Page - 120 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

120 chapter 4 inMarx’sCapital.Themostvaluableaspectofhistheorywashisdeparturefrom positivistconceptionsof therelationshipbetweenhumansandtheirenviron- ment. Inhisanalysisof individual factors thatmakeupnationalities–suchas economicconditions,politicalorganisation,andculture–heputculture first. Becausehededucedculture frompracticalhumanactions,his theorywasnot onlydescriptive,butalsopossessedanaxiologicaldimension:nationalvalues andnationalcultureplayedavital role intheprocessofnation-forming. 1.1 TheEssenceoftheNationalCharacter Theessenceof anation–or, touseBauer’s phrase, national community– is determinedbyasetof interactingsocialphenomena.Thiscomplexisspecific- ally determinedbyvarious factors.Of these, hedeemed thenational charac- ter to be themost vital: ‘The nation is the totality of human beings bound togetherbyacommunityof fateintoacommunityofcharacter’.6Thefactthat Bauerconflatedthenationwiththenationalcharacterhadsignificant implic- ationsforhisentireconcept,asitshiftedtheemphasisfromthematerialworld onto the sphereof consciousness.What, then, exemplifies theessenceof the national character, andwhydidBauerascribecentral importance to this cat- egoryasaqualifierof thenation? ForBauer,everydayexperienceisalreadyagoodindexofthesimilaritiesand differencesbetweenhistoricallyconstitutednations.Similargeographicaland demographic conditions, the typeof economy, and the forms inwhichpolit- ical life is institutionalisedbind themtogether.Differencesbetweennations, ontheotherhand,areusuallymanifestindisparitiesofterritoryandlanguage, aswellasdifferentcustoms,traditions, ideas,diversementalitiesandmodesof experiencingtheworld,andintheproductionofmaterialandintellectualcul- ture.Thatneithersimilar livingconditionsnorasharedterritoryandlanguage canalwayserasenationaldifferences inthespheresof law,morals, aesthetics, scienceand religion inspiredBauer to seek theconstitutive characteristicsof thenationinthesphereofconsciousness.Thisdecisivecriterionconstituteda ‘communityofcharacter’.Thecommunityofcharacter, according tohim,was nothingbutthe intersubjectivesphereofsocialconsciousness thatreflecteda commonmentality,amodeofexperience,awayofpassingjudgement,inshort: all that iscrucial fortheunityofhumankind.Bauerunderstoodtheconceptof character in itsenormity. Itwasacomplexofphysicalandintellectualhuman attributes, althoughhe thought that physical characteristicswere of second- ary significance. He established that intellectual and physical traits evolved 6 Bauer1996,p. 117.