Nationalism & Culture
Rudolf Rocker identified in the title of his great work Nationalism & Culture what he saw as the two main elements of human life in society. In his descriptions, he often placed each at an extreme. He favoured culture. He did explain and offer insight into both aspects, which included exhaustive accounts of history, as well as critical philosophical wrestling with the most critical thinkers of the recent past. His thought is systematic, but his approach can be misleading. I hold his work to be something which towers over us. It is monstrous, much in the same way that we, as the continued history of what he analyzed, are actually gigantic, fantastic.
I have been influenced by his writings, and the way that he divides society into government (Nationalism) and active society (culture). Culture, for Rocker, includes business. And I agree in great part. Economy is a complex and subtle process. It can be traced back to discussions about the Greek Ekonomia and the management of household affairs. There is a connection between Aristotle's landowner and the modern consultant who contracts as he must, participating in the creation of culture through social and financial systems of reward. Aristotle's man did much the same thing. He volunteered his time. And he was paid for his time. The overlap is not always clear. That is culture.
Government presents a different challenge of interpretation. Rocker very much distrusted state governments, which as he witnessed, could become ever more the monster, the preposterous and disgusting. He saw culture guarding against the hideous forms government might take. He saw this battle as ever-ongoing. With a view like that, his forces become like ying and yang, more that than good and evil. And because they rise to such abstract levels, then within Rocker's theory there is room to add interpretation. I say that government is an organizing force. The parallel is culture. Culture is an economic force. People partcipate in culture-as-economy as social and financial actors, or debtors and creditors if you like. You see because community is just such an exchange. We give. We take. We add to another. We receive from others. The silent note among political classes is their grasp and participation in culture-economies that exchange social capital. How do these modes of capital affect the contemporary citizen? How does government now effect the average citizen? If the organization of our state's affairs is increasingly assisted and aided by the voluntary efforts of average citizens, then how does 'organization' as a concept further help us understand our burgeoning roles as citizen-administrators?
