-
Chapter 10: The Difference in the Course of Historical Upbringing
- Slavica Publishers
- Chapter
- Additional Information
10 The Difference in the Course of Historical Upbringing “Or better, I might call them two boundless, and indeed unexampled Electric Machines (turned by the ‘Machinery of Society’), with batteries of op-‐‑ posite quality; Drudgism the Negative, Dandyism the Positive; one attracts hourly towards it and appropriates all the Positive Electricity of the nation (namely, the Money thereof); the other is equally busy with the Negative (that is to say the Hunger), which is equally potent. Hitherto you see only partial transient sparkles and sputters: but wait a little, till the entire nation is in an elec-‐‑ tric state: till your whole vital Electricity, no longer healthfully Neutral, is cut into two isolated portions of Positive and Negative (of Money and of Hunger); and stands there bottled up in two World-‐‑Batteries! The stirring of a child’s finger brings the two together; and then—What then? The Earth is but shivered into impalpable smoke by that Doom’s thunder-‐‑peal; the Sun misses one of his Planets in Space, and thenceforth there are no eclipses of the Moon.” —Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (Chap. X, Book III) Another essential, typal distinction between the Germanic-‐‑Roman (or Euro-‐‑ pean) world and the Slavic world consists of the course of historical upbring-‐‑ ing each received. Before describing this difference, we need to define some theoretical concepts of the state. What is the state exactly, and what is its proc-‐‑ ess of formation and development? Setting aside all mystical definitions that do not clarify anything (such as, for example, when we were taught in school that the state is the highest expression of the law of truth and justice on earth), it seems we must instead take as most satisfactory the English concept, that the state is the form or condition of society that protects its members’ prop-‐‑ erty and individuality, understood as life, honor, and freedom. This definition seems right to me, if the life, honor, and freedom of the individual are under-‐‑ stood in the broadest sense of the words: that is, not just the individual life, 10. HISTORICAL UPBRINGING 189 honor, and freedom, but also the national life, honor, and freedom, which are the essential part of these blessings. Without that, the concepts of personal honor and freedom presented by states would not fulfill the definition. In-‐‑ deed, why combine millions and millions of people into huge political entities with no other purpose for their combined power than to protect life, property, and personal honor and freedom? It would seem the Swiss cantons or the average German dukedom would be adequate for that. If the state exists only for these personal rights, then why, for example, should the peoples of Ger-‐‑ many have resisted the power of Napoleon in 1813? His power was enlight-‐‑ ened enough to guarantee all these rights at least as much as they had been under German rule. The Confederation of the Rhine1 benefited German na-‐‑ tionality more than the Holy Roman Empire, or after it, the German Confed-‐‑ eration.2 For example the Napoleonic Code and its standardized system of jurisprudence were gifts of Napoleon’s dominion, often sorely missed after his overthrow. And why should we [Russians] have sacrificed hundreds of thousands in lives, hundreds of millions in funds, and burn city and village alike, if it was only a matter of defending individual life, property, honor, and freedom? Doubtless if we had submitted to his power, not only would Napo-‐‑ leon not have violated these rights, but he might even have given them such a guarantee as could not have been imagined under the conditions of Russian civil society of that day. But it was just as obvious to the Germans as to us, that all these rights were trifling compared to national honor and freedom. If we look at the sacrifices each state demands from its subjects as fees for mem-‐‑ bership and obligations for service, we will see that at least four-‐‑fifths of these sacrifices go to preserve the good of the nation, not the individual. This in-‐‑ cludes nearly the entire navy (after all, how many courts of law protect per-‐‑ sonal property from pirates?) and almost the whole army (likewise, it takes few troops to preserve the peace domestically). Almost all states borrow to cover expenditures, and all this government debt is devoted to the defense of national honor and freedom, or the national interest, not the defense of such things for individual people. It’s the same...