The idea of "The People," as conceived as a longstanding, aware, self identifying social unit, has been with human society since language first rose to prominence as the dominant tool of human cultural and interpersonal communication. While this subject could, and has, been discussed from an endless multitude of ethical, social, moral, historical, linguistic and cultural standpoints, I wish only to bring up some quotes from my recent reading.
First, Oswald Spengler from
Decline of the West:
Concerning "higher and primitive" cultures:
"In all primitive existence the "it," the Cosmic, is at work with such immediacy of force that all microcosmic utterances...obey only the pressures of the very instant.... But with the type of higher Culture this "it" gives way to a strong and undiffused tendency.Within the primitive Culture, tribes and clans were the only quickened beings....(In higher cultures), the Culture itself is such a being."
Here, the "it" can refer to anything really. The family and society, certain important objects, places or people, and even the cosmos itself. For Spengler, "primitive" culture is hallmarked by a lack of long term, "historical" in his terms, continuity beyond a few generations of related people with their own deities, culture and language. While modern studies raise a number of points of contention here, Spengler's point remains valid when compared with so named "higher" cultures. The institutions, buildings, languages and cultures of Rome, Persia, China and Ethiopia can all still be felt in the modern world, even if they are now ruined, changed or blended with subsequent influences. The deep, multi-layered spirituality of the Hopi, Dani, Sami-Lapps and the Chumash are only remembered because they made contact with historical peoples, who then recorded them as they were found. Before these tribal, clan and perhaps even kingship names were recorded, there exists nothing as far as history can be concerned beyond trash heaps and the remains of material items.
Concerning "Historical" man:
"...destiny must lie either in the zoological or in the world-historical field. "Historical" man...is the man of a Culture that is in full march towards self-fulfillment. Before this, after this, outside this, man is historyless."
The idea and concept of cultural fulfillment are a long running theme through out the book, so I will leave the reader to explore that on their own, or perhaps for another entry. I will simply say that, for Spengler, a culture only lives and flourishes so long as it works towards its cultural ultimate expression in ever way possible, and that after this is achieved, it starts to become static and perhaps even die, if over the course of centuries where it still appears to flourish.
And on the "People" themselves:
"For me, the "people" is a unit of the soul. The great events of history were not really achieved by peoples, they themselves created the peoples. Every act alters the soul of the doer.... People are neither linguistic nor political nor zoological, but spiritual, units. And this leads at once to the futher distinction between peoples before, within and after a culture."
For Spengler, the souls of some set or group of humanity are altered by the forces of history, landscape and culture that then mold them into a new people, a new entity on the historical stage. Indeed, the idea of history as a force is a major feature of Spengler's thought.
Now let us switch gears from Spengler's wide conservative, continental, far reaching historical, spiritual and metaphysical concepts to that of Walter Lippmann, a far more practical, politically minded American journalist.
Lippmann, writing in
The Public Philosophy brings a more political view:
On "the People" as historic or political: "When we speak of popular sovereignty, we must know whether we are talking about The People, as voters, or about The People, as a community of the entire living population, with their predecessors and successors."
Lippman later goes on to examine how "the men who rise up against freedom" come to be, and how the modern situation of isolation and removal from cultural and historical social sources of identity creates a new type of people, the so called "lonely crowd."
"...the modern man who find in freedom from the constraints of the ancestral order an intolerable loss of guidance and of support. They are the men who rise up against freedom, unable to cope with the insoluble difficulties and unable to endure the denial of communion in public and common truths."
For Lippman, the establishment or renewal of the "Public Philosophy," a subject that is itself beyond the scope of this article, and the means of its transmission, acculturation and permeation of public and private life are the hall marks of "the People" via his political outlook.
So here we have two differing, but not exactly opposed, conceptions of what "the People" means from two very different viewpoints. Lippmann would argue, from his modern, democratic, liberal view, that a people is made, maintained and served by their adherence to a public philosophy that serves to drive social participation, responsibility and consciousness. This is a very active, participatory conception as opposed to Spengler's notion of an identity and form imposed by outside events. For him, the spiritual aspects of the people and the culture determine all other facets, from language to art to science.
While both take diverging stances and approach the problem of the public, culture and "the People" from alternate stances, both., upon further reading, are essentially conservative in their response. The people must be exclusive, defined and limited both socially, historically and spiritually, and there is always a risk of cultural degradation, dissolution and reformation. For Spengler, it is the result of outside influence, divergence from the culture's true spiritual aim, or from an invisible cultural death in the form of civilization, fixed forms and decadence. For Lippmann, on the other hand, it is the weakening of public notion, awareness and action concerning itself, possible only in the liberal democracies of the West, that leads towards social apathy, isolation and then ultimately reactionary backlash in the form of "counter-revolution," Fascism and Totalitarianism.
Thank you for reading, and sorry for the great delay in posting! More pretty pictures and videos to follow.
