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Wolfe and the Racist Philosophy of Herder

While Wolfe carefully defines “Christian Nationalism” in a very explicit way and resorts to Aquinas to justify a prelapsarian view of the nation, that isn’t the whole of it. Isn’t it interesting that Wolfe is so careful to define “Christian Nationalism” in his Introduction but only defines nations along the way in making his case by referring to Enlightenment-era thinkers? Wolfe runs to Aquinas and the Reformed scholastics as a stepping stone to ultimately define the nation as a “family, writ large” following Johann Herder (1744-1803; Wolfe, pp. 25, 139). Wolfe calls Herder a “Christian philosopher” to throw his opponents off the scent, but those who know the foundations of German romanticism recognize his influence right along with Rousseau in promoting a romantic nationalism quite apart from any theological case made elsewhere.

What this means for Wolfe’s case is that whatever the Reformed scholastics had to say, the fundamental and definitive consideration of his entire project is based on the notion of “nation” the philosophical father of German romanticism and nationalism proposed along with is logical ends. That’s why we see Herder’s definition of nation introduced in his section on ethnicity and blood ties. Herder is the very one that provided much of the inspiration for thinking about Germany as an Aryan nation and that continues to plague the human race today via the hellbound notion of white supremacy. True to form, Wolfe’s book then invokes images and language we normally reserve for the damned politics of another era via Ernest Renan, one we never want to see again:

The nation, like the individual, is the culmination of a long past of efforts, sacrifices, and devotion. The cult of ancestors is the most legitimate of all; our ancestors have made us who we are. A heroic past, great men, glory (I mean the genuine kind), this is the capital stock upon which one bases a national idea. To have common glories in the past, a common will in the present; to have performed great deeds together, to wish to perform still more, these are the essential preconditions for being a people. One loves in proportion to the sacrifices to which one has consented, and to the ills that one has suffered. One loves the house that one has built and passes down. The song of the Spartiates—“We are what you were; we will be what you are”—is in its simplicity the abridged hymn of every fatherland.

Wolfe, 140.

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3 responses to “Wolfe and the Racist Philosophy of Herder”

  1. Howridiculous Avatar
    Howridiculous

    This is a slanderous misappropriation of JG Herder, both by Wolfe and perpetuated by you in not pointing it out. On the completely contrary, Herder holds rather a more tolerant and open view of the interplay between people, and regards cultural differences against a larger egalitarian backdrop via a sophisticated anthropology, aesthetics, epistemology, and philosophy of language. None of that in my view is compatible with Wolfe’s shallow aims: Wolfe is justifying his intuitions, rather than finding them enfolded within a larger whole which is actually Christian. He would do well do actually read Herder. For shame

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  2. Howridiculous Avatar
    Howridiculous

    See Sonia Sikka’s “Herder on Humanity and Cultural Difference” (Cambridge UP, 2011) and “Herder’s Philosophy” by Michael N Forster (Oxford UP,2018) for the exactly opposite conclusions by two eminent Herder scholars.

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  3. Kevin D. Johnson Avatar
    Kevin D. Johnson

    I’m not going to respond on the dogpile that is Twitter, but the assertions about Herder are made in context to what Wolfe himself has said in a section on blood ties. Wolfe is using Herder here to reinforce a typical white supremacist view as his quote of Ernest Renan demonstrates in defining what a nation is. Readers need to deal with the citation I provided from Cedric Dover and the quotes from Herder he displays and not merely use whatever contemporary works might have to say.

    The more important point here is how Herder has been used to justify Nazi ideology and racism and not in fact how one might qualify the views of Herder based off particular readings of his work today. Like any figure in history, the conceptions presented are complicated and Herder has been viewed a number of ways. Few, however, dispute his primary influence among later German romantic nationalists. Reading Sikka carefully will make this very clear. For instance, Zhang in her book review of Herder on Humanity and Cultural Difference: Enlightened Relativism writes:

    “Sikka admits that Herder passes moral judgments on European and non-European cultures despite his dictum that every culture has its own center of gravity. She criticizes Herder’s cultural prejudices and Eurocentrism…”

    “Sikka contends that, even though Herder never uses the term race (Rasse), which Kant relates with skin colors, Herder still divides human beings into different types. But he is not as rigid as Kant in insisting that “races” are permanent and have clear biological boundaries. Herder’s criteria are more flexible.”

    “Even though, Sikka concludes, there are pronounced parallels between Nazi racial ideology and Herder’s ideas of human diversity, we should not ignore Herder’s effort to establish equality among all cultures and peoples and recognize that they have their own happiness and center of gravity.”

    “Herder’s understanding of God reveals a religious pluralism. Yet Sikka reminds us that we should not ignore Herder’s negative remarks on Jews and Turks. In conclusion, Sikka notes that Herder’s theory of cultural authenticity has been used to justify the fundamentalist and violent exclusion of others in Nazi Germany or in contemporary Hindu nationalism in India.”

    Zhang, C. (2016). [Review of the book Herder on Humanity and Cultural Difference: Enlightened Relativism, by Sonia Sikka]. German Studies Review 39(2), 376-378. doi:10.1353/gsr.2016.0072.

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