Nation and War

Nation and War

 

Nation and Homeland

On the Polish Nation. Catharsis

 

18 IX 1909 

The dogma I rely on is the subordination of life to the Idea. The justification for this dogma lies in ethics. Next comes the proof that the nation is the Idea. Therefore, it follows to demonstrate that there are no real common interests among the nation’s members. There are no interests of the collective.

I am reminded of two arguments here. One made by a Jew, a Social Democrat from the Kingdom of Poland, in which he argued that there could not be a party defending the interests of all strata because, for example, it would be 1) defending the interests of the tenant to make housing cheap and 2) the interests of the landlord to make housing expensive, and so on. Further on, at the Unity convention last year, he [Kernbaum] said: We uphold the interests of the workers, the people, etc., as long as they do not interfere with the interests of the collective. Well [Kernbaum] should be answered that there are no interests of the collective, only the interests of the nation. T h e  n a t i o n,  h o w e v e r,  i s  s o m e t h i n g  o t h e r  t h a n  t h e  c o l l e c t i v e  o f  i t s  m e m b e r s. Social democracies, on the other hand, acknowledge that in the economic field, supporting the interests of all strata simultaneously is indeed impossible, but that these interests are not primary, therefore, in primary interests, identity can exist, and there can be a faction defending the interests of all, but as a nation, not as a collective.

It must then be demonstrated that national connectivity cannot rely on any real bond absolutely: neither language nor race (i.e. common descent, etc.). National connectivity is, by its very nature, an ideal connectivity, and this constitutes its value. Here, however, it should be pointed out that although the nature of this connectivity is ideal, these real factors contribute to strengthening the sense of connectivity. As long as among people inhabiting the same land there existed a commonality of real interests, the concept of a nation did not properly exist there, i.e., in primitive times when there were no class distinctions at all, everyone was a farmer, and a national defeat was explained by the fact that the vanquished lost their livestock, fields, and all the possessions.

If, then, the Nation is an Idea and the aim of its members is to work in the interest of that Idea, let us consider what the  i n t e r e s t  o f  t h e  Idea may consist in. Clearly, it lies in its strength because every interest is an augmentation of strength. That is to say, for it to have the greatest impact on the life of humanity.

Independence (I am beginning to apply to the Polish nation) cannot be an end in itself. For independence can exist without strength and power. Power is the goal, but it goes without saying that only an independent nation can be comprehensively powerful. So independence is desirable as a condition of power. When I speak of power and impact on the life of mankind, obviously both are possible in the purely ideological field. So a subordinate nation which will have poets, artists, learned philosophers, possibly founders of religions so great that it will impose its spiritual form on the world (Greece), will be a powerful nation. The first goal of a nation, therefore, is for its so-called culture to be as great as possible. Cultural power can be detached from the concept of nation, e.g. a scholar does not mark his nationality. So it is necessary for the nation as such to have its power. But the nation aspires to all-embracing power. This means that it seeks to have an impact on the course of humanity’s political development.

This impact is possible in three ways:

1)  That the nation, as such, dominates over other nations and nothing more, meaning that its power is manifested in oppression or at least in authority. For example, Tatar states or Turkey, or Russia over Poland today;

2)  That the nation, through great deeds, leaves a mark in history. The goal of a nation is to leave the deepest possible trace, that is, to have a history. (Remember my opinion: they say that happy nations have no history; but the question is whether it is better to be happy or to have a history?) Thus, engaging in great wars without a result, only covering the nation with glory. Examples include the wars of Charles XII;

3)  That a country, with its power, becomes the representative of a certain ideal and puts that ideal into action. In this case, both its oppression and the wars it wages take on a completely different meaning. Here, everything is on a grand scale: hence, Alexander, the conquests of Rome, the French Revolution, and Napoleon.

Poland does not have enough strength of its own to strive for the first two forms. It must become a  r e p r e s e n t a t i v e  of the Idea. And then the strength of that Idea will be the lever for Polishness. In this regard, our poets and messianists are absolutely right.

