Compelling history writing regains momentum

Just as it was starting to flag, The Idea of Nationalism has picked up speed once more. How does Kohn manage this shift amidst his discussion of the ups and downs of nascent German nationalism in the nineteenth century? With a section about contemporary Swiss nationalism, of course!

What makes Switzerland a special case, in Kohn's analysis, is that it had always been a collection of democratic city states in one way or another. It needed only pull together into one. Thus, fertile ground for nationalism was to be found there. And this healthily growing plant spread its pollen south, back to the Vaterland.

For German intellectuals of the time took Switzerland as an example and suggested the principalities pull together. A league of the princes was formed, and then nearly as quickly abandoned because of a widespread fear among Europe of a powerful empire existing in its heartland. That, and the princes in this league cared less about the people and societies that they ruled than about their own power and influence.

Ultimately, then, the discussion of nationalism among German intellectuals turned to democracy. As Johann Michael Afsprung wrote:

"'If such frail creatures as men are to be governed by mere men, then it can be done in fairness only democratically; it could be done aristocratically only if they were governed by angels, and monarchically if they were to be governed by God'" (390).

Even in the middle of a lengthy chapter, quotes like these and Kohn's chapter-like sub-sections are well placed. Some of the endings, such as that of section 10 (the quote above) even function as cliffhangers of a sort.

A Germany divided

Chapter seven of Hans Kohn's The Idea of Nationalism is certainly about the old world. However, instead of looking further at the nationalism of France or England, he turns to Germany and the rest of what he considers central and Eastern Europe.

On the one hand, I appreciate this look at a country that I've always considered to be very western in its culture and ideology. On the other, it feels like he's using Germany as a stand in for Russia, India, and the rest of the "central and eastern" old world when it comes to nationalism. What about Poland? Norway? Estonia?

It seems like we'll not be hearing much about the smaller countries just yet. If at all. 

Twenty pages in, this chapter also has yet to really mention much about the relationship between nationalism and folklore promised in its title ("The Folklore of the Past"). Kohn's noted that the romantic idea that a nation's true spirit exists in its common people and their practices was prevalent among eighteenth century German thinkers. But that's as close as he's come to folklore.

In fact, so far, he has done little else but paint a picture of a stark divide between classes. Apparently, there were those in the upper and intellectual classes who wanted to and worked to create some sort of German nationalism and there were those in the middle classes who liked the idea of nationalism, but were too caught up in being good citizens to really do much about it. 

From the perspective of narrative, Kohn has set up a conflict that could lead to the creation of a German nationalism. Now it's a matter of seeing how he delivers. 

Kohn on America: It's all about the idea

In the final parts of Kohn's look at America as nascent nation, he concentrates on major matters for nationhood. Things like education, language and literature. Neatly summed up, it comes down to the fact that there were many people like Noah Webster.

Webster believed that America's best bet was to strike out anew - to create its own language (to Webster, curiously, American English was enough), education system, and literature. When a proponent of something accurately predicts the state of a whole language for the next century, it's fair to say that he can be agreed with.

But, people like Webster faced plenty of opposition from conservative corners in the early years of the union and gradually those who were still concerned about Europe entered the fray. The first decades of the nineteenth century were host to Napoleon and his conquests after all. Kohn mentions nothing about an American fear that they would be next, rather that Americans bristled at the idea of Europe coming under one power, but I imagine there was a mix of the two sentiments at work.

Kohn closes the chapter with further mention of Jefferson and his singular belief in non-denominational agrarian societies. On the former of these two aspects, Kohn gives some attention to where religion stood in early US policy.

This attention is enough to turn up a 1796 treaty between the US and Tripoli that included the statement: "As the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion" (312). Kohn is quick to note that this treaty was ratified by the senate without controversy.

Ultimately, though, as Kohn reminds us all, it was the idea of America - this new found land where a person's name or status had no meaning, and where there was no precedent for European governance - that drew people together. And throughout its early years, this is what people believed in, fought for, and kept ever at the fore of their minds.

Thus ends Kohn's study of newborn nationhood. Up next appears to be a look at how folklore helped old countries to find a new sense of national identity. It's a bit of a strange set up, the sequence of chapters being vaguely chronological, but I appreciate the variety that it offers. The geographical jumps that Kohn makes keep things relatively fresh.

