Food for Thought

Week 10: Tuesday, March 29

As you answer these questions, please try to use your own words (unless the meaning is totally clear) so I know you understand what you are discussing. Also, please be specific. Among other things, Renan says the nation is a "soul, a spiritual principle." Don't write that on your quiz unless you can explain what that means.

I would like you to take a look at all of these readings, but on the quiz, you are only responsible for the questions associated with your name.

As you prepare these answers for the quiz and the class discussion, remember that the information the rest of the class obtains about your reading during the discussion will only be as good as your answer.

John Stuart Mill, On Representative Government (1861) (Agostinho to DiGiovanna)

1) According to Mill, what is a sense of nationality and what fosters that sense? Why does a nation have a right to its own government?

2) Why does Mill think a country consisting of different nationalities will possess a fragmented public opinion that will not allow representative institutions to work?

3) Mill writes, "Where the sentiment of nationality exists in any force, there is a prima facie case for uniting all the members of the nationality under the same government, and a government to themselves apart." This is a classic nationalist statement. According to Mill, however, why does it often prove difficult to provide each nationality with its own government? Why can't every nationality obtain its own government?

4) How does Mill think the problem in question 3) will resolve itself over the long run?

Ernest Renan, "What is a Nation?" (1882) (Johnson to O'Leary)

1) According to Renan, what was the original nucleus of most nations?

2) Why does Renan claim that forgetting is an "essential factor in the creation of a nation"? What must people forget?

3) Renan lists some of the conditions named by Mill as contributing to the formation of nations. What are they? Why is it that every single one is insufficient to create a nation?

4) What is Renan's answer to the question posed in the title of this essay?

Lord Acton, "Nationality" (1862) (O'Mahoney to Tombeno)

1) How did absolutism and the old monarchies of Europe nurture the national idea? Where do all nations come from?

2) Why did the French revolutionaries of 1789 resort to a new idea concerning the nation? What was that idea? And how did the revolutions of 1848 pave the way for nationalism's further victories?

3) According to Acton, what are the "French" and "English" systems of nationality? How do they differ? Of which one does Acton approve?

4) According to Acton, what is true patriotism? To whom or what do we owe our obedience and political duties? Why?

5) What is the best political arrangement possible for a nationality or groups of nationalities? What are the two special difficulties with Austria?

6) In the final analysis, what are Acton's two final and principled objections to the idea of nationality?

Other Questions

1) In these various essays, where do we see the ideas of Mazzini? Herder? Fichte? Sieyes?