Page - 121 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

the national question 121 through an individual’s participation in a variety of social relationships and dependencies.These, in turn,definedspecific typesof social relationssuchas class,professionalandnational relations. Itwas therefore justifiedtospeakof classcharacter,professionalcharacter,andnationalcharacterascategoriesthat werenotmutually exclusive.AGermanworker, for instance, displayed traits that are typical of Germans, but also characteristics he sharedwithworkers fromdifferentcountries. Bauerwasconsciousoftheambiguityandfluidityoftheconceptofnational character. ‘A community of character’, he declared, ‘links themembers of a nation together inaparticularera,but itbynomeans links thenationofour erawith itsancestors twoor three thousandyearsago’.7Theconcept requires further elucidationas scienceonlydistinguishes individual types of national character.Bauer rejectedperspectives thatexemplified thebehaviourof indi- vidual citizens to illuminate the essence of these types.8 This is understand- able given the concept of community thatBauer as a sociologist introduced. Thisapproachtoresearchneglectedtwosubstantial facts forhim: (1) that the community of character ismanifest in all, not just specific, actions; and (2) thatactionsaredeterminedbyreal,historicallydistinctsocialrelations.When analysing thedistinctnationalcharactersof theEnglishandFrenchandtheir evolution,he focusedondifferences rooted innationalhistory in thebroader sense. According to Bauer, French culture was shaped by the Royal court, whereas in England, the aristocracy andurbanpatriciatewere the enforcers of culture.Hence thedivergent statusof the rulingclassesand their inherent traits suchas aesthetics, taste, lifestyle, and intellectual culture subsequently becomingappropriatedasstandardbyothersocialclasses.Thetwocountries, Bauerargued,produceddifferent typesofpoliticalconventions:Englishpolit- icalthoughtwascharacterisedbytraditionalismandapenchantforpatriotism, the result of a power struggle waged by the peerage. In this case, the ideo- logyofanemergingclass incorporatedthatofaclass intheprocessof leaving thehistorical stage. In contrast, Francewasdistinguishedby apropensity to revolutionaryupheavals, a resultof therulingdynasty’sassertionof itspower. Here, the new schema of ideas rigorously disassociated itself from the past system.Basedonhis analysis, the author concluded that the confines of the term ‘national character’ were extraordinarily broad. In his view, it encom- passed state and social life, institutional forms, and the accomplishments of 7 Bauer1996,pp.20–1. 8 According to Bauer, Sombart committed this errorwhen claiming that the essence of the Jews’ national characterwasdefinedby their propensity to abstract thinking. See Sombart 1909,p. 128.