The question now is, which Idea does it represent? This results from Poland’s situation. It is under oppression; its pursuit of existence is therefore based on the denial of oppression. Hence, revolutionary slogans of freedom and equality should be the slogans of Poland. Poland should be a revolutionary force. The vital idea today is the idea of social revolution. This revolutionary stance of Poland is further defined by the following observation. As long as the nation has an ideal existence, every national manifestation has absolute value as an enlargement of the nation’s existence. Thus the uprisings of 31 and 69 have absolute value. As long as some other ideal considerations do not oppose it, it is better for an unhappy uprising to happen than not to happen. An armed national manifestation is an end in itself. The words of Demosthenes about Chaeronea are true. War can almost be defined as the raison d’être of a nation. A nation exists if it engages in wars.

The absolute value is in so-called intransigence. It is not possible to doubt opportunism and intransigence as between two tactics, for intransigence is not a tactic at all. It is the being of the nation. Conciliatory attitude and conservatism are therefore condemned as contrary to Polishness. The slogan: Pereat mundus, fiat iustitia. Stand up for what is rightfully due to the nation, without fear that the nation may be lost in the struggle.

War

Early 1910

20,000 men die in battle; all outraged and seized with horror. And yet none of these people were immortal. What difference does it make whether they die one after the other in thirty years or all in one day? The difference is only for the nerves of those who cannot stand the image of a field strewn with corpses and moaning wounded, yet are perfectly fine with the thought of thousands of people dying foolishly and disgustingly in beds around the globe, and for whom this thought does not spoil their appetite. But when Vereshchagin paints piles of skulls and corpses for them, they scream and wring their hands. Nerves and nerves, not heart!

But if those people were alive, they could do something. Not true. Most of them would live unproductively, meaning not creatively. They would have wives, children, eat, drink, and then keel over – what good would come of it? But this way, they inscribed pages of history, and that battle in which they perished remains as an immortal statue, one of the greatest creations that can arise from humanity. Therefore, the ideal interests of humanity do not lose out on this; indeed, they gain.

Perhaps you will say that the twenty thousand fallen are twenty thousand unfortunate? - that is not true, because death is in no way by itself a misfortune, just as life in itself has no value.

State, Nation, Homeland

1911

The concepts of state and nation are by no means clear to me. I see, for example, three motivations for the ideal value of the state:

1) War. What is proven first is the necessity of war; and the state is a war organisation.

2) Subordination. People are given an ideal goal, namely the interest of the state, to which they subordinate themselves.

3) Solidarity in the community of ideal goals.

The latter is actually a complement to point 2). For there are many ideal goals; what need, then, for a state goal? Answer: it is an ideal goal that is pursued in solidarity. I also used this last point to define the essence of  n a t i o n a l  f e e l i n g. I call a nation a group of people having common ideal goals and an awareness of these goals, and having these goals as a group, not each individual. E.g. all artists have some common ideal goals, but each for himself, not as a group.

The internal political system, its preservation or imposition on others, is not the essential ideal goal of a nation. For the system may change and the nation last. The aristocratic or democratic ideal, and the national feeling lasts always the same, e.g. in Poland. What remains is warfare on the outside.

Does the nation have goals, or is the nation itself the goal? Is the sense of solidarity a principle of national feeling? It seems not. The affection for, for example, Poland as such precedes and entails, to a certain extent only, goodwill or affection for other Poles, and not the other way around. That is why φιλῶ τᾑν πατϱὶναγαταν I am inclined at times to feel affection for a peasant from Ryczyca or a bourgeois from Warsaw, yet I do not start there. At the same time, I can deny myself the uttermost solidarity with the Poles precisely in the name of Poland. At the moment of his greatest patriotic fervour, Kordian exclaims: “I will not be with you.” So, national feeling does not consist in  a c t u a l l y  f e e l i n g  a f f e c t i o n  for the members of one’s nation, but this affection depends on whether those members themselves are good patriots. National feeling is, therefore, the affection for the homeland as such.

Nation is a derived concept and homeland a primary concept. A nation is a group of people sharing a common homeland.

A nation is a group of people. The size, strength etc. of this group as such becomes the goal for each individual member. There is no community of utilitarian interests in this group.

Now the question: does the lack of any community of interests suffice, or must there be some common ideal properties? Is then the concept of the nation purely formal, or does it require substance?

