DEMOCRACY AND NATIONALISM

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 176, 12 August 1937, Page 4

DEMOCRACY AND NATIONALISM

Nationalism as we know it to-day is a by-product of the democratic movement, writes the Archbishop of York, Dr. Temple, in his hook, " Christian Democraey." Dr. Temple eontinues : — It is quite true that some nations have lately dispensed with demoeratic methods, but they have not reverted to the systems of the eighteenth afid earlier centuries. Louis XTV. led his people, but he did not derive his title from their support. Hitler and Mussolini are in many ways more despotie; but they are also more dependent on popular favour. It is, in part at least, this new sense of responsibility in the mass.es of the people, coupled with the eomplexity of modern problems, which constitutes the temptation to despair of reaspn and to follow blindly a chosen leader — chosen because of an immediate sense of affinity between him and the people, not because his policy is deliberately approved by the people. For when Italians follow Mussolini or Germans follow Hitler, they have no sense of abdicating their responsibility; rather, this discipleship is felt to be the exercise of that responsibility. Now it is quite possible for men to embrace a faith uncritieally yet in a complete idealistic spirit. The aspect of Fascism or National Socialism which appeals to high-spirited youth is its demand for self-sacrifice on behal.f of their country. They have a purpose in life, and they know that it is not a selfish purpose. It can be fulfilled only by self-abnegation. Yet in this appeal there is a subtly pernicious elem'ent. For although it is a call to selfsacrifice and the conscious mind has nothing else hefore its attention, it is also a call to serve what for each patriot is his own country i m, di&tinction from ptheflk . -