Her til aften har jeg, for sjov skyld, sat mig til rette med en bog af Ludwig von Mises, som jeg ikke kigger i ret ofte; ensige har læst meget af. Men hvorfor ikke give den en chance.
Bogens første del hedder “Nationen og Staten” og starter med den velkendte konstatering: Selvom ordet nation er gammelt, har det først opnået den betydning den i dag har, indenfor de sidste 150 års tid. Men hvad ligge der i ordet “nationalitet”? Det forsøger Mises at give et svar på.
If we wish to gain insight into the essence of nationality, we must proceed not from the nation but from the individual. We must ask ourselves what the national aspect of the individual person is and what determines his belonging to a particular nation.
Den indgangsvinkel Mises vælger er spændende fordi den tager udgangspunkt i individet og derfra vil udlede, hvad der får ham/hende til at være medlem af en given nation. I den forbindelse gør Mises en del ud af at understrege, at nationalitet og racefællesskab ikke i sig selv har noget med hinanden at gøre; som Mises siger: Det giver ingen mening at tale om et genæologisk nationalitetsopdrag, da der ikke findes nogen nation af fuldblodsmennesker.
Desuden er hele racedebatten ny i forhold til nationalitetsdebatten i den forstand, at en raceorienterede policy er et begreb/koncept, som er introduceret i den politiske verden for at erstatte den individualistiske ide om nationen med en kollektivistisk ide om stammen.
Mises fortsætter herfra:
If one does not see racial affinity as the essence of nationality, that does not mean that one wants to deny the influence of racial affinity on all politics and on national politics in particular. In real life many different forces work in different directions; if we want to recognize them, then we must try to distinguish them in our minds as far as possible. That does not mean, though, that in observing one force, we should quite forget that still others are working alongside it or against it.
We recognize that one of these forces is the speech community; this is indeed beyond dispute
Sproget og fællesskabet omkring det; det er en at de faktorer, der er med til at skabe en nation.
Community of language is at first the consequence of an ethnic or social community; independently of its origin, however, it itself now becomes a new bond that creates definite social relations. In learning the language, the child absorbs a way of thinking and of expressing his thoughts that is predetermined by the language, and so he receives a stamp that he can scarcely remove from his life. The language opens up the way for a person of exchanging thoughts with all those who use it; he can influence them and receive influence from them. Community of language binds and difference of language separates persons and peoples. If someone finds the explanation of the nation as a speech community perhaps too paltry, let him just consider what immense significance language has for thinking and for the expression of thought, for social relations, and for all activities of life.
Der er en art sammenhængskraft imellem nationen og sproget; noget, som får begge til at udvikle sig i takt med hinanden, siger Mises.
Derfor er mennesker der er dårlige til sproget, f.eks. dårlige til dansk, mindre danske end f.eks. en professor i Dansk, der taler og skriver det med lethed og ynde:
Uneducated persons are German only insofar as the understanding of German speech has been made accessible to them.
En bondemand der bor afsondret fra resten af verden og kun taler sin hjemstavnsdialekt er mindre national, hvis hans dialekt ikke forstås ret godt af de andre i nationen. Forstås den slet ikke er han overhoved ikke et medlem. Forestiller vi os f.eks. en dansk dialekt, som ingen udover dem der tale den kan forstå og de der taler den ikke kan agerer på “hovedsproget”, vil disse personer ikke være danskere. De vil tværtimod udgøre deres egen nation — en lille en, men stadig deres egen.
Mises kommer derefter ind på nationalitetsforholdet for bilingvister; noget som jeg ikke vil gøre her. Vid blot, at disse mennesker tilhører mere end en nation.
Tilhører alle mennesker så i det mindste én nation? Ja, siger Mises. Dog med to undtagelser:
Børn og stumme mennesker er nationsløse.
Det lyder måske lidt perverst og “ondt”, men Mises forklarer:
Only children and deaf-mutes are nationless; the former first acquire an intellectual home through entry into a speech community, the latter through development of their thinking capacity into achievement of the capability of mutual understanding with the members of a nation. The process that operates here is basically the same as that by which adults already belonging to one nation switch over to another.
Hvordan så med menneskerne i f.eks. det tidligere Yoguslavien? Dannede de en nation? Det gør de ikke mere, og dengang Mises skrev sin bog slog han også fast med syv tommer søm, at der ikke var noget nationalt fællesskab imellem de folk på Balkan (og andre steder) der talte et forskelligt sprog til trods for, at de var samlet under én statsmagt.
Om Czeckoslovakiet f.eks.:
There is no Czechoslovak nation composed of Czech speakers and Slovak speakers. What we see before us is a particular Slavic nation’s struggle for life. How it will turn out will depend on political, social, and cultural circumstances…
Og forholdet mellem Danmark og Norge får også et par ord med på vejen:
The much-cited Danish-Norwegian example also cannot undercut the assertion that nationality lies in language. During the centuries-long political union between Norway and Denmark, the old Norwegian standard language was completely driven out by the Danish standard language; it still managed a miserable existence only in the numerous dialects of the rural population. After the separation of Norway from Denmark (1814), efforts were made to create a national language of its own. But the efforts of the party striving to create a new Norwegian standard language on the basis of the old Norwegian language definitely failed. Success went to those who seek only to enrich Danish by introduction of expressions from the vocabulary of the Norwegian dialects but otherwise are in favor of retaining the Danish language. The works of the great Norwegian writers Ibsen and Björnson are written in this language. Danes and Norwegians still today, then, form a single nation, even though they belong politically to two states.
Dette var et sammensurium af første kapitel i Mises’ bog Nation og Stat. Jeg vil helt sikkert læse mere i den!