 

I. A purely formal notion of nation merges with the notion of an ideal state. The concept of the nation as substance adds something to the concept of the state. In the formal-state concept, there is one single fact: the union of people for the purpose of obtaining the greatest power, significance, etc., for such a constituted group, of course through struggle. Therefore, the state and the nation are originally one and the same: the state is the organisation of the nation, and the nation is the entirety of the state’s citizens. Hence, if a nation loses its state organisation, the only substance of national feeling can be the aspiration to regain its own statehood. Not entirely so: a nation without a state can still strive for power, influence, harm to enemies, etc. However, since all of this is difficult to achieve, the pursuit of statehood must follow.

I suppose that the Swiss, for example, would lose their statehood, divided between neighbouring states. A fight over language would be impossible here, nor religion or anything like that. Nor would it have been possible to fight over the system in, for example, France. National distinction could only be marked here in a purely formal struggle for power.

How is national  f e e l i n g  explained in this hypothesis? It is the love for the greatness of the homeland and self-denial for this greatness. The moral value of this feeling lies in giving everything and taking nothing; it is self-aware selflessness reaching the highest exaltation.

National affiliation in this hypothesis

The state, we have seen, has a twofold essence: utilitarian [...] and ideal [...]. Only as an ideal being can the state become a homeland - if I feel affection for it.

I call my homeland the state for which I feel affection. Therefore, national belonging depends entirely on my love. It does not depend on birth or will. The state may have many citizens by force who do not love it. And here we have a difference between the state as such and the homeland. The state exists objectively, the homeland exists only through the feelings of certain people. The state can be a homeland only for a tiny minority of its citizens, who use the rest as tools for their ideal goals.

Value of the state. The State, regardless of the feelings it stirs in its citizens, has absolute value as a combat organisation. [...]

The value of the homeland. The homeland is a state and something more; it has the entire value of the state and, in addition, something else. War, namely, has moral beauty, but when war is waged by people largely indifferent, the resulting moral beauty remains within very narrow limits. However, when it is waged by people who love the cause for which they fight, immense richness of moral beauty arises from it. Therefore: the homeland and national feeling have absolute value because  t h e  s t r u g g  l e  o f  n a t i o n s  e x t r a c t s  f r o m  h u m a n  b e i n g s  t h e  r e s o u r c e s  o f  m o r a l  b e a u t y  t h a t  w o u l d  n e v e r  e x i s t w i t h o u t  i t.

II. The formalistic theory can be contrasted with the theory of a real  k i n s h i p  between members of one nation, and the properties constituting this kinship would become the object of love for all, and the goal of national life would be the preservation of these properties. These properties can include: language, religion (if the religion or language of the nation is not shared by any other nation), political system (in the same case; e.g. the Polish language for the Poles, the cult of Jehovah for the Jews, and Dagon for the Moabites, or the laws of Lycurgus for the Spartans); or psychological properties, some real similarity of temperament, disposition (e.g. the French may feel themselves to be a nation in contrast to the German temperament). In addition to the existing system, there may also be a dreamt-up system that the nation aspires to, e.g. the  P o l i s h  i d e a  o f  the Romantics  and that of some revolutionaries.

I observe that the theory of psychological kinship constitutes something separate. The former aspects remain. In these cases, the nation represents something different each time. For the Poles, for example, the substance of national feeling would be the affection for the Polish language, for the Swiss – republican freedoms and a federal system, and so on. The struggle would no longer be for the abstract power of the nation, but for language, the system of government, etc. The value of the nation endures here as well because it is about ideal goals.

III. Psychological kinship. Here enters a practical and complex question: does such psychological kinship among members of one nation exist? And if it does, is it more important, more significant than the psychological kinship often occurring among members of different nations?

Territoriality of states and nations. Does the fact of residing in the same land play a role in national feeling? Can national feeling consist in the love for one’s homeland? The latter is an absurd hypothesis. In exceptional cases, yes, when the country is small, strongly separated from the surrounding districts – Scotland, early Switzerland, partly Greece. But this factor loses all significance when it comes to vast countries, whose inhabitants only know them through a small piece.

However, it is worth considering that every nation has its own land. Hence the assumption that residing on the same land is an indirect cause of the concept of the homeland and national feeling. Namely, in this way, residing on the same land would result in a sui generis psychological, customary, etc., kinship.

