Page - 126 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

126 chapter 4 1.3 ThinkingintheCategoriesofNationalValues InBauer’sview,humansarenotonlypassiveobserversandrecipientsofhistory, but actively participate in its construction. Similarly, they are subject to the effects of culture passed down through generations, while at the same time ardently transforming it. This is the reasoningbehindBauer’s argument that individualsareactiveproductsof theirnation, including itshistoricaldefeats and victories, material conditions, and intellectual culture created over the courseofcenturies.Thevitalelementfortheroleoftheindividualintheworld is thewill. The individual will, which establishes the scale and hierarchy of values, is subject to two types of determination: intellectual and emotional. According toBauer, humans follow twoopposingvalue systems: a rationalist andanationalone: Nationalevaluationandrationalistevaluationarebothrootedinhuman nature.Theformer isultimatelybasedonthefact that thehumanbeing, boundtothenationbyacausalrelationship, is theproductofhisnation. The latter isbasedon the fact that thehumanbeing is abeing that sets itselfgoalsandchoosesmeans,abeingthatordersitselfwithinthenatural and causal context through conscious action. Both formsof evaluation arise fromthenatureof thehuman,bothareequally ineradicable, both are found ineveryhumanbeing, strugglewitheachother inevery indi- vidual.15 Bauercapturedthe fact that thesphereofvalues is thereal subjectactivityof humansthatorients itself towardsotherpeopleaswellasnature.Thus,nature loses its substantiality as something external tohumans: instead, it becomes matter continuously in fluxaccording tohumanneeds. In relation tonature, humansare guidedby reason– theyareprogressive and revolutionary.With regards to their fellowhumansandunder the leverageofnational traditions, however, they are governed by emotions and become conservative.16 Bauer did not believe that these two value systems often manifested themselves simultaneously.17 Essentially, he thought that in thecourseofhumanhistory, thenationalsystemofvalueshadbeendominant. 15 Bauer1996,p. 127. 16 Przestalski alsowroteabout this, adding thatOskarLangeproduceda similar theory in the1950s.SeePrzestalski 1981,p.213. 17 He referred to thework of Gotthold Lessing as an example of rationalist value judge- mentandnationallyconditionedvaluejudgementinterpenetratinganddeterminingone another. In his analysis, Bauer erroneously deduced that Lessing attempted to liberate