic level.

Why bother?

Danger lies in a lack of analysis. The example above shows how the National Socialists played on the ambiguity of words, and counted on readers and listeners not thinking too carefully about definitions, as they unleashed one of the most deadly and destructive wars in history.

There are two types of nationalism. One type of nationalism is a necessary precondition for peace — for harmony in the community of nation-states who must first respect themselves if they are to respect each other. Jill Lepore identifies this as “patriotism” in the quote above.

The other type of nationalism leads to war.

It’s worth the effort to sort them out.

A Cartesian Paradox: Descartes and Piety

With only slight exaggeration, Renee Descartes can be said both to have started modern philosophy and to have founded one of the major approaches within modern philosophy. Allowing that this is a slight overstatement, it is nonetheless true that historians of philosophy give Descartes an importance which is attributed to few other philosophers.

In his work, Descartes is a sincere and motivated theist. God plays a role in Cartesian metaphysics. Descartes also contended that the soul is immortal. He considered himself to be a faithful Christian and a devout Roman Catholic. He took pains to show that his philosophy could be harmonized with the teachings and philosophy of the Roman Catholic church.

Yet the church of his day found fault with Descartes. Some scholars accused him of deism, while others asserted that by deducing foundational truths rationally, he had made God contingent upon reason.

Not only the Roman Catholic church, but rather also other Christians as well, objected to various aspects of Cartesian thought. Diatribes against Descartes became a staple in folk piety and popular religion. The following passage from Mike Breen is an example:

We have become so acculturated in our Cartesian, Western world that we believe knowing about something and knowing something are the same thing. What we have managed to do is teach people about God. Teach them about prayer. Teach them about mission. The point isn’t that they would just know about it but to know it.

The irony is, of course, that Descartes seems to have understood himself as a sincere Christian, and seems to have thought that he had found a way simultaneously to serve the church, to serve the faith, and to serve theology. What was the disconnect? Why wasn’t Descartes enthusiastically embraced by his church and by his fellow Christians?

To be sure, there were some Christians who did eagerly espouse Cartesian thought. A number of philosophers, theologians, and other scholars saw Cartesian philosophy as thoroughly compatible with conventional Christian faith, and these thinkers adopted Cartesian philosophy.

But Cartesianism never quite established itself in the mainstream of popular Christianity.

The reason for Cartesianism’s lack of acceptance is found, not necessarily in what Cartesianism is, but rather in how it was and is perceived.

The image of Cartesian thought in the public may be more of a caricature and less of an accurate reading of Descartes and his texts. The concerns of folk piety saw Cartesianism as lacking, or at least de-emphasizing, the personhood and agency of God. The Cartesian God was seen as something of an abstract principle, a bundle of logical axioms and mathematical equations, and an impersonal force.

Descartes did not seem to meet the need for a God with emotions, desires, memories, intentions, and other aspects of personhood. While Cartesianism certainly included God’s actions, it seemed to omit the centrality of God’s volitional action.

How accurately did the popular imagination grasp Descartes? While his philosophical writings don’t emphasize God’s personhood and agency, they also do not exclude it. It would be possible to subscribe to Cartesian metaphysics and at the same time endorse a theology which featured a fully personal God.

In his writings, Descartes seems to concentrate on God’s existence and God’s role in the metaphysical principles of the universe. What were his own private thoughts or beliefs on the matter? Did Descartes conceive of God as having personhood and agency, and simply omit to mention this in his texts?

Distinguishing Between Peaceful Nationalism and Malignant Nationalism

The word ‘nationalism’ is both provocative and confusing. The term is ambiguous because it is used in different ways — even contradictory ways.

On the one hand, ‘nationalism’ can refer to a sentiment which is not only peaceful and salutary, but which is necessary to promote friendly relations between the world’s nations. This beneficial and healthy form of nationalism is often called ‘patriotism’ and the two could be construed as synonymous.

The dangerous form of nationalism is a value system: it asserts that the growth, power, and existence of the nation-state is the ultimate value. The potential harm that lies in this use of the word ‘nationalism’ is that, if it is considered to be the ultimate value, then any other competing value — the types of things which people normally value — can be sacrificed for the sake of this one supreme principle: family, friends, religious faith, duty, honor, art, science, music, etc.

The wholesome form of nationalism is simply a patriotism which encourages the individual to appreciate her or his own nation, to value its achievements, and to be fond of its people, while at the same time being able to appreciate other nations and have a fondness for them.

This amiable form of nationalism promotes peaceful relations between nations, and is even necessary for harmonious relations between nations, because it is impossible for an individual to appreciate, and have a fondness for, another nation if she or he does not appreciate and treasure her or his own nation.

Another way to express the distinction between these two uses of the word ‘nationalism’ is that, in the context of the nation-state, one emphasizes the nation, i.e., the people who share an identity based on a common language, culture, religion, or history, while the other emphasizes the state, i.e., a territory and a government with its political, economic, and military power.

To further explore the confusing use of this word, historian Jill Lepore notes that its use has varied over the centuries.