War and heroism[1]

2

6 XII 1912

To wish for there to be no wars is to wish for a person to have nothing that they value more than life.

Two types of pacifists. 1) Sincere pacifists who fundamentally do not want war, out of principle. 2) People who do not want war for the purposes for which it is waged now, but who would wage it without scruples for their own purposes. This is the occasional pacifist (many socialists). It’s true that those are lying when talking about fundamental pacifism, but in reality, are more worthy than the former.

9

25 X 1912

Fighting a man is nobler than fighting the elements.

10

24 X 1912

... I am thinking about that world in which a person cannot fight, where he is only a transient passerby on the stage of that world, about that „abyss of being”. I am interested in the question of whether this abyss and that Impassible théâtre, of which Vigny speaks, are indeed nothing else. And if they are not, then as a result of such an understanding of man in relation to the world, and as if arising from this – the attitude towards the world, there comes the struggle of man against man: to the silence of Vigny’s indifferent „just” nature, a sunny blade of weapons responds, which clashes with another just one.

11

2 I 1915

My stance today: a) heroism increases a person’s intrinsic value. My old stance on the question: b) heroism as a cultural substrate and therefore the goal is the work. The juxtaposition of the two: in stance b) there is a contradiction and an argument against heroism that is not present in stance a).

14

Spring 1913

“The instinct of self-preservation is harmful because it obliterates all joy.”

Nation and homeland

1

6 XII 1912

Imagine the realised ideal of our pacifists: the whole Earth one state, one “United States”. What then would be the fate of a man rebelling against “established order” - a political criminal? Today such a [man] from Russia can flee to England, which will give him refuge on principle, or to Austria, which will do so out of spite for Russia. But from the “United States of the Earth” there is no escape. A man who allows himself to think independently is doomed without hope. (All independent thinking is by its very nature a political crime). Humanity torn apart is a true purgatory for the thinker; united humanity would be a hell from which there is no escape.

2

1916

A homeland whose highest ideal is to be cannot inspire love.

3

24 II 1916

Not thought through. My  i n t e r e s t: that the existing principle of the community of nations in Europe triumphs, not the  o r g a n i s a t i o n  of Europe, nor hegemony. For in the latter case, the great nations will be exalted, while small or weak ones will be even more humiliated, and Polishness in the life of the world will completely lose its meaning.

6

Spring 1913

That a homeland for which one does not fight ceases to be a homeland.

15

1 AUGUST 1910

The right of every nation is not the right to exist, but the right to greatness, to power.

19

June 1914

Another objective justification for the nation. Unable to believe in the superiority of one’s nation, one can still stand in solidarity with it:

1)  Because its spirit is my spirit, a psychic community, - its victory is my spiritual victory. But this does not provide an objective value; it bases solidarity with the nation on solidarity with itself. But the latter has yet to be justified objectively.

2)  That a nation has a certain function to perform which another will not, meaning that through it, the existing sum of excellence becomes greater: that it is  a n  i r r e p l a c e a b l e element of perfection (alternatively, it can be a  n e c e s s a r y  element, which gives a degree higher, but this is harder to believe). This gives the individual  f u n c t i o n  a l  m i s s i o n s  o f  the nations. Of course, condition 1) must be fulfilled here, otherwise there is no reason to opt for this nation rather than another.

Solidarity of the individual with himself

1)  Instinctive action without seeking objective value.

2)  The conviction that what I do is the best.

3)  Conviction of mission and fantasy - as above for the nation (necessary or unnecessary).

4)  No faith in the mission, but the belief that the mere feat of Sichausleben brings values into the world.

No one gains anything from this, but the fact that I lived and acted, that is beautiful and has value. Can this last one be transferred to other nations? It can and must. This is the principle that the division into nations is a good thing. But the principle of choosing comes only if there is a sense of identity of one’s own spirit and the spirit of the nation.

 

[War and Heroism][2]

 

5 I 1913

Quite subjectively: what is the charm of war for me personally? In two things: 1) the risking of lives, the heroism; 2) the dramatic beauty of the situation.