Anglo-Saxon Israelites and history in America

It seems like Anglo-Saxon peoples have a strange propensity for identifying with the biblical Israelites. The combination of the Angles and the Saxons that overtook Britain while Rome teetered and fell did it, and so too did those from the British Isles who colonized America.

Though perhaps these historically separate peoples' identification with the biblical Israelites reveals nothing more than their giving equal measures of authority to the bible. And why not? In both historical moments it was a common text, in much the same way that the Jurassic Park movie or the Harry Potter book series is today. Referring to something that the largest number of people will recognize is half the point of making such references.

At any rate, from the way Kohn writes of it, eighteenth century Europe was excited by the political developments across the Atlantic. To many, the new world offered the perfect place to put their high minded political ideals into practice. After all, First Nations aside (something that European thought of the time did with ease), it was a place without a history where, as Kohn quotes Benjamin Franklin: "...America, where people do not inquire concerning a stranger, What is he? but What can he do?" (275).

No doubt it's that attitude towards a person's making his or her own merit combined with the sentiment that it was better to look ahead than to look back for ideas that contributed much to America's modern view of history.

A view that Eddie Izzard did a great job of summing up over fifteen years ago (Dress to Kill (1998)):

Rousseau on nations

The past is more than a foreign country, it's populated with people who had some hilarious ideas. Like the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau and his belief that a Christian republic was unthinkable. The USA is a diverse amalgam of states and faiths, but it'd nonetheless be curious to see Rousseau's reaction to its modern form.

Dipping into territory that would seem more familiar to H.I. Marrou, Rousseau also had some particular ideas about education.

Kohn wraps up his chapter on the development of sovereignty with an overview of Rousseau's work framing constitutions for both Corsica and for Poland. The former was an all new nation, and so there was no true challenge for the philosopher there. The latter offered more to try him.

As part of his recommendations, Rousseau suggested that the Polish people be steeped in their native history and culture. To ensure that they were properly educated, he stated that Polish children would learn of all of their country's products by 10, all of its provinces, roads, and cities by 12, all of its history by 15, and all of its laws by 16 (256). Rousseau's idea being that this sort of education would allow Poland's citizens to kindle in their hearts a love for their country's total greatness.

Knowing only the capital, that they inevitably make beer there, and that Nintendo products are notoriously hard to find within its borders, I must be among the worst Poles ever.

Nationalism and the persistence of dead languages

Hans Kohn's mention of The Works of Ossian is far too brief. Anyone willing to fake an entire collection of heroic poetry allegedly about the Celtic forebears of Great Britain is someone with a very strong national feeling. Though perhaps such a person was exceptional in his having that feeling, or his conception of "nation" is just too loose for Kohn.

No doubt, the reason that Kohn just gives a brief mention to James Macpherson's forgery is that he's really concentrating on France in his discussion of shifting ideas of sovereignty. I think he's justified in doing so, but also missing out on what's going on in the peripheries.

Nonetheless, it's fascinating to know that French had no problem becoming a universal language in the eighteenth century, but struggled to become a common language within France. For the longest time Latin persisted as the language of instruction, though most of the contemporary philosophers and writers put their thoughts down in their nation's common tongue.

Eventually, Latin was pushed aside in favour of French as the language of instruction and politics, and was thereby legitimized. That this happened some time after ideas of governance started to swing around to the governed governing themselves really gives substance to the idea that Latin was a prince among languages.

And indeed it was.

Latin had been the language of instruction and diplomacy for centuries, and yet, it outlasted the much older idea of governance by an active monarchy in Europe. Though Latin wasn't subject to as much change as governance was over the centuries. Given that, perhaps it rusted shut in a way and that's why it lasted that little bit longer.

Beginning to think nationally

Next up on the non-fiction block is Hans Kohn's The Idea of Nationalism. From what little I've read of it so far, it looks like it's exactly the book I needed to get my head into an old, academic, Beowulf-as-pre-national-epic project (Tongues in Jars, where you can find my translations of the poem, is something of a starting point for this project). The end point of this project is likely a book (or perhaps just a long piece) about how Beowulf is the result of the Anglo-Saxons taking Celtic tales and mixing them with their own epic/heroic leanings. Or, if not the result, that the epic poem is at least the expression of an attempt to do so. Nationalism comes into the project via the Anglo-Saxon's obsession with finding their place in the world as a people.

