Nationalism and Culture (62 page)

event it looks for new possibilities of development outside its old circle of operation, gradually enters upon new fields and fertilizes there germs that were in a sense waiting for fertilization. Thus there arise new forms of the cultural process, which doubtless differ from the old, but nevertheless carry in them its creative forces. Macedonian and Roman conquerors could put an end to the political independence of the tiny Greek city-republics J they could not prevent the transplanting of Greek culture deep in Inner Asia, its growth to new bloom in Egypt, nor its intellectual vitalizing of Rome herself.

This is the reason why peoples of less developed culture could never actually bring under subjection peoples of higher cultural status even when they far excelled them in military strength. It is possible to completely subjugate only very small populations which because of their numerical weakness could be easily ground downj so to subdue any larger people which has been welded together in the course of many centuries by a common culture is unthinkable. The Mongols could easily deal with the Chinese militarily 5 they were even in a position to set up a man of their tribe as despot of the Celestial Kingdom} but they had not the slightest influence on the inner structure of the social and cultural life of the Chinese peoples, whose distinctive customs were hardly disturbed by the invasion. On the other hand, the primitive culture of the Mongols could not hold out against the much older and immeasurably finer culture of the Chinese, and was, in fact, so completely absorbed by it that it left not a trace behind. Two hundred years sufficed to transform the Mongolian invaders into Chinese. The higher culture of the "conquered" proved itself stronger and more effective than the brutal military power of the "conquerors."

And how often was the Apennine Peninsula, the present Italy, overrun or quite inundated by foreign tribes. From the times of the migrations of peoples to the invasion by the French under Charles VIII and Francis I, Italy was the constant object of attack by countless tribes and populations whom ancient yearning and, above all, the prospect of rich booty, drew southward. Cimbri and Teutons, Lombards and Goths, Huns and Vandals, and dozens of other tribes rolled their rude troops through the fertile vales of the peninsula, whose inhabitants suffered severely from the continuous invasions. But even the most powerful and the crudest of the conquerors succumbed to the higher culture of the country, even though they opposed it at first with outspoken hostility or contemptuous disdain.* They were all gradually drawn into it and compelled to new ways of living. Their native strength has merely served to bring to that

■* Thus Procopius tells us in his story of the wars of the Goths and Vandals of a significant utterance of Luitprand: "When we wish to insult an enemy in public and hold him up to scorn, we call him a Roman," The Germanic tribes were espe-

ancient culture new vitalizing factors and to fill its veins with their fresh blood.

History knows many similar instances. They serve repeatedly to demonstrate the infinite superiority of cultural processes over the pitiful stupidity of political endeavors. All efforts of conquering states to assimilate the population of new-won territories by the brutal exercise of power —suppression of the native language, forcible interference with traditional institutions, and so on—have been vainj more than that, in most instances, their effect has been just the opposite of what the conqueror sought to accomplish. England has never been able to win the loyalty of the Irish j her violent treatment has only deepened and widened the abyss that separates the two peoples and increased Irish hatred of the English. The "Germanizing efforts" of the Prussian government in Poland made the lives of the Poles more difficult and bitter, but they were not able to change their temper or make them friendlier to the Germans. Today we behold the fruits of this senseless policy. The Russifying policy of the tsarist government in the Baltic provinces led to shameful outrages against human dignity, but it brought the people no closer to Russia and was of profit chiefly to the resident German barons whose brutal exploitation of the masses it greatly furthered. The supporters of imperial policy in Germany might persuade themselves that they could win the affection of the Alsatians for Germanism by their "dictatorial decrees," but, although the people were German both in language and customs, Germany failed to achieve that end. Just as little will the present efforts of the French at assimilation in Alsace be able to instill into the inhabitants a love for France. Almost every great state has within its borders national minorities which it treats in this manner j the result is everywhere the same. Love and loyalty cannot be compelled; they have to be earned; and force and suppression are the least fitting means to this end. The national-suppression policy of the great states before the War developed in the suppressed nationalities an extreme nationalism which finds expression today in the according by the new-made states of the same treatment to their national minorities which, as national minorities, they themselves once received —a phenomenon showing all too clearly that little states follow in the footsteps of great ones and imitate their practices.