1)  The first point can be divided into two things of unequal meanings: a) heroism is beautiful in itself as the object of disinterested contemplation. But this point is secondary; there are other beauties, in great abundance and greater; [...] It is not true, therefore, that war is justified primarily by the ethical beauty it brings out in man. b) Heroism as overcoming the fear of death, which poisons life. We cannot freely enjoy life and beauty and culture as long as a blind attachment to life makes our death terrible and life itself unbearable. By voluntarily and joyfully accepting death, the hero provides evidence that liberation from the bondage of this attachment is indeed possible – that I, too, can someday attain this elevated state above life – and encourages me to strive for it. At the same time, to some extent, he already pulls me in that direction, infecting me with his example, suggesting to me the outlook on life that he himself had. And this liberation enables all joy, the enjoyment of pleasant and beautiful things. In a word, the hero liberates us from pessimism - every heroic death is a source of joy in life for others. Hence, the shocking impression made on me by that saying in Sulkowski: “Man, embracing heroism, that is death”. This hero only makes virtually all culture possible and is that true redeemer, the Erlӧser Schopenhauer-Wagner of humanity itself. It is still beautifully said in The Beauty of Life: “He rejoiced that Jan Rozłucki, a lonely Polish knight, once existed on this earth and died a heroic death”. And I rejoice in every heroic death; I am heartened by it - so it is possible to live after all and maybe even be happy. And even historically, can it not be said that the hero is the one who lays the foundations for future culture? After all, indeed, great cultural eras have constantly blossomed out of great heroic eras, not just out of  t r o u b l e d  o n e s. [...]

The hero generates a contempt for life and at the same time, so to speak, the joys that are necessary for the establishment of culture appear as the „will of culture”. One can only rejoice in life by disregarding it.

In my concept, the worship of heroism has more or less that meaning. One can overcome pessimism by contempt for life. Well, but how to arouse this contempt within oneself? Stoics and Indian ascetics offered an answer: take an example from us. Yes, but I wanted to scorn life itself, not renounce its goods, experiences, arts, love, passions. From this desire grew the ethics of subordination and the first theory of art. And who is it who disdains life and does not condemn it, who is ready to enjoy life while one can and die when necessary, or when not necessary, for the sake of a whim? Hence the cult of heroism. For me, it was vaguely connected with aestheticism, but it seemed to me that heroism was just one of many beautiful things in the world, for which life was worth living. Meanwhile, it is precisely the one thing for which  o n e  c a n  l i v e. For it is not enough for there to be values in life; despair is no less likely to crowd us because, after all, both we and the values themselves are irretrievably lost. For it is not enough for values to exist in life; despair can still oppress us, for both we and those values themselves perish irreversibly. To accept this fact joyfully means to be a hero, a hero one must be. [...]

Heroism is the acceptance of death not  i n d i f f e r e n t l y  by a man indifferent to life, but joyfully by a man attached to life (and not resigned, but voluntary), a kind of miracle. The man attached to life relinquishes, kills this attachment in himself in order to be able to rejoice in the goods of life, possibly to be able to give himself completely to what is of value in life.

The moment we understand the meaning of heroism in this way, the homeland ceases to be that „for which one can only die”, but rather becomes the foundation and facilitator of all cultural life. A strong affection for the homeland gives us an inner conviction that we are at least happy to die for it and intoxicates the disregard for life. But for this, wars must be quite frequent and always possible. If we fought and endangered ourselves indeed, the benefit is even greater. I do not deny that war does a great deal of damage to culture, but it also brings this benefit: it prepares the nation, or at least the nobler part of it, for cultural productivity.

2)  The dramatic beauty of the situation. It is about the tension of battle, the fear of defeat, the hope of victory, the humiliation in defeat, the triumph, the relationship of the commander to the army and vice versa, the various feelings and situations born out of the brotherhood of arms, which are all  d r a m a t i c a l l y   b e a u t i f u l. And not  e t h i c a l l y, some of them maybe, but that was never really the point for me. Most of the states I have mentioned are  p a s s i v e  states, and even to the extent that they are beautiful to me, they are passive. It is the shaping of human beings by accidents so that they look beautiful. All this is possible eventually and without risking one’s life, but if one risks it, the tension of all feelings is greater, the drama more perfect. War is the game in which the stakes are highest, and therefore the tension is greatest. And what this beauty consists in, I would not be able to explain.

