The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of HistoryPartridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Philosophy
The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of History
Partridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Education; History -- Philosophy; War
Are we not, then, to take the attitude in education that _our culture
is an experimental culture and represents an experimental
civilization_? Although for us our ways and beliefs are final criteria
of values in conduct, and we cannot hope or wish to free ourselves
from them or to be guided by objective data, still we put them forward
in the spirit of the enquirer, rather than as eternal principles. If
this be right, we are not to guard our civilization jealously, hedge
it about with national jealousy and bigotry but rather send our
culture abroad on a mission. We are to understand and to teach the
culture of every other nation sympathetically, trusting to our own
foundations to hold firm. We must be so fortified in our own virtue
that we shall not be afraid to send our spirit abroad to compete with
whatever it shall meet in the old world or the new. This impulse to
extend one's culture and philosophy is a deep one, and we believe it
to be well-grounded. It has been said that the deepest impulse of
British imperialism has been to extend English ways of thought
throughout the world. There is truth in this. We may conclude also
that unless a nation can feel sincerely that it is founded upon
something that ought to endure and at least to have an opportunity to
become universal, it lacks a growth principle and its civilization is
not very secure. Certainly it lacks a great pedagogical advantage in
all the internal work of education.
The work of the intellectual leaders of a people is to uncover this
kernel of sincere belief and worth, and strip nationalism at the same
time of its encrustations of vanity and deception. There are, we may
suppose, at the bottom of every nation's consciousness such sincere
principles which are entitled to a fair field in the competition of
the civilizations and the cultures of the world. We may be sure that
there is Americanism that needs to be taught both for the sake of the
world and for our own sake; something which constitutes our best
contribution to an experimental world in which the over-emphasis of
all sincere principles can ultimately do no harm. Americanism, with
all the errors it may contain, and all the limitations it may have as
a universal principle is better for us and for all, we may believe,
than any dispassionate and well considered intellectualism, or a
cosmopolitanism that is based upon a fear of provincialism. Let us be
prepared, therefore, to go forth not to conquer but to participate in
the life of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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