The Politics of National Diversity

It is reported (hal S;:lil1l Stcphcll, iiI's, Apostolic King or Hungary) had advised his SOil Ellllllerirh that he should nO( spare to invite Icu'eigners into lhe Kingdom. His grounds were dUll 'uniw linguae llrtiusque tnoris regnum imhecileetfragileest': a killgdom with but 011(' hlllguageand Ollecustorl'l is weak and rI'agile, This remark is, Ollt' nOles, at odds with much rCCCIl! conservative philnsophical theorising. For the lauer has tended to stress the virtues of social and institutiollal homogeneity lbt' virltH:~S or the nation state as c'lassicaily cOlln'ived. The present essay challenges that k.ind of cOllservatism. Na.tional conservatism can 1)(' cOnl{'st(~d, it seems, from two complemelltary per."i}><,ctiv('s. The first would look as it were beneath the level ,,('the Slale or natioll, lO social entities and forms or sodal organisat ion COtlslituted by individuals as <lgclIls in lhe market or as mtmbra voiunlativa or corporate associations of various sorts. The second, which is the topic or. his essay, looks to rorms of social organisatiol1 above the level of the nationat unit. For it is our COIHt'IHioll thal in a heterogeneous society such as post-war Britain 'hose moral and cultural valut,s which are so important to lhe conservative can best be IlUrlllreU not by <.'nfon:ed homogeneity but by that kind of illstlluticHlalised heterogeneity which is characteristic of a supranational stale. The unitary nation stal<" is not, of course, a naturally oC(url'ing form or sorial organisation, but is rathel' a product of the nationalistic purism which was typical of dlc 19th century. As the HUllgarian philosopher Anre! Kolnai wrote: human society is Hot composed of nations, , . ill (he same clear-cut way in which iL is composed of individuals or, ft.)!, that malter, or soveriegn stales. The spectrum of nationalities is rull or interpenetrations, ambiguities, twilighl zones, II f()lIows thaL the concepcion of nationalism (as a universal prillcipIe), the conception of a 'just' or' Ilatural' order of nationstates isin hKt and illlheorypure utopia. There can be neilher all ordLr of slaLes nor of frontiers in which there docs not enter to a large cxtent the factor of arbitrariness, contingcHcy and hislorical accident. Pretending to' purify' the body or mallkind like other enterprises of' a naruralisl pseudo-ralionalist 50rt, purporting to lay down 'evident principles' which generally prove to be illusory means to push arbitrariness lo its eXlreme limit. (Kolnai 1946/47, p.536) Already the case of England (or Creal Britain, or the United Kingdom) shows the extent to which lingering national aUegiances rnay be at odds with allegiances of a mol'(' striclly political sort (allcgiall(,(.'s to the State, r01' exampl('. or to thc.' Crown), The culture and morality of Great Brilain have mOI'('OVCI' bccll shaped as much by supranatioual all('giallces to WeSll'rn or PI'olcstalil Christendom. to tht' Brilish Empin,\ lO the <:OllH1l011~ wealth or English-speaking" pcoplc:s as hy polilical aHcgiallc<"s ill lht' narrower sense. Un{c)J-wnatcly dw British imperial t'xperielln.' produ('ed lillie in the way or positive philosophical lht'orising' on its own behall: Hellcc; if we arc to find a rr'anH:work which might be used to help us cope with or make sellse or the irzlemal llIulti-national dynastic C011stitution of present-day British socielY, we shall have to look eLsewhere. Now 01lt' very dear historical eXllmple or a supranational stale illcm'poratlllg a Ilwltiplicity or racial, linguistic and religious groupillgs is of course the Danube Monarchy or Austria-Hungary, a response to lh('quil{'specific problem ofovcrlappingmuiollillitics ill Eastern C('tllral Europe. Thus Bohemia and the western part of HungalY had substantial German popllla(ions~ there Weft' both Germall and Romanian populations in eastern Hungary; the regioll orTricslc was populated by a lllixtuft, of iLalians, Gcrmans and Slov('nes, and dH.' story goes on, IndeNls the problems raised by these mixlures or populatiu!lS (in pn,'liCtlH.lay Yugoslavia, or Romania, or Hungary) have still lwt been IIllaHy solved. The core of the Habsburg MOll<tl'{'ily was !lot, however, a Iwctp or ralldomly acculllulated tcrriwT'ic..'s. Its peoples shared, nrsl of all, a c:onUllon g'("og-rilphind region around the Danube whkh had for Ct'nturi<.'s served as an important thol'Ough(al'c unitillg the peoples on its banks. They shared also a C01l\1l101l ('nemy ill I he Turk. and 200 years oi"warlaf(' againsl the' OtlOman po,.lt! had tOlliribulcd nOI a little to the development RlllOng·sl them o/" a It'ding ora commoll hue and history. The peopits of the monarchy shared further the presumption of" belonging to a COllllnon polilical entitYl a presumption bolstered not leasl by an allegiallce to the Habsburg dynasly itself: Anu /lllally tiley were united also by a highly developed bureaucracy, and by a freedom 0(' movement, ol'trade and ofelHploymclll, within the (i'oll~ l i<.'rs or t he Empir{~ as a whole. The mOVCIllCIH or peoples and ideas pa,'ised especially back and f{)rlh through Vienna. whose multi~llatiol1al and multi-linguistic character reflected (and still fcilecls) the tlwhi-racial charaner of tht' Empire as a whole. Yet lhe unity of I.he Elllpire was not, it must be noted. brought about through the ,predominance of allY OIlt' single centre, nation or racc, Certainly Vicuna was a centre.' and not llIcrdy in the political and gcographic