NATIONALISM AND CULTURE.

 By M. ISAACS.

Modern times have seen the resurgence of nationalistic spirit in virulent form, in which the life of the individual is subjected entirely to the overwhelming demands of the State in which he lives. In some countries, such as Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, individuality was completely repudiated, so much so that human lives and humanity generally were regarded as inanimate objects or as pieces of machinery, to be employed at the will of the State which exercised dominion over them. Such a condition can only result in an utter brutalisation of man and his fellows, and this is the warning note trumpeted throughout his book, "Nationalism and Culture," which Rudolf Rocker never wearies of sounding.

This monumental work, within its framework of the socio-political development of contemporary society evolves a philosophy of individual liberty and freedom that is akin to the anarchistic systems of Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin. The trend of modern political thought is to regard the nation as everything and the citizen, as nothing. Behind the "will of the nation exist the selfish interests of those who feel themselves called to interpret this will in their own sense, and to impose it by force on the people." In tracing the development of this outlook and disclosing its origin, the author reveals a passionate and fiery opposition to any thought which, either in theory or practice, shackles and impedes the right of the individual to a full and effective expression of his own nature.

The will to power has always been one of the strongest motives in the development of human social forms, and starting from this premise Rocker builds up a theory of social progress that is as novel as it is illuminating. Not that he disregards the economical concepts that form the keystone of general socialist philosophy. On the contrary, Rocker, readily admits that the Marxian doctrine of economic necessity plays some part in the evolutionary process of civilisation, but criticises those socialist thinkers who make of economic determinism the immutable and fundamental substratum of society. In its place he would set the "brutal spirit, of mastery," whose influence he traces throughout the whole course of history.

It is in communal organisation, in the ordering and government of communities, states and nations that the desire for power finds its greatest expression. Church and state are the forms within whose framework institutions of political power can exercise the coercive authority that bolsters up their continued existence. Such institutions, however, are always the instruments of small minorities seeking to impose their will upon the people as a whole, concealing behind a welter of high-sounding principles and seemingly noble ideals, real ambitions of perpetuating the powerful grip in which they clasp all social intercourse.

The quest for power, the tyrannous imposition of the authority of the state, are the antagonists of cultural achievement which, for Rocker, provide for mankind the summum bonum of human happiness and self-expression. Cultural advance and, for that matter, culture generally, expresses "the anonymous force of the community" as a whole, as opposed to the notion of power "which always reverts to individuals or small groups of individuals." Here, then, lies the quintessence of Rocker’s theory, namely, that only in a society in which the State has completely disappeared will man be able to indulge to the full his cultural motivations, his cultural energies. Thus Rocker exclaims:

"Power always acts destructively, for its possessors are ever striving to lace all phenomena of social life into a corset of their laws to give them a definite shape. Its mental expression is dead dogma; its physical manifestation of life, brute force. This lack of intelligence in its endeavours leaves its imprint likewise on the persons of its representatives, gradually making them mentally inferior and brutal, even though they were originally excellently endowed. Nothing dulls the mind and soul of man as does the eternal monotony of routine, and power is essentially routine."

And later on:

"Power is always the sterile element in society, denied all creative force. Culture embodies procreative skill, creative urge, formative impulse, all yearnings for expression. Power is comparable to hunger the satisfaction of which keeps the individual alive up to a certain age limit. Culture, in the highest sense, is like the procreative urge, which keeps the species alive. The individual dies, but never society. States perish, cultures only change their scene of action and forms of expression."

There are many similar expressions of the inherent enmity between nationalism, the bulwark of power, and culture, and it is only natural that the stronger the state, the more completely "man's cultural activity comes under the control of power, the more clearly we recognise the fixation of its forms, the crippling of its imaginative creative vigour and the gradual atrophy of its productive will."

Thus, in his analysis of the social theories of Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel and a host of others, Rocker emphatically drives home his main contention that in all cases of centralised authority, man deals another blow to the progress of cultural integration. Some forms of state authority may be milder than others, thereby permitting some degree, of cultural extension. But, inevitably, as soon as freedom of expression impinges upon and threatens to curb the jealously guarded sway of despotic power, the cloak of benevolence is violently thrust aside, and autocracy ruthlessly asserts itself once more.

. . .

The state is a concept that the human mind will find exceedingly difficult to abolish as an indispensable condition and prerequisite of human association exercising the fullest freedom and independence. Yet Rocker cogently and effectively argues that it is in the free interplay of human relationships and adherence that man can attain mastery over his environment. Man measures his cultural stature by the manner in which he elaborates and plans, in a purposive and deliberative fashion, the elements of nature, moulding them to his use so as to serve all human ends and accordingly breaking down the artificial barriers of race and language of political forms and economic orientations.

''The history of the state," Rocker says, "is the history of human oppression and intellectual disfranchisement. It is the story of the unlimited lust for power of small minorities which could be satisfied only by the enslavement and exploitation of the people." After speaking of Italy, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Russia and Germany (Rocker wrote his book in 1936—Ed.) he goes on: "that along this pathway there lies no rosy future for men is clear to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear... It is not the form of the state, it is the state itself which creates the evil and continually nourishes and fosters it. The more the government crowds out the social element in human life, or forces it under its rule, the more rapidly society dissolves into its separate parts; which then lose all inner connection and either rush thoughtlessly into idiotic collisions over conflicting interests or drift helplessly with the stream, not caring whither they are borne."

In an epilogue written in 1946, Rocker applies his conclusions to the immediate contemporary scene and finds in Russia a new absolutism whose internal and external forms greatly surpass anything that had been achieved by the power politics of old time absolutisms. In what he sees as Russian imperialism he discerns a future menace to world security, inasmuch as he claims that the Russian leaders have acquired an insatiable thirst for power which constitutes a greater danger to general culture and social progress than any other form of tyranny. Russia is breeding a nationalism which bids fair to surpass in oppression and subjugation not only capitalism, but also the worst forms of German Nazism. For this reason Rocker holds that a real federation of European peoples is the only means of bridging the hostile rivalries between European national groups, fostered and encouraged by a narrow-minded nationalism detrimental to all civilisation.

No thinking person can be but greatly disturbed and stimulated by this remarkable opus, disturbing because those who believe in democracy generally can only envisage democracy operating within the limits of national entities, and stimulating because the book opens up new vistas to be pursued in the never-ending search for eternal peace among humankind. With Rocker we can reiterate the words, of the French historian, Edgar Quinet: "The peoples will not rise to greater heights before they have fully realised the depth of their decline."

* Nationalism and Culture, by Rudolf Rocker. Translated from the German by Ray E. Chase. Rocker Publications Committee, Los Angeles, California.

Australian Jewish Forum (Crows Nest, NSW.), Wednesday 1 December 1948, page 26 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/266821256/29907662