Intellectuals and Revolutionary Politics - Term Paper Example

? SOCIOLOGY - Intellectuals and Revolutionary Politics Question The central value system of the Western world In accordance with Edward Shils “… inthe modern societies of the West, the central value system has gone much more deeply into the hearts of their members than it had ever succeeded in doing in any earlier society” (Shils, 1974). This claim may be misinterpreted by modern representatives of the Western society. Many people may start thinking over the essence of the value system of the modern Western world. The system of value for the Western society is focused on money. Unfortunately all values have their roots in money. Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations describes this phenomenon in the following way: “proclaimed the principle of the ‘invisible Hand’; every individual, in pursuing only his own selfish good, [is] led as if by an invisible hand, to achieve the best good for all...” (Buchholz, 1999). Thus Smith underlines that in the first place of the modern Western society is selfish interests of every individual. Everybody thinks that the more money he earns the less problems he would have. Of course, some contemporaries think that in case they had a lot of money they would share it with poor people. In reality, even if a person succeeds and gains lots of money there are only a few who share it with the poor. It also can be argued that the modern world is being developed at full speed and it is necessary to earn money to keep pace with this progress. Moreover, world’s economics is being developed following the main principle: to make the greatest profits. From this perspective, a root of monetary obsession of the modern Westerners is involuntarily dictated by external conditions. Furthermore, from the perspective of economics it may be claimed that “Money ...provides the measuring rod of values” (Buchholz, 1999). People’s fault is that they transformed these economical principles into their daily lives and now they transform their values focusing on a monetary rod of values. The basic ideological and spiritual principles of the modern Westerners are developed under the influence of economical postulates. Edward Shils considers that values definition is on behalf of intellectuals, who are a minor group of any society. In order to define values, intellectuals claimed that there was an “interior need to penetrate beyond the screen of immediate concrete experience” (Shils 1972, p. 3). In such a way, money as a value is argued by Shils for sure. This value is relevant to modern society, but ‘beyond the screen of immediate concrete experience’ it is not a value. The members of the Western society hardly realize that a deep-rooted system of values is good, but it’s not the system to be deeply rooted. For example, in the earlier society the one of the basic values and an honor was to die for one’s country. This value could hardly exist in the ‘monetized’ society nowadays. Therefore if to discuss the deep rooted system of values of the Western society it can be metaphorically explained what this really means: “Everyone has a god, but not everyone is aware of who or what that god is” (Buchholz, 1999). Q 2 Romantic German nationalism as a trigger of Nazi politics The upheaval of national consciousness is triggered by intervention of aliens in the territory of a certain nation. Romanticism and ‘wars of liberation’ of different classes in Germany triggered Nazi politics. From one perspective it may seem that there is nothing in common between Romanticism and Nazism. There is a perfect explanation of German nationalism that occurred under influence of Romanticism: “When, later, the last hopes which the German patriots had rested on liberation from the foreign yoke had burst like over-blown bubbles, their spirits sought refuge in the moonlit magic night and the fairy world of dreamy longing conjured up for them by romanticism, in order to forget the gray reality of life and its shameful disappointments” (Romanticism and Nationalism). Partially, German Romanticism was influenced by French philosophers who appealed for the returning back to nature. Herder reflected ideas of Rousseau. In spite of the fact that Herder was not romantic, he borrowed from French Romanticism such issues as systematic of everything, relationship of the human soul to the Mother Nature. Spiritual culture of different nations was acclaimed by Herder. Consequently, German nationalism is believed to be rooted in the work of J.G. Herder (1784). The author claimed that every nation is unique and it has to strive for restoration of its ‘genius’. Also, Herder celebrated the people (Volk) as the core value of any nation (Zammito, 2002). Greenfeld underlines that ‘architects of national modernity were intellectuals’ (Greenfeld, p. 277). That is why Herder’s influence on romantic German nationalism can be justified. But not only Herder’s opinion was shaped under the influence of Romanticism in France. Romanticism in Germany was a result of struggling with both rationalism and Pietism. The representative of Romanticism in Germany supported unity of ‘social’ and ‘individual’ (Greenfeld, p. 352). Thus Herder underlined that there are universal principles for development of all nations and he surely didn’t mean that his ideas concerned only Germany and were not extremist at all. Unfortunately, Herder’s ideas were mixed up with a brutal thinking of ‘crude Darwinism’ and thus Nazis rushed into a struggle to fight against barbarization of the German people. The Nazi state turned into “an abomination almost unimaginable to those who have not endured its tortures, both subtle and overt” (Zammito, 2002). The racialist extremism was considered to be the first and foremost remedy for the German people‘re-barbarization’. Further on, Nazis expressed negative attitudes to different nations and wanted to increase their ‘original’ nation both naturally and artificially (e.g. ovum fertilization of German women by sperm of Hitler!) Moreover, a malicious and ruthless governing and totalitarian control over the nation and an attempt to covert all nations into the one ‘the greatest nation’ resulted in billion of deaths of innocent people. Unfortunately, a misinterpretation of Herder’s works was the greatest mistake of the Nazi. In case postulates of Herder were correctly understood by Nazis, they would fight for their own nation’s prosperity in a class-based local revolution with no extremist moods. From the other hand, these barbaric actions can’t be justified or explained by any rational reasons. Nazi politics is not the result of Romantic German nationalism; it is a perverted interpretation of the philosophical ideas described by Herder in relation to all countries. Q 3 The health of One-State by Nietzsche In the novel by Zamyatin “We” an interesting model of One-State is suggested. The ideas of the novel were metaphorically transformed events in Russia during the rule of dictators. It is interesting to see the way a great Philosopher Nietzsche could interpret a model of One-State. First of all, the philosopher strictly criticized the idea that “the state is the highest goal of mankind and that a man has no higher duty than to serve the state” (Nussbaum, 1997). He described this kind of service or a devotion of an individual to the State as “a relapse not into paganism but into stupidity” (Nussbaum, 1997). Individuals have to exist beyond the borders of the State. Their freedom and liberties shouldn’t be restricted by authoritarian dictatorship of laws and legal regulations. It is not Nietzsche’s appeal for anarchy; it is an appeal for humanity to discard stupidity, one of which is serving to the State (Nussbaum, 1997). A negative attitude to the State is also expressed in his claim that the state is “coldest of all cold monsters”. The individual that interests Nietzsche most of all is the one who exists “where the state ends” (Nussbaum, 1997).  One-State presented by Zamyatin is ruled by one person, the Benefactor. He has his `Office of Guardians' and wants to solve all social problems with the help of scientific knowledge. He compares One-State with ‘a perfect mechanical world’. Still, Zamyatin like Nietzsche expressed a hope that “The next stage of development, perhaps in the distant future, will be a social order under which there will be no need for the coercive power of the state” (Zamyatin 1993, 35). In spite of Nietszche, Zamyatin clearly realized that a human being can’t exist separately from what preceded a phase of human development of the nation. Nietzsche didn’t reject this idea; vice versa he wanted to ‘purify’ human beings from restrictions imposed on them by a huge Machine, the State. Another common idea can be found in Zamyatin’s citation which is believed to be influenced by Nietzsche’s ideas: a "number" in Zamyatin’s novel means a man or person. When Zamyatin says: “there is no last number” we restore in our memories Nietzsche's concept of the "last man" from his work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nevertheless, I doubt that Nietzsche would change his ideas about the role of the State even if it is a Machine. Moreover, Nietzsche’s intentions to find not superfluous human beings and ‘open their eyes’ on themselves discards a possibility to serve to the State. Therefore, no matter what’s the organization and the structure of the State. It shouldn’t subjugate its citizens. The main idea of Zamyatin is to show that the Great Machine of One-State intends to penetrate into the minds of the people and make them ‘a perfect mechanical world’ as the One- State is. Works cited 1. Buchholz, Todd. New ideas from Dead Economists: An introduction to modern economic thought. Penguin Books, 1999. 2. Greenfeld, Liah. "Germany" in Nationalism. pp. 293- 314; 322 352; pp. 358- 395. 3. Nussbaum, Martha. Is Nietzsche a Political Thinker? International Journal of Philosophical Studies (1997) 5: 1-13. 4. Shils, Edward. “The Intellectuals and the Powers: Some Perspectives For Comparative Analysis”. In The Intellectuals and the Powers, Chicago, 1972. 5. Zammito, John H. Kant, Herder, the birth of anthropology. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2002. 6. Zamyatin, Evgenii. We. Penguin Modern Classics,1993. 7. Romanticism and Nationalism. Available at: Read More