Once again, I repeat: the reality which we call the State is not the spontaneous coming together of men united by ties of blood. The State begins, when groups naturally divided find themselves obliged to live in common. This obligation is not of brute force, but implies an impelling purpose, a common task ,which is set before the dispersed groups. Before all, the State is a plan of action and a programme of collaboration. The men are called upon so that together they may do something. The State is neither consanguinity, nor linguistic unity, nor territorial unity, nor proximity of habitation. It is nothing material, inert, fixed, limited. It is pure dynamism the will to do something in common-and thanks to this the idea of the State is bounded by no physical limits...
A static interpretation will induce us to say: That is the State. But we soon observe that this human group is doing something in common-conquering other peoples, founding colonies, federating with other States; that is, at every hour it is going beyond what seemed to be the material principle of its unity. This is the terminus ad quern, the true State, whose unity consists precisely in superseding any given unity. When there is a stoppage of that impulse towards something further on, the State automatically succumbs, and the unity which previously existed, and seemed to be its physical foundation-race, language, natural frontier-becomes useless; the State breaks up, is dispersed, atomised.--José Ortega y Gasset (1932 [1930]) The Revolt of the Masses, (anonymous translator), pp. 162-162. [HT: Jeffrey Bernstein]
Outside of Spain and Latin America, Ortega y Gasset is largely forgotten except among a small band of European, liberal classical liberals, who often understand themselves as 'conservatives.' (See here for an example; [ht: Aurelian Craiutu].) And since he was one of the original invitees of the Lippmann colloquium, and since he is a civilizational elitist clearly influenced by the Italian Elite school, this understanding is not wholly misleading. But in that group he remained a better friend of democracy than most. More important for present purposes, he was an ardent early supporter of European integration, and he is often quoted for his slogan, “Spain is the problem, Europe is the solution.” But unlike many such 'conservatives' he rejects a Europe of nations. His is a more ambitious, multicultural ambition. And I believe that if we understand why, we will also understand his response (recall this post a few days ago) toward the Schmittian challenge in a better way (and perhaps find it more compelling).
We can recognize in the quoted passage Renan's idea (recall) that nationalism presupposes some forgetting. Renan's famous essay is cited a few pages down (p. 172), so the connection is not accidental. But Ortega y Gasset, the state is always a construction-in-progress, and by no means defined by some shared element in its past, nor by some organic unity. In fact, for Ortega y Gasset if one attempted a kind of genealogy of a state -- of the sort that has grown out of the confines of ancient cities [but the same is true for them on a micro-scale] -- one would only find heterogeneity no natural unity would appear. Whatever present unity and homogeneity one finds, "is the result of the previous political unification." (p. 166) But this unity is always a "relative" one--unfinished, and to be (this is not a word he uses, I think), sublated in a larger project.
And while I do not wish to deny the Nietzschean roots of his thinking, unlike Nietzsche he does not dwell on the violence that creates the natural seeming grouping. His wording (deliberately) effaces that part of the process: "when groups naturally divided find themselves obliged to live in common," (emphasis added). And this is why he can claim that within some kind of states -- he focuses on liberal democracies, but it is also clear of certain kind of empires -- enemies can "share existence with the enemy, more than that, with an enemy ,which is weak." (76) And in so far as these start understanding themselves as a 'we,' this is a consequence of the state's efforts to enlist them into a collective, forward looking project and the willingness to let bygones be bygones (to break the cycle of revenge, etc.)*
It's important, I think, that this one version of multiculturalism. No part of a pre-existing identity has to be disowned unless it prevents buy in in the shared collective project. This fact is, in fact, familiar from contemporary critics of multiculturalism who often complain of its superficial character denying the more materialist roots of our identity in class or blood. But within a group that partakes in multicultural identity formation it is the separatist who insists on the priority of some original identity (imagined or real) who is the extremist because she rejects the larger collective project.
As an important aside, what the previous paragraph reveals, is that this version of multiculturalism is not rooted in a kind of Herderian cultural pluralism. Rather, it is rooted in a fairly realist picture of political unity formation. I call it 'fairly' realist because it also involves a kind of tact or restraint which asks us not to dwell on the violence that is presupposed.
Crucially, for Ortega y Gasset, this process never ends: "modern nations are merely the present manifestation of a variable principle, condemned to perpetual supersession." (165) I mentioned Nietzsche, but perhaps Spinoza's conatus is the better model. The process always requires forward motion. In the present European Union this idea is often captured by (and now I quote one of its central bankers) "the metaphor of the "bicycle theory", which is the notion that European integration has to progress in order to avoid backtracking on past achievements - just like a bicycle has to keep going to avoid falling over."
One important consequence of this analysis is that nostalgic and inward looking forms of nationalism -- and these have become very popular in our own day -- inevitably return to sites of conflict and so, thereby, promote conflict.+ As Harry Eeyres notes, for Ortega y Gasset such movements are themselves an expression of malaise and promote the "unmaking" (176) of the relative unity.
I close with two observations: first, projects that try to minimize the forward and collective unity formation of the European Union, while locally often prudent and exercises in damage control, also effectively undermine the process that gives (to use a metaphor) vitality to such political projects. And so while they are often understood in terms of preserving the Union they undermine it. This is, in fact, Lincoln's great insight at Gettysburg (recall) and in the second inaugural (recall here; here). For the European Union to exist, and even flourish, it must involve a "enterprise in common." (170) And this involves the tacit or explicit expression of common or public opinion (this is the way Ortega y Gasset reinterprets Renan's idea of a daily plebiscite). It presupposes a shared program and shared images of the future.
Second, I fully grant that Ortega y Gasset makes an uncomfortable hero for contemporary multiculturalists. Because his project for European integration is, in part, designed to create economic competitiveness (vis a vis the United States (150)), and to counterbalance the attractiveness of Marxist "five year plans" (p. 186). That part is familiar enough. But this plan also includes the vast "colonies and protectorates." (150) So, he fits in a larger, now largely forgotten (although Duncan Bell (recall) and Or Roisenbom (recall) have recently reminded us) projects of European federation that have a global reach.
*Ortega y Gasset does not alert the reader that this may also involve giving up on claims of justice.
+This is also true of demands for compensation for historical injustices. But these at least promise a form of closure.
Since you mention the Italian Elite school, I thoughtnI might mention Natasha Piano's interesting work on what she identifies as their misinterpretation by American political science: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/701636
Posted by: Michael Mirer | 02/04/2022 at 05:09 AM
I am a fan of her work.
Posted by: Eric Schliesser | 02/04/2022 at 07:20 AM