Page - 124 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

124 chapter 4 according toMaxAdler, has a transcendental character – is understood as a spiritual, psychological type of affinity. It develops due to actions in which humansareemotionally involved. ‘It isnot the similarityof fate,butonly the sharedexperienceandsufferingofafate,thecommunityoffate,thatproduces thenation’.11 In this sense, somecriticswerevalidated inasserting thatBauer washimselfinclinedtowardsapsychologicaltheoryofthenation,eventhough hehadsetouttoopposeit.12 Whendefining theessenceofnationalkinship,Bauerneglected,orat least diminished, the roleof elements suchasemotional attachment toa territory, state, or even blood ties. This is further evidence that, as previously stated, physical tiesbetweenindividualswereonlyofsecondaryvalue forBauer.Cul- turalfactorsevidentlytookprecedence.Baueridentifiedculturallyconstituted intellectual culture–emotional andpsychologicalbonds, legal ties, common customs,religion, language, literatureandthearts–astheessenceofnational affinity.Nationalconsciousnessunambiguouslyreflectednationalaffinity,giv- ingexpression to theobjectivisedsystemof intellectual andcultural achieve- ments of a society organised as a nation. From this perspective, Bauer chal- lengedsubjectivistconceptionsofnationalconsciousness, i.e.notionsaccord- ing towhich the subjective feeling of belonging to a nationwas a sufficient criterion for an individual’s nationality. To explain the process of emerging nationalaffinityandconsciousness,heappealedtoscienceastheoneformof socialconsciousnessthatutilisesobjectivecriteriainanalysinganddescribing socialphenomena. Bauerstressedhowslowlythedevelopingprocessofnationalconsciousness unfolds, highlighting itshistorical variability and itspsychological and socio- historicalprerequisites.According tohim, the so-called ‘lawof inertia’,which inhibits all that appears external, new, or alien, slows this process down.13 Bauer’sanalysisof thesocio-historicalprerequisites for theoriginsofnational consciousnessmadenumerousconclusionsthatconvergedwithMarxism.He suggestedthatthecontentofnationalconsciousness,expressedintheproducts 11 Bauer1996,pp. 100–1. 12 SeeLenin1977,p.398;compareKozyr-Kowalski 1974,p.327. 13 Bauerdistinguisheddifferent ‘levels’ of consciousness inducedby the lawof inertia.He cited theconsciousnessofapeasantandthatofamodernbourgeoisasexamples,while emphasisingacommontrait,namely theirconservative inclinations.Bauerviewedtheir will to preserve the status quo as based on divergent foundations. He argued that the peasants’ conservatismhadpsychological roots in their attachment to the behavioural patterns andnorms inherited from their ancestors. For the bourgeois, conversely, class positionandthestruggletopreserveitwereparamount.