Revolution, Liberalism, and Nationalism in Europe, 1789-1914
Intellectual and Cultural Life, 1815-1848
Conservatism
Conservatism became the credo of those--kings, aristocrats, and clergy--who opposed the French Revolution and the movements it spawned. To these men, Enlightenment ideas of natural rights, equality, the innate goodness of man, and progress led directly to Robespierre and the Terror. Hence, for those who defended traditional ideas of absolute monarchy, aristocracy, and church conservatism emerged as the answer to the thought of the Enlightenment. Among the first conservative spokesmen to appear was Edmund Burke, author of Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), who predicted (correctly, as it turned out) that the Revolution would lead to terror and military dictatorship. Burke appealed to history, wisdom, and experience as the only true guides in politics, arguing that human society, like a living organism, is infinitely complex and can only change slowly. He also rejected the Enlightenment concepts of natural rights and the social contract. In a famous passage, he declared:
Society is, indeed, a contract. It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible with the invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and moral natures, each in their appointed place.In the years subsequent to Burke's treatise, conservative thinkers like Joseph de Maistre, the Vicomte de Bonald, and others developed a core of central ideas for conservatism.
1. It venerated and found moral authority in time-tested institutions, traditions, and beliefs;
2. It rejected the Enlightenment notion that man could shape political and social institutions according to theoretical and rational models.
3. In contrast to the philosophes and the Revolutionaries who put great store in the power of human reason and abstract ideas, conservatives emphasized its limitations.
4. Conservatives believed that men were not good by nature but inherently wicked, just as the Christian religion had taught, and their behavior had therefore to be checked by institutions, traditions, and beliefs. In this regard, Bonald wrote:
We are bad by nature, we are made good by society! Those who begin by supposing we are born good are like architects, who, about to build an edifice, suppose that the stones appear from the quarry ready cut. [Theory of Political and Religious Power, 1796]5. Conservatives emphasized the importance of the church, monarchy, and aristocracy as guardians of civilized behavior.
6. Conservatives did not reject change outright, they argued that societies were like organisms held together by ancient bonds and they favored a slow pace of change, one that could take centuries; in this regard, the English constitution became a model.
7. They also believed the community to be more important than the individual; rights therefore came from society, not from some abstraction like nature.
8. They considered God, nature, and history the legitimate sources of political authority.
In short, conservative thinkers emphasized authority and order not the individual and his rights, as did de Maistre when he wrote:
All greatness, all power, all order depends on the executioner. He is the tie that binds society together. Take away this incomprehensible force and at every moment order is suspended by chaos, thrones fall, and states disappear.
Classical Liberalism
John Stuart Mill, the great English liberal thinker of the 19th century, summarized the core of liberalism in his On Liberty (1859).
The only purpose for which power [government] can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.As this quotation makes clear, 19th century liberals favored limits on the amount of control that government could exercise over an individual's liberty.
1. To limit the power of government, they favored written constitutions, representative governments with a restricted electorate, ministers responsible to the legislature, and an impartial bureaucracy;
2. 19th century liberals were not democrats, for they rarely favored universal manhood suffrage.
3. Limits on the power of government meant that the individual had to take responsibility for his own fate.
4. With regard to political and social institutions, most liberals favored utilitarianism, a rational belief that every idea, institution, or law should be measured according to its social usefulness, irregardless of how venerable its existence.
5. In the intellectual sphere, liberals like Mill argued for almost absolute freedom of thought and expression, arguing that the clash of beliefs within the free market place of ideas would lead to truth.
6. Mill also worried that the majority of the population in democratic societies would seek to control thought, and he warned against the "tyranny of the majority".
Those most inclined to adopt liberal ideas were men of the Middle Class, businessmen, professional men, or innovating landlords who favored the modern, the efficient, and the enlightened. When applied to economics, liberalism called for economic individualism, laissez-faire, freedom of contract, free competition and trade, and obedience to the natural laws of the marketplace. The successful and hard- working men who made the first Industrial Revolution in England were frequently champions of liberalism, both political and economic.