We can just as little convert a people by force to alien morals, customs and modes of thought as we can force a man into the frame of an alien individuality. A fusion of different tribes and racial elements is possible only in the realm of culture, because here no external compulsion arises, only an inner need, to meet which every member makes its special contribution. Culture rests neither on brute force nor on blind faith in authority;

daily hostile to all instruction and educative influence because, in the opinion of Procopius, they saw in these the enervation of their warlike activities.

its effectiveness is based on the free acceptance of all that has resulted from collaborative efforts for spiritual and material welfare. The decisive matter here is the natural need, not the blind edict from above. For this reason, in all the great epochs, culture has marched hand in hand with the voluntary union and fusion of different human groupsj in fact, these two factors are mutually necessary. Only voluntary determination which in most cases arises quite unconsciously is able to unite men of different descent in their cultural efforts and in this way to produce new forms of culture.

Here the situation is the same as it is with the individual. When I take up the work of a strange author who reveals new things to me and arouses my mind no one compels me to read the book or to appropriate its ideas. It is merely the mental influence that affects me and that will perhaps later be erased by influences of another kind. Nothing compels me to make a decision that is repugnant to my inmost nature and does violence to my mind. I appropriate the alien matter because it brings me pleasure and becomes a part of my spiritual beingj I assimilate myself to it until at last there is no boundary between myself and the alien matter. It is in this way that all cultural and mental occurrences are brought about.

And this natural, unforced assimilation goes on without any oversight, without any evident analysis, because it grows out of the personal requirements of the individual and corresponds to his mental and spiritual experiences. Any cultural process goes on the more peacefully and with the less friction, the less political motives are in evidence; for politics and culture are opposites which can never be fundamentally reconciled. They are striving in different directions, always widely divergent j their allegiance is tb different worlds.

NATIONALrPOLITICAL UNITY AS HINDRANCE TO CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. THE REDISCOVERY OF GREECE. POSITION OF RELIGION IN GREECE. CONCERNING THE DESCENT OF THE HELLENES. GREEK THOUGHT. IDEAS ABOUT MAN AND THE UNIVERSE. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. MANY-SIDEDNESS OF HELLENIC CULTURE. POETRY. DRAMA. COMEDY. THE THEATER AS BAROMETER OF PERSONAL FREEDOM. PHYSICAL CULTURE. ARCHITECTURE. GREEK STYLE. SCULPTURE. PAINTING. ART AS A PRINCIPLE OF LIFE. THE NATIONAL-POLITICAL DISUNION OF GREECE. INFLUENCE OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT ON THE MANIFOLDNESS OF HELLENIC CULTURE. CHARACTER OF THE GREEK POLIS. PECULIARITY OF GREEK COLONIZATION. PARTICIPATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS. OLYMPUS AS A SYMBOL OF THE POLITICAL CONDITIONS. THE PERSIAN WARS. REASONS FOR THE VICTORY OF THE HELLENES. CULTURAL UNITY AND POLITICAL UNITY. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR AND THE QUESTION OF NATIONAL UNITY. SIGNS OF COLLAPSE. ALEXANDER BRINGS ABOUT THE POLITICAL UNITY OF GREECE AND DESTROYS THE SOURCES OF HELLENIC CULTURE.

WE referred in the first part of this work to the Irreconcilable opposition between the political endeavors of small minorities in history and the culturally creative activity of socially allied human groups, and tried to make the results of this inner antagonism as clear as possible to the reader. Everything else follows from this. Before all, it follows that in periods when political thought and action prevail in society, cultural creation, and especially its higher forms, fall into decay and collapse. If it were otherwise, then culture would have been in fullest bloom in times of highest perfection of national political power and would have withered in times of national dissolution. But history everywhere shows us the opposite. Greece and Rome are the classical witnesses of this, but not the only ones J the history of all times and all peoples bears eloquent testimony to it. Ni etzsche had recognized this very clearly when, in his well-known utterance on the resurrection of the spirit, he said: "On the political sickbed a people usually renews its youth and finds again the soul it lost in

seeking and maintaining power. Culture is most deeply indebted to times of political wealcness."