Heroism could ultimately exist even without collective struggle (duels, errant knights), and collective struggle without risking life. But only in war both are found - drama and heroism.

Nation and homeland

1

8 II 1913

There is a difference between national feeling and patriotic feeling: one is solidarity with one’s compatriots, the other is affection for the homeland. Homeland is the medium through which individuals come into contact with the realm of all seriousness, questions of life and death. Or still: an ideal being in the form of which certain supreme ethical imperatives speak to the individual.

2

18 II 1913

The function of homeland is to liberate in the individual certain valuable forms of feeling and action. The Romantics were right when they made of the Homeland, written in capital letters, a kind of symbolic deity: this is the very essence of homeland. The „national state of possession” can be left to the stallholders.

3

31 August 1915

Introductory remarks about the nation. A nation is neither a racial nor a religious-mystical community, but a cultural one. Not racial, because in most known nations, the races are notoriously mixed; pure can be at most groups, tribes, at a pre-national level of development. And not religious-mystical. Not least because, from the point of view of the division between religions and official denominations, nations are often split internally. This is irrelevant insofar as the division itself is largely dead. But because there is no direct contact between the matters covered by national life and those covered by mystical (or “religious” in the deep sense) life. Perhaps there was a time, during the formation of nations, when religion encompassed broader swathes of consciousness. But already the nations that grew out of Christianity, and therefore all cultural nations, are in their beginnings free from the influence of this factor.

For a nation to come into being, there must be territoriality; in dispersion no nation has ever come into being. This is one undoubted point. Does there also have to be a state? A state created by a tribe which itself then, through state life, possibly by melding in the state with other tribes, gradually transforms itself into a nation? The argument against is the Greek nation. The fragmentation of the Greeks into a multitude of states  p r e v e n t e d  them from uniting into a nation, and yet they were a nation, and this was probably brought about by their very culture and the extremely sharp cultural contrasts between them and the world around them.

There is no nation without appreciable psychic similarities between its members and without a  c e r t a i n  a w a r e n e s s  o f  t h e s e. The psychological similarity  i t s e l f, and not the similarity that emerges against the background of a (possible!) common interest or belief - this is the basis. This is followed by a secondary but sufficiently decisive phenomenon: the formation of a cultural community.

[Idealistic view of the nation] [3]

In the previous article[4] we confined ourselves to the question, to the formulation (of any kind, highly inexact) of the essence of the dispute between the idealists within the nation,  who want in the homeland a field for absolutely disinterested action, and the realists, the advocates of national egoism and the absolute surrender of the individual to this egoism. And we said: if the nation wants to keep [all the soul] of its idealistic members, if it simply wants to withstand competition with other ideals ready to possess its soul, it must give them this field of action. We have not, however, objectively justified the rightness of the idealist position, the rightness of the thesis that a nation should not make its own existence the goal of its own existence but should instead consider that its goal is not to be and live, but to act. How difficult it is to justify oneself objectively in [matters of] ethics, everyone knows. For the moment, however, we will try to draw attention to a fundamental consideration that can serve as such an objective justification.

The notion (or sense) of the absolute value of life usually results from a failure to take into account the fact that life is something limited in time, something insignificant, at the end of which death always stands. If not considering it is a simple, instinctive forgetfulness of a living being about death, we are dealing with an instinct of unreasoned attachment to life, an instinctive affirmation of its absolute value. However, we may also be dealing with a conscious belief in immortality and a conscious conviction based on it about this absolute value. “That which is immortal has absolute value” - this thesis speaks directly to almost everyone. Suffice it to refer anyone to any religious or moralistic work, etc., or to one’s own sense. How popular is the claim that the soul is our best part  b e c a u s e  it is immortal. Those again (some naturalists and natural philosophers) who do not believe in the immortality of the individual sing hymns of praise to the immortality of non-personal life itself.

