The National Being: Some Thoughts on an Irish PolityRussell, George William
Philosophy
The National Being: Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity
Russell, George William
Cooperation; Ireland -- Economic conditions; Ireland -- Politics and government
which will permit of the highest development of its life. There is no
real love apart from this intellectual brooding. Men who love Ireland
ignobly brawl about her in their cups, quarrel about her with their
neighbor, allow no freedom of thought of her or service of her other
than their own, take to the cudgel and the rifle, and join sectarian
orders or lodges to ensure that Ireland will be made in their own
ignoble image. Those who love Ireland nobly desire for her the highest
of human destinies. They would ransack the ages and accumulate wisdom to
make Irish life seem as noble in men's eyes as any the world has known.
The better minds in every race, eliminating passion and prejudice, by
the exercise of the imaginative reason have revealed to their countrymen
ideals which they recognized were implicit in national character. It
is such discoveries we have yet to make about ourselves to unite us to
fulfill our destiny. We have to discover what is fundamental in Irish
character, the affections, leanings, tendencies towards one or more of
the eternal principles which have governed and inspired all great human
effort, all great civilizations from the dawn of history. A nation is
but a host of men united by some God-begotten mood, some hope of liberty
or dream of power or beauty or justice or brotherhood, and until that
master idea is manifested to us there is no shining star to guide the
ship of our destinies.
Our civilization must depend on the quality of thought engendered in
the national being. We have to do for Ireland--though we hope with
less arrogance--what the long and illustrious line of German thinkers,
scientists, poets, philosophers, and historians did for Germany, or what
the poets and artists of Greece did for the Athenians: and that is, to
create national ideals, which will dominate the policy of statesmen,
the actions of citizens, the universities, the social organizations, the
administration of State departments, and unite in one spirit urban and
rural life. Unless this is done Ireland will be like Portugal, or any
of the corrupt little penny-dreadful nationalities which so continually
disturb the peace of the world with internal revolutions and external
brawlings, and we shall only have achieved the mechanism of nationality,
but the spirit will have eluded us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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