Page - 131 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

the national question 131 lectual (biological and socially conditioned) traits, and (2) the acquisitionof culturalgainsandvalues.ForBauer, contemporarynatural sciencescouldnot really explain in detail themode of acquiring social traits such as courage, humility,discipline,orloyalty.Hearguedthatthesetraitswerearesultofliving conditions, lifestyles,education,andsocialenvironment.Hence,hesuggested that personality traits of successive generations reflected bygone social con- ditionsandmodesofproduction. Investigating thenationasacommunityof naturerequiredtakingintoconsiderationnotonlyitsgeneticmaterial,butalso thetransformationofrelationsofproductionandexchange. AsBauerobserved,thematerialconditionsforthereproductionofsociallife alreadybelongtothesphereofsocialphenomena,whicharecharacterisedby anextensivediversity. Theseconditionsdefinewhat traits successivegenera- tions inherit. Bauer’s analysishadenormous implications:he recognised that biological theories couldneverprovideanadequatedescriptionof the social prerequisites forhumansubjectactivity.Hence,heprotested the inclusionof thenation in thebiologicalnatural realmof reality. If thenation isconceived asa literal,biological entity, thenthenational communityofnaturebecomes acommunityofdescentbasedonbloodkinship.Suchacommunityis,at least in its purest form, nomore than an abstract concept that never existed in humanhistory.Onemain tendencyof the communityofnature is the stead- ilyexpandingdegreeofdifferentiation.It leads ‘anoriginallyunifiedpeople’ to ‘split intodifferentnations.This is ageneral law: everynationwhosecultural community isbasedexclusivelyoncommondescent facesthethreatofdiffer- entiation’.27Clansandtribescanunitetoformanationonlyonthebasisofan identical intellectualculturethatprovides identity.Bauerwasexplicitonthis: ‘Amere communityofnaturewithout a communityof culturemayas a race beof interest toanthropologists,but itdoesnot formanation.Theconditions ofthehumanstruggleforexistencecanalsoproducethenationviathemeans of thecommunityofnature,but theymustalwaysdosovia themeansof the communityofculture’.28Onecanonlyseparatethesetwotypesofcommunity in theory. That iswhy, according toBauer, thenationwill always represent a unity of the community of culture and the community of nature. The belief that they condition eachother formed thebasis forBauer’s definitionof the nation. His definition was also cultural, entrenched in Herderism and German Romanticism. It attached greater importance to the inheritance of cultural 27 Bauer1996,p.39. 28 Bauer1996,p. 106.