About the outstanding importance of the ancient Grecian culture, peoples are fairly well agreed. Even if one is of the opinion that this culture has been too highly idealized by the enthusiastic partisans of classical antiquity, one still cannot deny its monumental importance. The immoderate overestimation which was at one time accorded to classical antiquity is easily explained. One must not forget that with the development of the Christian church Europe for centuries almost entirely lost its connection with Greek intellectual life which, of course, seemed to Christian thought essentially alien and revolting. By the rediscovery of the Greek language and the universal awakening of minds toward the close of the Middle Ages, man became again spiritually united with ancient Hellas. On the Humanists of the sixteenth century this ancient world, which so suddenly emerged from oblivion, and which, seen from a distance, glittered with a thousand hues, must have made an actually bewitching impression J especially since it suggested immediate comparison with the present when the church was more and more vigorously combating the new conceptions of the universe with torture and the stake. Without doubt, Greek culture had, along with its illuminating and alluring features, also profound social defects, which one must not overlook if one wishes to form a clear picture of its total character. Thus, one must not forget that in Greece, as in every other state of antiquity, slavery existed, even though—except in Sparta—the treatment of slaves was much more humane than, for example, in Rome. In many Greek communities it was even customary to set free those slaves who acquired a Greek education. It also happened sometimes, under unusual circumstances, that part of the slaves were adopted into the master-class. This happened in Sparta at the time of the Archidamian war when the privileged caste had been greatly weakened by its losses and had to deal with an uprising of the helots. The same thing occurred repeatedly in Athens.

Also, the history of Greece is by no means entirely free from persecutions of ideas. Socrates had to drink the hemlock. Protagoras had to flee, and his book. About the Godsy was publicly burned. Diogenes of Appolonia and Theodorus "the Atheist" were subjected to persecutions. Even poets, like Diagoras of Melos and Aeschylus, were sometimes in peril of their lives, and Euripides was threatened with a public indictment because of his "godless ideas." Of course, these occasional persecutions cannot be compared even remotely with the persecutions of heretics during the Middle Ages. The basic assumptions for the latter were entirely lacking in Greece. There was neither an organized priestly caste nor a church. The country lacked also any start toward political unity, the supporters of which are always inclined to suppress free thought and to raise persecution of certain

ideas to a system. However, there existed, of course, among the people themselves all sorts of superstitions j and in many places, especially in Delphi, this had developed under the influence of the priests into a fanatical orthodoxy j but this had only local importance, since all organized connection with other parts of the country was lacking.

Despite such defects, the intellectual greatness of Grecian culture is undisputed. A culture which could influence the totality of European peoples for so long and in such diverse fields, with an irresistible power which has not yet exhausted itself today though its creators vanished from history two thousand years ago, may easily be overvalued j it can hardly be overlooked.

No man of profound insight will try to maintain that the Greeks originated among themselves all the contributions they have made in the various fields of cultural life. The greatness and significance of every culture lies just here: its intellectual and social effectiveness cannot be confined within political or national boundaries. Perhaps a state can be created with the sword, but not a culture j for this stands above all state organizations or lordly institutions, and is in its innermost essence anarchistic j even if one could overlook the fact that thus far political bondage has been the greatest hindrance to any higher cultural development. That Greece was influenced in its development by other cultures is perfectly obvious, and one would have to be a race-theorist to deny it. Besides, the Greek mythology itself bears witness to these foreign influences—as in the legends of Cadmus, Cecrops, Danaos, and others. In recent times there has been hardly a year in which scientific research has not brought to light new material that reveals more clearly the Oriental and Egyptian influence upon the shaping of Greek culture. Thus, the Semitic elements in the poetry of Homer have been repeatedly brought out. Of quite especial importance were the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann in Asia Minor which laid bare the remains of an ancient culture now called the Mycenian. Then, in 1900, came the excavations of the English scholar, Evans, on the island of Crete, bringing to light the vestiges of a very much older culture, which can be assigned to a time at least two thousand years before our chronological era.