In recent German literature, Culture has been given even a more sharply
technical distinction from Civilization and one which emphasizes even
more its collective and nationalistic character. Civilization as
external and uncontrolled by self-conscious purpose includes such things
as language in its more spontaneous colloquial expression, trade,
conventional manners or etiquette, and the police activities of
government. _Kultur_ comprises language used for purposes of higher
literature; commerce pursued not as means of enriching individuals but
as a condition of the development of national life; art, philosophy
(especially in that untranslatable thing, the "Welt-Anschauung");
science, religion, and the activities of the state in the nurture and
expansion of the other forms of national genius, that is, its activities
in education and the army. The legislation of Bismarck with reference to
certain Roman Catholic orders is nicknamed _Kultur-kampf_, for it was
conceived as embodying a struggle between two radically different
philosophies of life, the Roman, or Italian, and the true Germanic, not
simply as a measure of political expediency. Thus it is that a trading
and military post like Kiao-Chou is officially spoken of as a "monument
of Teutonic _Kultur_." The war now raging is conceived of as an outer
manifestation of a great spiritual struggle, in which what is really at
stake is the supreme value of the Germanic attitude in philosophy,
science and social questions generally, the "specifically German habits
of feeling and thinking."
Very similar motives are at work in the distinction between society and
the State, which is almost a commonplace of German thought. In English
and American writings the State is almost always used to denote society
in its more organized aspects, or it may be identified with government
as a special agency operating for the collective interests of men in
association. But in German literature society is a technical term and
means something empirical and, so to speak, external; while the State,
if not avowedly something mystic and transcendental, is at least a moral
entity, the creation of self-conscious reason operating in behalf of the
spiritual and ideal interests of its members. Its function is cultural,
educative. Even when it intervenes in material interests, as it does in
regulating lawsuits, poor laws, protective tariffs, etc., etc., its
action has ultimately an ethical significance: its purpose is the
furthering of an ideal community. The same thing is to be said of wars
when they are really national wars, and not merely dynastic or
accidental.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account