The same is true with regard to the nation. The nation’s existence is considered the most important thing, an absolute (national) value by the person who either instinctively does not remember the thesis that the nation must perish someday or consciously believes in its immortality. As far as the state of mind of our Polish public is concerned, it is indeed true: few seem to remember the necessity of the nation’s death. The general state of mind is such that indeed if each of us were asked whether all earthly things pass away, everyone’s answer would be that everyone would probably speak in generalities as if with certainty about the transience of states and nations, but if anyone were to be reminded specifically and brutally that the Polish nation, like all others, must eventually perish, and a conclusion must be drawn from this, it would give the impression of blasphemy. There is, therefore, no shortage of people here who are, in fact, convinced of the immortality of the nation, or at least believe in it implicitly, or are finally susceptible to accept this belief once the question is raised explicitly. The thesis of the immortality of the nation, at least [...], was put forward by our Romanticism, especially in the works of Krasiński, with full awareness.

This thesis has no support in the facts. We know that a number of peoples have perished in historical times and that others are on the point of extinction. And this fact seems natural to us as the result of a general law of all human creations. Insofar, therefore, as we do not involve [any] religious, mystical or metaphysical theses in our deliberations, we must accept that a nation, like individual people, is a phenomenon on earth and passes away. And the conclusions we must draw from this in our conduct as members of a nation. If we consider the fact of death, then existence ceases to be something of absolute value; it becomes something of relative value. And man no longer strives so ruthlessly to perpetuate it. This is how all moralists, how religion present things: despise life because it is insignificant. Admittedly, the positive reflection of this is not the same for everyone. For those dominated by the hedonistic instinct, it craves pleasure, awareness of mortality leads to the most intense exploitation of life for pleasure, to the motto carpe diem. But if the self-preserving instinct prevails, awareness of mortality elicits a reaction more or less like this: the simplest way to satisfy this instinct is closed; it is forced to seek an outlet in sideways - and man strives to leave a trace of his passage on earth, a mark of his existence, because the existence itself is dead.

In this way, active idealism is born. Idealism is, as it were, a transgression of the instinct of self-preservation in man convinced of his immortality, of the fact that reality in its essence does not in effect satisfy the need for this instinct, that this instinct is in fundamental contradiction to the laws of nature, which must ignore it. This psychological reaction is something psychologically natural, a regularity; that is the point - the rationality of it cannot be proven. [...] 

The same is true of nations. A nation remembering that it is mortal, that death hangs over it, like over an individual, in every generation, that the same iron ring closing around the individual and not allowing him to cast his dreams over the finish line ..., the same closes in on nations. Such a nation ... will want to act.

For a nation, there is, of course, no dilemma between the hedonistic instinct and the self-preserving one. A nation that collectively voted here in favour of pleasure would be doomed from the outset. But the stronger the self-preserving instinct, the nation’s will to live, the stronger outlet it must seek in actions. Let us keep in mind that as a nation, we are not immortal, that there will come those who will judge our nation objectively from the perspective of death, what it was and what it has done, and we will not give the nation’s existence an absolute value. Only to its deeds.

[Justifying patriotism][5]

Still, there is the question of patriotism. The moment patriotism, i.e. the absolute preoccupation with and identification with the interests of one’s own nation, ceases to be a blind, unreasoned instinct, the hard question arises: how to motivate patriotism? For there are two quite distinct questions. [One:] Is it objectively good for humanity to be divided into nations fighting each other or at least competing with each other? And that one was the substance of all my pre-war reflections. However, an affirmative answer, as I indeed gave, does not yet ground patriotism, i.e., the attachment to and identification with a specific nation. And if the basis of blind, unintelligent instinct disappears, a second question arises: on what rational principle am I to be a Polish patriot, a German - a German patriot, a Frenchman - a French patriot, and so on? A very glaring difficulty arises precisely when it comes to war: what rational basis can there be for me to wish for the victory of my nation and the defeat of the enemy? It must be borne in mind, however, that the enemy must have the same wish for my defeat and his victory. There are two possible solutions. First, I can ascribe to my nation an objective value of the kind that it will be better for the world, better objectively, if it wins and the opponent succumbs. The good thing about this basis of patriotism is that it gives this feeling a firm and unshakable ideal foundation: it ennobles it and makes it unshakeable. This is how the Germans feel called to “organise the world” and how the French and English feel themselves to be representatives of liberal ideals. This is the ground on which all messianism grows. The weak point is that if the opponent has the same conviction, one at least must be wrong. So patriotism based on the conviction of the objective superiority of one’s nation and the desirability of its victory for the world must be based on an illusion, on sophistry. It is, therefore, a feeling more or less inaccessible to an honest-minded man. How, for example, can one prove to oneself that it is objectively desirable for Poland to be independent?