Nationalism
Some historians argue that nationalism became the dominant spiritual force in the nineteenth century, supplanting a declining Christianity. It may be defined as "an awareness shared by a group who feel strongly attached to a particular land and who possess a common [language] culture and history marked by shared glories and sufferings. Nationalism is accompanied by a conviction that one's highest loyalty and devotion should be directed toward the nation. Nationalist exhibit great pride in their people's history and traditions and often feel that their nation has been specially chosen by God or history. Like a religion, nationalism provides the individual with a sense of community and with a cause worthy of self-sacrifice." [Perry, 2nd ed, 513]
Common ingredients of Nationalism:
1) A certain defined (often vaguely) unit of territory (whether possessed or coveted);
2) Some common cultural characteristics such as language (or widely understood languages), customs, manners, and literature (folk tales and lore are a beginning). If an individual believes he shares these, and wishes to continue sharing them, he/she is usually said to be a member of the nationality;
3) Some common dominant social (as Christian) and economic (as capitalistic or, recently, communistic) institutions;
4) A common independent or sovereign government (type does not matter) or the desire for one. The ‘principle’ that each nationality should be separate and independent is involved here;
5) A belief in a common history (it can be invented) and in a common origin (often mistakenly conceived as racial in nature);
6) A love or esteem for fellow nationals (not necessarily as individuals);
7) A devotion to the entity (however little comprehended) called the nation, which embodies the common territory, culture, social, and economic institutions, government, and the fellow nationals, and which is at the same time (whether organism of not) more than their sum;
8) A common pride in the achievements (often the military more than the cultural) of this nation and a common sorrow in its tragedies (particularly its defeats);
9) A disregard for or hostility to other (not necessarily all) like groups, especially if these prevent or seem to threaten the separate national existence;
10) A hope that the nation will have a great and glorious future (usually in territorial expansion) and become supreme in some way (in world power if the nation is already large). [Source: Boyd C. Shafer, Nationalism: Myth and Reality (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1955): 7-8]
Modern historians frequently identify two types of nationalism during nineteenth-century Europe, one characteristic of the nation-states of Western Europe, the other characteristic of Eastern and Southern Europe, where such states had yet to take shape. In England and France, for example, the formation of the state preceded the creation of the nation, and by the nineteenth century, the fusion of the two had more or less taken place, although in France the government was still working on what Eugen Weber called making "peasants into Frenchmen". In contrast, in Eastern and Southern Europe during the nineteenth century, there existed numerous peoples who began to think of themselves as nations, but who lacked states. Therefore, their primary aspiration became the acquisition of a piece of land that they could call their own. Such was true of the Germans, the Italians, and the diverse peoples of Eastern Europe, particularly those within the Austrian Empire. While Italians like Giuseppe Mazzini argued for a risorgimento and for Italian unity, more important nationalist ideas came from Germany, ideas that are important for understanding the nineteenth century and for the Nazi movement in the twentieth.
The origins of modern nationalism are usually found in the French Revolution, particularly in the notion of popular sovereignty and in the idea that the people are united by citizenship in a fatherland. The French Revolution also stimulated the birth of nationalist ideas in Germany, and these ideas were part of an anti-French cultural rebirth that followed defeats by Napoleonic France. Also important is the romantic movement, especially in Germany and Eastern Europe, for it lead to a renewed interest in language, literature, and folkways of the people. Scholars like Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) believed that each people (= the Volk) had a Volkgeist and that it could be found in the language, literature, monuments, and folk traditions; hence the efforts of the Grimm brothers to compile a dictionary of the German language and to collect folk tales. Romantic nationalists in Germany thus emphasized the unique qualities of German history, of the German Volk, and the German nation. They were especially attracted to medieval Germany (especially medieval tales and cities like Nuremburg) and they believed that the individual should identify himself with the nation before all; indeed, the German nationalists argued that the national community was a vital force that gave the individual both an identity and purpose in life. The state thus became something holy, the expression of the divine spirit of a people, a living organism that linked each individual to a sacred past, imbued individuals with a profound sense of community, and subordinated the citizen to the nation. [Perry, 513-516]
Other Ideas
Finally, there appeared during the 19th century a number of advocates of humanitarianism, thinkers who argued that the world in which most men live is cruel and harsh and that efforts, often by governments, should be made to improve the general lot of humanity. Among the humanitarians were, for example, those who advocated the abolition of slavery.
This Page is Maintained by Robert W. Brown
Last Update: 29.III.2005