Readings on Fascism and National Socialism - Selected by members of the department of philosophy, University of Colorado by Various
page 79 of 173 (45%)
page 79 of 173 (45%)
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Nationalism, in fact, founds the State on the concept of nation, the
nation being an entity which transcends the will and the life of the individual because it is conceived as objectively existing apart from the consciousness of individuals, existing even if the individual does nothing to bring it into being. For the nationalist, the nation exists not by virtue of the citizen's will, but as datum, a fact, of nature. For Fascism, on the contrary, the State is a wholly spiritual creation. It is a national State, because, from the Fascist point of view, the nation itself is a creation of the mind and is not a material presupposition, is not a datum of nature. The nation, says the Fascist, is never really made; neither, therefore, can the State attain an absolute form, since it is merely the nation in the latter's concrete, political manifestation. For the Fascist, the State is always _in fieri_. It is in our hands, wholly; whence our very serious responsibility towards it. But this State of the Fascists which is created by the consciousness and the will of the citizen, and is not a force descending on the citizen from above or from without, cannot have toward the mass of the population the relationship which was presumed by nationalism. Nationalism identified State with Nation, and made of the nation an entity preƫxisting, which needed not to be created but merely to be recognized or known. The nationalists, therefore, required a ruling class of an intellectual character, which was conscious of the nation and could understand, appreciate and exalt it. The authority of the State, furthermore, was not a product but a presupposition. It could not depend on the people--rather the people depended on the State and on the State's authority as the source of the life which they lived |
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