The second justification for patriotism may lie in the fact that I see between myself and the nation a real commonality of interests, consisting in the fact that by ensuring victory for my nation, I ensure it for a certain type, of which I myself am a representative. Here, moreover, a distinction must be made. I can recognise that, independently of my will, possibly against it, I am by birth, language, association with economic interests, upbringing and customs, condemned to live and act in this society and not in another - it is, as it were, my wider family; and in desiring my good and power, I must desire the good and power of my society. But here I am enslaved, or as I said, condemned - and the ground for any feeling is not created by this. On the contrary, one can hate one’s homeland for being bound to its fate against one’s will. In this area, there are many issues in Wyspiański: the whole of Achilles, the famous “but they are mine”, etc.; parts of Akropolis - and again paragraphs from Wyzwolenie: “Is it worth to be a nation”. This is how Brzozowski describes this complex of issues in Wyspiański: Wyspiański differs from our great messianic poets in that he bases patriotism not on an objective conviction about the value of his nation, but on this feeling of community: “And these are mine”. You can see, however, how he tired he is: he demands absolute recognition for patriotism conceived in this way, as in some passages of Wyzwolenie; he grieves, as in Achilles - and hates the nation for not finding objective reasons to love it.

But, as I said, it is possible to feel spiritually related to one’s nation, to see in it a certain specific human type of which one oneself is a representative. The victory of my nation is the victory of my psychological type. In this way, the identification can be almost perfect. My patriotism is a form of my own Wille zur Macht, wishing to  m a k e  m y  m a r k  on the world. Then, however, patriotism falls under all critical considerations of the Wille zur Macht itself. My nation is the medium through which I seek to assert my type, my worldview, etc., to rule the world. In practice, moreover, this identification of one’s own psyche with the psyche of the nation precisely in outstanding people is rare.

It is also possible to be convinced that my nation, although no better than any other, nevertheless represents a distinct type of value, and it would be a pity for the world to see it disappear. This conviction is relatively easy for even an honest mind to justify honestly. Therefore, defensive patriotism in a country threatened with annihilation can have an exceptionally strong objective justification and reach an incredible power in even the most honest. However, it is also possible to believe that my nation, by its special aptitude, although no better than any other, is nevertheless called upon to fulfil some specific, minor or major active mission, which may even require an offensive war. This is a kind of relative messianism: my nation has a certain function to perform in the world, a necessary or at least a positive one, even if not a primary one. Such seem to be the sensible and compromising forms of patriotism in practice, in which the demands and feelings of the mind are satisfied - and it is in this direction that stricter terms should be sought.

For me personally, unless there is to be a case of entirely emotionless, forced solidarity with the nation (and the fear of this eventuality is precisely the impetus for all my musings on the subject), the only possible basis is precisely a sense of psychic community, and what follows. But unfortunately, this feeling, or rather this conviction, is not particularly strong with me. And I cannot quite find this function that the Polish nation is supposed to fulfil in the world economy. The role of the Bulwark of Christendom is over, and the nationalistic principle, of which we were splendid and revolutionary representatives after the partitions, during the Romantic period, has largely prevailed; so that today we no longer find resonance with others, we are no longer representatives, as we were then, of something urgent, relevant. Italians and Germans united; Hungary got its statehood - we are the only ones remaining. We must, therefore, create a new “Polish idea” or remain nothing.

 

[1] Reviewing his writings in 1953, in the margin of this text under the date 10 August, Elzenberg noted: “These passionate apologies for war passed under the influence of real experience from 1914 onwards, but the cult of heroism remained.”

[2] The title of this text comes from us.

[3] Text undated and untitled. The type of paper and ink is similar to the 1919 manuscripts. The title is from us.

[4] Which article is involved, we have not been able to determine.

[5] Text without date or title. The historical facts mentioned in it suggest that it was written between 1914 and 1917. The type of paper and ink rather indicate the year 1917.