Though, Hans Kohn would have some choice words for anyone who posited that nationalism (at least as we know it) existed before the 18th century.

Yes, having been published in 1943, Mr. Kohn has some very starchy ideas that just don't hold water any more. That is, if they ever did at all.

Among these ideas is that "alien [food and customs]...appear to [a person] unintelligible and indigestible" (5). As someone with Irish and Polish roots who would eat sushi on a daily basis if he could, I'd say Kohn has some explaining to do. Explaining that he never gets around to, because such statements are just taken as fact.

Interestingly, though, in the next paragraph Kohn writes: "The more primitive men are, the stronger will be their distrust of strangers[.]"

Given that idea, two things are apparent: First, we've certainly become much more civilized over the past 70 years; and second, reading through this book could get a little bumpy.

Agreeing to disagree

The Four Agreements comes to a close you'd expect. After going over the the book's titular subject, and then tying it all up with a glimpse at how it can be applied, the penultimate chapter of the book deals with the possible effects of actively practicing what's come before.

Reading things like Evelyn Underhill's "The Dark Night of the Soul" and the anonymous The Cloud of Unknowing (two books different in subject matter from The Four Agreements, but similar in purpose) has set the bar high for any sort of mystical philosophy that I come across. As such, The Four Agreements, because of its light tone and rhetorical flourishes, doesn't really measure up.

Ruiz touches on some important points, but this book is more of a gateway into thinking in a different way rather than one to challenge and rankle one who already does so to any significant degree. Ruiz's writing about what a person's best is is still excellent, but it's the only high point within. The rest is too thin, and leans too heavily on the anecdotes that Ruiz provides. This gives the book the tone of a motivational speech, and that's not really what I look for in my philosophy. Though finding motivation in heavier fare is always welcome.

If you've not done much reading into mysticism or ancient knowledge systems, then The Four Agreements is a fine place to start. Otherwise, it makes for a quick read and a [] refresher.

Agreements two and three: The problem of fiction

Fantasy lives in Mexico. Don Miguel Ruiz' way of explaining himself is full of colour. This makes his philosophy readily accessible to even the most casual reader. Yet, it also makes it sound overly simple.

To some extent it is, and that's also part of The Four Agreements' appeal. Telling anyone that enacting four commandments will change their life for the better is a sure way to get their attention. I only worry that the agreements are a little shallow.

Taking nothing personally and making no assumptions are, indeed, good ways to live, but I'm not satisfied by Ruiz' explanation of how these things work. What troubles me is an apparent emotional solipsism in Ruiz' philosophy.

Such an outlook follows from taking nothing personally, but what also follows on that is the idea that if everyone becomes impeccable in their emotional world, there will no longer be fiction, an art form that relies on assumptions and drama.

Perhaps fiction (and poetry) are agreements in themselves, and of the sort that Ruiz calls "black magic." That doesn't seem too far fetched, since Ruiz' system lends itself to a sort of utopianism similar to that of Plato's Republic. Regardless of that classical connection, those are agreements without which I could not live.

Lay away book special: The first agreement

P.D. Ouspensky's In Search if the Miraculous is the most in depth modern book of mysticism that I've read to date. It's not from the pen of the leader of that branch of mysticism (G.I. Gurdjief), but it is a great exemplar of a common formula in 20th century sales pitches/mystical gurus' self-presentation: create a crisis, explain how it can be overcome and weave what you're selling into that explanation.

Though Don Miguel Ruiz has some good things to say in his The Four Agreements, this same formula can be found all over its first two chapters. Even on a paragraph by paragraph basis. Take for instance, his explanation of the word "impeccable:" He states outright that it means "without sin," then gives a sound etymology and definition, and restates its definition clearly. Adding those two latter steps makes the revelation of the word's meaning more dramatic, but are unnecessary.

The first agreement itself ("be impeccable with your word") is a fine thing. However, while explaining the concept, he refers to how your word can be damaging to yourself as well as others. Again, this is quite all right, but in the previous chapter he strove to show that people do not know their true selves. Therefore, defining how he is using "yourself" in his explanation of the first agreement would help to clarify it further. And, for a book that's been about putting things simply thus far, clarity is essential.