Sometimes people confuse nationalism with patriotism. There’s nothing wrong and all kinds of things right with loving the place where you live and the people you live with and wanting that place and those people to thrive, so it’s easy to confuse nationalism and patriotism, especially because they once meant more or less the same thing. But by the early decades of the twentieth century, with the rise of fascism in Europe, nationalism had come to mean something different from patriotism, something fierce, something violent: less a love for you own country than a hatred of other countries and their people and a hatred of people within your own country who don’t belong to an ethnic, racial, or religious majority. Immigration policy is a topic for political debate; reasonable people disagree. But hating immigrants, as if they were lesser humans, is a form of nationalism that has nothing to do with patriotism. Trade policy is a topic for political debate; reasonable people disagree. But hating globalists, as if they were fiends, is a form of nationalism that has nothing to do with patriotism.

Thus, the word ‘nationalism’ used by the nations of central and eastern Europe who rose to defend themselves against Napoleon’s invasions is different than ‘nationalism’ used by the anti-monarchical, anti-dynastic, anti-imperial, anti-aristocratic, and anti-royal leaders who were demanding written constitutions, and the formation of nation-states, in the immediate post-Napoleonic era.

Once those nation-states were established in response to the demands made during the immediate post-Napoleonic era, their leaders used ‘nationalism’ in yet another sense.

All three of these saw ‘nationalism’ as something desirable, but all three meant something slightly different by that word.

A healthy affection for one’s own nation provides the best foundation for a peaceful appreciation of the achievements and cultures of other nations. Nationalism as a wholesome form of patriotism is the basis for world peace. Nationalism as hegemony lays the foundation for war.

When There Is No Nationalism: The Habsburg Ideology in Central Europe

The Habsburg Monarchy, which for much of its existence was formally a subset of the Holy Roman Empire, was a collection of lands in central Europe. It lasted from 1273 to 1918, but was significantly redesigned at several different times during those years.

Historians also refer to the Habsburg Monarchy as the ‘Habsburg Empire,’ but by any name it was truly ‘cosmopolitan’ in several senses of the word.

During the first few decades of the twenty-first century, some political leaders have called for an end to nationalism and patriotism. Leaving aside the difficulty of securing a precise definition for ‘nationalism’ and ‘patriotism,’ how would the world look without those two concepts?

The answer might be found in an examination of the Habsburg dynasty, which is arguably non- or pre-nationalistic, and non- or pre-patriotic.

If patriotism and nationalism have something to do with one’s enthusiasm about, and allegiance to, a country or land or nation, then, by contrast, the ideology in the Habsburg territories was an enthusiasm for, and an allegiance to, a dynasty.

Although Austria and Bohemia were parts of the Habsburg Empire, the residents of those lands did not identify themselves as Austrians or Bohemians, but rather as subjects of the Habsburgs. While these, and other, territories within the Habsburg Empire retained their languages and other aspects of their cultures, they did so not in a nationalistic or patriotic sense, as historian A.J.P. Taylor writes:

Francis I, told of an Austrian patriot, answered impatiently: “But is he a patriot for me?” The Emperor was needlessly meticulous. Austria was an Imperial organisation, not a country; and to be Austrian was to be free of national feeling — not to possess a nationality. From the battle of the White Mountain until the time of Maria Theresa “Austria” was embodied in the territorial aristocracy, the “Magnates.” These, even when German, thought of themselves as Austrians, not as Germans, just as the Prussian nobility regarded themselves solely as Prussians. In Bohemia, home of the greatest estates, they were especially divorced from local feeling; for these great lords were purely Habsburg creations in the period of the Thirty Years’ War.

The psychology of the Habsburg Empire was partially shaped by lingering attitudes from feudalism. Although the Habsburgs had, by the later years of their reign, a modern industrial economy, they still in some ways considered themselves as lords, and expected that their subjects would consider them that way, too.

Dynastic feudalism may be the alternative to nationalism.

There are parallels between the Habsburgs and some other situations, e.g., the British monarchs. Prior to the advent of modern political nationalism, an English soldier most likely thought of himself as serving ‘his majesty’ instead of serving the nation.

There is some parallel, too, between the Habsburgs and the English rule in Ireland, as A.J.P. Taylor notes:

Even the Hungarian magnates, Esterhazys, Karolyis, Andrassys, had little traditional background: their greatness, too, rested on Habsburg grants, made when Hungary was recovered from the Turks and Rakoczi’s rebellion was subdued. A native nobility existed only in Galicia and in Italy: the Polish magnates did not owe their greatness to the Habsburgs and never forgot that they were Poles — though they denied this name to their peasants; the Italian nobles were cosmopolitan, but Italy was their world. Apart from Galicia and Italy, the Austrian Empire was a vast collection of Irelands, except that — unlike the Irish landlords, who had at any rate a home of origin in England — the Austrian nobility had no home other than the Imperial court.

The conception and self-conception of the Habsburg Empire may have relevance for exploring the etiology of the First World War: many history textbooks have pointed to ‘nationalism’ - however defined - as one of the factors which led to the war.

If the Habsburg Empire was devoid of nationalism, then there is less likelihood that nationalism was a cause of World War One. If both the subjects and the rulers in the Habsburg Monarchy did not harbor nationalism in their conceptual frameworks of the world, then it is improbable that nationalism fueled the start of World War One.