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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
The Nation as Philosophical Problem
The problem of the nation is well articulated in a speech given in 1985 by then president of the Federal Republic of Germany, R. Von Weiszäcker:
I belong to a people, the German people. What are the characteristics which we Germans share as a people? What does it mean to belong to such a people? What does the fact that I am German have to do with my identity as a person? Does this fact place a claim on me? Does it mark me? Does it include responsibilities for me? Does it include obligations to me as a German, obligations which I would otherwise not have to fulfil?(…) It is up to us to give content to the term ‘German,’ a content with which we ourselves and the world would like to live in peace.
This is not a psychological comment. It is not about the deep-seated need of people to express feelings of collective identity. The question of the nation here is asked from a normative perspective. That will also be the starting point of this study.
1 Weizsäcker, R. Von, ‘Die Deutschen und ihre Identität,’ Von Deutschland aus. Reden des Bundespräsidenten (München: Deutsche Taschenbuch-Verlag 1987), 39 and 61Google Scholar.
2 Gellner, E., Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: B. Blackwell 1983) 1Google Scholar: “Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent.” This formulation is adopted by many well-known authors, for example by Hobsbawm, E.J., Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990), 9Google Scholar.
3 An exception to this is the series of lectures Derrida gave in Toronto. Derrida, J., ‘La philosophie dans sa langue nationale,’ Du droit à la philosophie (Paris: Galilée 1990), 283–309Google Scholar.
4 It is the famous definition of Abbé Sieyès from the time of the French Revolution: “La nation, c'est un corps d'associés vivant sous une loi commune et représentés par la même législature.“
5 This meaning was also present in ‘patriote’ or ‘patriot’ which means ‘warrior for the nation’ in the universal sense of warrior against tyranny, for freedoms and constitutional rights. This was also the acceptable meaning, not only during the English and American revolutions, but even in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The term was then mostly used by and for the Chartists, who in their fight for radical social and economic reformation were at an earlier stage even internationally oriented. Only later in the century would the term obtain nationalistic connotations. Cf. Dietz, M.G., ‘Patriotism,’ in Ball, T., Farr, J., and Hanson, R.L., eds., Political Innovation and Conceptual Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1989), 177-93Google Scholar.
6 At the same moment that Abbé Sieyès in 1789 wrote his universal outpouring on human rights, Abbé Grégoire wrote his famous texts: Essai sur la régénération physique, morale et politique des Juifs and Rapport sur la nécessit et les moyens d'anéantir les patois et d'universaliser l'usage de la langue française. For an analysis see Certeau, M. De, Une politique de la langue. La Révolution française et les patois (Paris: Gallimard 1975)Google Scholar; Caussat, P., De l'identité culturelle. Mythe ou réalité (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer 1989), 66–76Google Scholar.
7 Caussat, , De l'identité culturelle, 77–81Google Scholar
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9 Lacoue-Labarthe, Ph. and Nancy, J.-L., Le mythe nazi (La Tour d’ Aigues: Editions de l’ Aube 1991), 57–58Google Scholar
10 Gellner, , Nations and Nationalism, 43Google Scholar. Even in the cradle of the romantic version there was, in spite of the communal language, no feeling of national unity. This occurred only after Bismarck, thus after political unity. One thinks precisely of the cult of the Gothic. In this way a Flemish and Walloon national feeling has only developed after, within, and thanks to the Belgian context that historically represents a much older unity.
11 The double movement is possible also at the level of supra-national structures. In so called Euro-nationalism, Europe is presented as a super-nation with its own national (and also socio-cultural) identity. This can be interpreted in two ways. Either political union is the expression of the unity of the nation (the Christian inheritance, for example), or a politically unified Europe must make of itself a cultural unity (via, for example, educational policy).
12 See Sandel, M., ‘The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self,’ Political Theory 12 (1984) 1, 81–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 Scruton, R., ‘In Defence of the Nation,’ The Philosopher on Dover Beach (Manchester: Carcanet 1990), 299–328Google Scholar
14 Levinas, E., Difficile liberté. Essais sur le judaïsme (Paris: Albin Michel 1976), 40Google Scholar
15 Peperzak, A., ‘From Utilitarianism to Ethics,’ Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 83 (1991) 4, 271Google Scholar
16 Willms, B., Idealismus und Nation. Zur Rekonstruktion des politischen Selbsbewusstsein der Deutschen (Paderbom: Schöningh 1986)Google Scholar
17 Le mythe nazi, 61. In Nazism, the political cannot be viewed as an articulation of pre-political or cultural identities, because this would presuppose a universal moment. Nazism is the negation of all universality. For that reason it is not even about language or cultural identity. It is about the completely singular and the completely incommunicable. It simply marks its own soil with its own blood.
18 Habermas, J., Eine Art Schadensabwicklung, (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp 1987), 135, 171Google Scholar; Die nachholende Revolution (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp 1990), 135. Ferry, J.-M., ‘Qu'est-ce qu'une identité postnationale?’ Esprit 164 (1990) 80–90Google Scholar; ‘Pertinence du postnational,’ Lenoble, J. and Dewandre, N., L'Europe au soir du siècle (Paris: Editions Esprit 1992), 39–58Google Scholar.
19 This seems to be suggested in Fukuyama, F., The End of History and the Last Man (New York: The Free Press 1992), ch. 25.Google Scholar
20 See the last pages of Kristeva, J., Etrangers à nous-mêmes (Paris: Fayard 1988), 287-90Google Scholar.
21 The expression comes from Lyotard, J.-F., Le Différend (Paris: Editions de Minuit 1983), 216-17.Google Scholar
22 It is conspicuous how Belgium, after becoming a federal state a number of years ago, still finds it difficult to discuss important political problems (for example, the efficient working of social security or of justice). Just as a discussion is begun, another party proposes that the competence in the matter be divided up and referred to the regional governments. This type of splitting up has now acquired the status of ‘political solution.'
23 Havel, V., ‘On Horne,’ New York Review of Books, 5 December 1991, 49Google Scholar.
24 Sociologists such as Gabriel A. Almond use the term ‘political culture.’ It is useful here in expressing the fact that groups embody and institutionalize very specific forms of political conduct and notions. Thus a form of national integration, in the political sense, is possible which does not coincide with the ethnic or cultural unity.
25 Habermas has emphasized this himself in his interview with Ferry (Die nachholende Revolution, 149-56).
26 Sociological research has shown that in the Federal German Republic the dominant feelings of collective identity have shifted from a cultural identity to a collective pride in their democratic and economic achievements. Honolka, H., Die Bundesrepublik auf der Suche nach ihrer Identität (München: C.H. Beck 1987)Google Scholar.
