Hegel And The National Heritag

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

national sentiments they encounter throughout the world. On the other side of the coin, if a political movement makes a point of demonstrating its patriotic motives, it may gain freedom of action to bring about important institutional changes under the guise of enhancing the national interest.
Hegel emphasizes the power of national loyalty by talking of the nation as if it were an individual. It is, he suggests, an organism with an explicit life of its own:
Each particular National genius is to be treated as only one individual in the process of Universal History. For that history is the exhibition of the divine, absolute development of spirit in its highest forms-- that gradation by which it attains its truth and consciousness of itself. The forms which these grades of progress assume are the characteristic "National Spirits" of History; the peculiar tenor of their moral life of their Government, their Art, Religion, and Sciences.
The idea of a "national spirit" is a ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

and customs. That culture, or "spirit", of the nation permeates also the human relations and gives the whole unity and cohesion. The values of the national community and the operation of its central government are linked together through mediating institutions, such as corporations, estates and the representative system, which ensure that the activities of the government broadly express the basic ideals and interests of groups within the community or its individual members. If such mediating links do not exist or cease to perform their proper function the nation or its important sections become alienated from the government and the integrity or independence of the political community ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: