National Socialism is Irrational

Refutation from Grenier

INTRODUCTION

A Twitter user recently responded to one of my posts on here with a quote from AH “in principle, the State is looked upon only as a means to an end and this end is the conservation of the racial characteristics of mankind” as if I somehow agreed with this sentiment. Yet, this statement is philosophically inept and betrays a fundamentally false political ideology. The preservation of nationality is absolutely not the ultimate end of the State.

This is the “principal of nationality” (sometimes simply called “nationalism,” although that terminology is confused) that has always been rejected by Catholic authors. Here, I will follow the treatment of Grenier closely, whose work in political philosophy is, in my opinion, one of the best, succinct, and systematic treatments of the scholastic tradition in the 20th century.

THE NATION AND STATE

First, we must distinguish the “nation” from the “state.” While in contemporary english the two terms are used synonymously, classically, the nation is a certain group of people with common characteristics sometimes called a “people.” These people are joined by a number of different attributes, both intrinsic and extrinsic, material and spiritual. Commonly, this includes heredity (i.e., a certain ethnic affinity), but goes beyond it, including geographic location, language, customs, shared institutions, etc.

On the other hand, the state is the polity that rules a certain group of people or peoples. For a careful, Thomistic study of the distinction between these two ideas, cf., Woroniecki’s excellent treatment here.

Here, we must be careful in our treatment of these two concepts and never to confuse them. There are states with multiple nations within them. There are also states made up of a single nation. There are nations that actually are divided into multiple states. These terms are not co-extensive.

TRUE AND FALSE NATIONALISM

When treating the relation of these two concepts, we must carefully distinguish two theses that are common among authors.

First, it is false to say that, as a matter of principle, each nation must have statehood as a single nation, neither residing with other nations in a single state, nor being divided among a number of different states. This is the false ideology of those adhering to the “principle of nationality,” including the National Socialists.

Second, while the principle of nationality is untrue, it is true that there is some sort of positive relationship between the nation and the state. As Grenier notes, “nationality is not the proximate efficient cause of civil society, but can be an excellent remote preparation for it.” The reasoning for this is simple. A set of shared institutions, customs, language, heredity, etc., dispose a group towards unity insofar as “every creature loves its like, and every person his neighbor; all living beings associate by species, and a man clings to one like himself.” (Sir. 13:15-16) Now, the purpose of the state is to provide unity towards the common good. Hence, this is an excellent preparation.

Thus, Grenier advocates for the continual existence of the distinctiveness of the nation or nations that are within a state for two reasons. First, it is of the good of the state, “experience and the very notion of the nation, which is unity in certain qualities, have shown that nationality is a good of citizens.” Second, the nation is anterior to the state and has certain independent rights that ought to be respected and fostered, “it is evident that nationality is a good which is anterior to the existence of civil society: it has its origin in a common stock, and hence properly belongs to men before they become members of civil society.”

Interestingly, these reflections are actually enshrined in the contemporary magisterium under the heading of the “rights of peoples.” As St. John Paul II stated, “a presupposition of a nation’s rights is certainly its right to exist: therefore no one — neither a State nor another nation, nor an international organization — is ever justified in asserting that an individual nation is not worthy of existence.” (Address, 5 October 1995)

THE FALSE RACIALISM OF THE NATIONAL SOCIALISTS

If the National Socialists were simply to teach this, it would be unobjectionable. Such a positive appreciation of the rights of peoples and a positive evaluation of national unity, far from being rejected, has been intensified by the Church in the past few decades (cf., the entire discussion from the address mentioned above). In fact, it is latent in the midst of Pius XI’s correction of the National Socialists in his statement that “race” and “people” are a “fundamental value of the human community” and “necessary and honorable...in worldly things.” (Mit Brennender Sorge 8) Also, that “no one would think of preventing young Germans establishing a true ethnical community in a noble love of freedom and loyalty to their country.” (Ibid., 34)

Yet, this is not simply what they teach. The foundation of their error is found in a radical racialism that is based on a materialistic determinism. For the national socialists, the entire life of man, ethical and social, emanates from the biological factors of race. Hence, the determination and value of peoples is essentially founded in their race and necessarily flows from it. For more about this, cf., Bishop Hudal’s treatment of the issue here.

Hence, by necessary consequence, we must conclude that the institutions of the state flow forth from this same impulse, along with the institutions of religion, which builds a two-fold error.

First, the error of the principle of nationality, holding it as necessarily unjust for a state to have multiple nations within her or for a nation to be separated into a number of different states. This lead to a number of grievous consequences.

a. This lead to the conclusion that the Jew could never become a part of the state in which he and his ancestors resided. If statehood flowed necessarily from nationality under the impulse of race, it necessarily follows that those who are not of the same race could not become a member of the state. Hence, the ethnic Jew had to be stripped away from civil society in acts of manifest injustice. It would not have been objectionable to strip those who committed crimes against the state of their citizenship as a punishment for their crimes, such as collaboration against the state, political agitation against the common good, etc., but the National Socialists went beyond this and violated the civil rights of Jews by stripping these rights regardless of whether such individuals were criminals or good citizens.

As Bishop Hudal notes, the vast majority of German Jews during the time were good citizens rather than criminal agitators,

It is true, however, that particularly in the postwar period, a significant portion of the Jewish intelligentsia, driven by an unfortunate desire for influence, joined revolutionary parties and assumed leading positions within their ranks, especially in Austria, Germany, and Hungary…and that currents of dangerous influence have been channeled from this religiously decayed Judaism into the entire political life of the German people. This occurred without and against the will of the majority of Jews, who are oriented in a conservative and state-preserving manner. This majority has deeply regretted the political and social aberrations of their co-religionists, if for no other reason, because they too have suffered under the hatred provoked by Jewish left-wing extremists. This majority, at least among the well-established and native Jewish population, has never harbored ambitions to exert undue influence in public life, desiring only to live peacefully with Christian fellow citizens and pursue honest work…It is historically false and morally never justifiable to use the misconduct of a portion of the Jewish population as grounds for discrimination against all Jews living among the German people. Many Jews have fully integrated into their host culture and made outstanding contributions. Only where Judaism has lost its religious foundation and become ideologically rootless has it truly acquired a destructive potential. (here)

b. This lead to the militant opposition to many other states in Europe. On the supposition that the nation must reside in a single state, it obviously follows that it is one of the duties of the state to eliminate the boundaries that divide the nation between states. Hence, any area in which Germans resided were to be annexed to the German state. While it would not have been objectionable for such a union to happen through the means of voluntary self-determination (as happened in the Anschluss, supposing that the Germans had nothing to do with the death of Dollfuss), the same cannot be said for militant and destabilizing action that violates the proper sovereignty of states.

Hence, St. John Paul II, reflecting on this relationship between nationhood and statehood, wrote that

This fundamental right to existence does not necessarily call for sovereignty as a state, since various forms of juridical aggregation between different nations are possible…There can be historical circumstances in which aggregations different from single state sovereignty can even prove advisable, but only on condition that this takes place in a climate of true freedom, guaranteed by the exercise of the self-determination of the peoples concerned. (ibid.)

Second, the religious error of completely re-defining the concepts of religion in new, racialized terms, such as the concepts of sin, grace, divine revelation, God, etc. These errors are detailed quite precisely by Pius XI in Mit Brennender Sorge.

Beyond these, this racial determination showed a manifest hostility to the gospel and eroded the very foundations of the gospel and Catholic teaching about race. Here we must thread the needle between a naive universalism and radical racialism. Against the former, it is clear enough that biological factors do play a factor in the moral life. Young and old generally suffer different vices and excel in different virtues. Men and women generally suffer differ vices and excel in different virtues. Why would it (necessarily) be erroneous to say that biological factors that flow from heredity has an effect on the moral life? In principle, there is nothing contrary to the Catholic faith to such a notion and it would be up to unbiased natural scientists to study the issue at hand to determine whether such in fact exists.

Yet, against the radical racialists, it must be firmly and unequivocally denied by Catholics that such biological factors somehow deterministically effect the life of the individual and nation. By grace, the male and female are equally able to overcome the unique vices they are disposed toward and perfect the unique virtues they are disposed toward, why wouldn’t the same be true of the peoples of the world? If the gospel was able to cleanse and perfect different nations in Europe by the acceptance of the gospel, why couldn’t it do the same for different nations in Africa?

Hence, Pius XI in Rerum Ecclesiae wrote,

Anyone who looks upon these natives as members of an inferior race or as men of low mentality makes a grievous mistake. Experience over a long period of time has proven that the inhabitants of those remote regions of the East and of the South frequently are not inferior to us at all, and are capable of holding their own with us, even in mental ability. If one discovers an extreme lack of the ability to understand among those who live in the very heart of certain barbarous countries, this is largely due to the conditions under which they exist, for since their daily needs are so limited, they are not often called upon to make use of their intellects.

Clearly, through both natural and supernatural means, such ill dispositions can be removed if such means are applied in a proper manner. These characteristics are not immutable.

NOTE: There was controversy on this portion of the article so I thought I would clarify. As mentioned above by Grenier, heredity effects the life of the soul insofar as the soul uses certain corporeal organs in order to exercise itself. Thus, while the soul is not passed down from parent to child, the body is passed down and such a body may excel or not in the strength and vitality in various organs. Analogously, a parent may pass down a body that is apt for running while another may pass down one which is not apt for running. In a similar way, the irascible or concupiscible appetites, the corporeal organs related to thought, and senses may be weaker or stronger in various individuals. Now, we know that such is not only the case for individuals, but could also be the same for families, nations, etc., insofar as there is certain material commonalities between people of these groups.

Here, it is important to make a few notes.

First, this is not biological determinism insofar as the higher faculties of the soul may be strengthened either naturally (through habituation) or supernaturally (through grace) in order not to be controlled by such dispositions in the moral life. To put it succinctly, women are able to follow the injunction of St. Paul to “act manfully” by grace without becoming men. Those with an aptitude toward concupiscence due to the manner in which their concupiscible faculty is disposed are not determined to necessarily suffer from sins of the flesh, etc.

Second, there is a certain degree of immutability that is in play here insofar as these characteristics as inherited are not completely removed by nature or (ordinarily) by grace. As an example, if there is someone with severe brain damage, that person is not going to be able to become a genius through merely natural powers, nor is it in the ordinary scope of grace to overcome this disposition that hinders the exercise of the intellect.

Third, there is also a certain degree of mutability insofar as external factors may effect the material dispositions of the body that weaken (or strengthen) these organs. There are factors such as health, education, moral behavior, demonic influence, etc., which may weaken or strengthen the corporeal organs involved in the life of the soul. An example given by St. Thomas is that a heightened degree of chastity or fasting makes one apt to contemplation insofar as one is not as attached to the pleasures of the flesh. Another example given by St. Thomas is that habituating oneself to not rely as heavily on phantasms in thought. Further, things like diet or sleep deprivation may hinder the corporeal organ of the brain in order not to be able to exercise its function as efficaciously, etc.

Now, the tension is, of course, between the second and third principle. It is easy to see that someone who inherits certain weak organs that the soul relies in its function can strengthen such organs, yet it is not entirely clear how far such can extend. There is obviously a limit. Someone with down syndrome is not going to become a rocket scientists through better diet and education. In the original example, someone with a body not apt to running may become better at running, but will never become a world class athlete. How these two factors relate to one another in various cases is up to the role of the natural scientist.

Yet, due to the reinterpretation of the concepts of grace, sin, revelation, God, etc., mentioned above, the National Socialists could not conceive of a religion that elevated and purified men. Rather, they reversed the relationship. They believed that religion emanated from the biological qualities already present within man. Catholics affirm that these material qualities present in man can be overcome, purified, and elevated by the coming of the gospel.

This relationship between the qualities inherited by heredity and the spiritual acts of the soul is quite precisely outlined by Fr. Grenier,

Heredity is defined: the transmission by generation of the organic dispositions which determine the individual nature of parents.

We can arrive at a more accurate notion of heredity from a consideration of human generation. Parents produce offspring similar to themselves in species, not by produc­ing the human soul, which is spiritual, but by disposing matter to receive it.

Therefore parents do not transmit personal acts, because actions are proper to supposits, which are not transmitted; nor do they transmit these things which directly appertain to personal acts, as, for example, knowledge; but, because they can dispose matter to receive the soul, they can propagate these things which pertain to natural dispositions.

Therefore they can directly propagate by heredity: a) national qualities, which are dispositions of nature, as health, physical weakness, figure, etc.; b) good or evil disposi­tions of the organs used by the sensitive faculties: good eyesight, soft skin, good or bad dispositions of the sensitive memory, imagination, estimate faculty, and irascible and concupiscible appetite.

Since man’s spiritual faculties are objectively dependent on the senses, heredity exercises an indirect influence on the habits of the spiritual faculties. Hence different nations have different dispositions for arts, sciences, etc.

Moreover, since the soul is proportionate to the matter into which it is received, — whatever is received is received according to the mode of its recipient, — heredity exer­cises an influence on the souls of the men who constitute a nation, in as much as their souls can possess a greater or lesser degree of perfection than the souls of the men of another nation.

But, since this diversity of souls results from the dispositions of matter, we must be careful to observe that this diversity is not essential, i.e., specific, — form is the principle of species, — not merely accidental, but substantial and individual — matter is the principle of individuation. In other words, men of different nations are not essen­tially distinct, for all have the same specific nature; but they have different accidental and substantial perfections or characteristics. Hence entirely untenable is the opinion of National Socialists, who teach that the races of men are so different in their perfec­tions or characteristics, which are both native and immutable, that the lowest race of men is farther removed from the highest than it is from the highest species of brute. For men are not specifically distinct from each other; and national characteristics are not immutable, for they are dependent on the dispositions of matter, which is always mutable.

THE REDUCTION OF NATIONALITY

A further error is the myth of racial purity, which becomes a main crux of attack against the principal of nationality mentioned above. Since, in their view, the different nations are specifically distinct (as Grenier mentions at the end of the quote above) and the entire life of the nation flows from the unicity of the race, then it must necessarily follow that we must hold to a notion of racial purity, i.e., that this or that people have an unmixed lineage and characteristics that unites their people group in a definitive manner (n.b., once the lineage became mixed, the national impulse was corrupted and lead to the detruction of the nation).

Yet, this is clearly untenable. While it is true that heredity is true and there is a greater or lesser degree of biological likeness among different groups (e.g., it is clear that there is greater affinity between Germans and Anglos than there are between Arabs and Anglos), it is completely mythical that such clearly demarcated lines exist as to determine specific differences between racially pure groups.

There is an analogous case in families. Clearly, I am “family” with my uncles, first cousins, grandparents, etc., but am I “family” with lesser degrees of consanguinity, such as my fifth cousins? Here, while it is obvious that consanguinity plays a factor in determining what my “family” is, it is equally clear that it is not sufficient. There are other factors. For some people, their second or third cousins are clearly their “family” in the shared identity, custom, and familiarity that they share. Yet, for others, they may not be even able to name their second or third cousins and share little to nothing as to those other factors.

Hence, a certain degree of shared heredity, while necessary to constitute a group as a “nation” or “people,” it is clearly not sufficient or anything like a clear specific difference. In addition to some degree of shared heredity, it is obvious that the other factors, e.g., customs, language, geographic extension, identity, institutions, etc., must also come to bear. This is one of the central misunderstanding of the National Socialists. They overexaggerate heredity as if it were the only factor constituting a nation, rather than one among many factors.

Hence, instead of listing both “ethnic and cultural consciousness” as the “concrete historical conditioning” of human nature, as St. John Paul II does, which also includes “language,” “culture,” “traditions,” and, as paricularly emphasized by Pope Francis, “land,” they completely limit the constituency of the nation to purely material considerations of heredity.

This lack of clear demarcation would clearly lead to continuous conflict and social instability if the principle of nationality were to be consistently applied. As noted by Grenier,

Nationality in the concrete is very indeterminate; hence, if nationality were ac­cepted as the constituent principle of civil society, continual wars and revolutions would be engendered as a result of the difficulties involved in the determination and extension of nationality.

Further, beyond not being a line of clear demarcation, the notion of nationality is clearly a mutable one and there are frequent cases where nations expand to absorb those of a certain hereditary proximity or new nations are formed out of a number of different hereditary groups with many shared characteristics. Thus, beyond a an assimilation into civil life, there is also an assimilation into the life of the nation through a number of different means. Such is noted by Hudal in the above cited article.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE STATE

This leads us full circle to the original quote from AH given above. Is it true that “in principle, the State is looked upon only as a means to an end and this end is the conservation of the racial characteristics of mankind?” As we have discussed above, such a sentiment relies on a false view of race’s relationship with the nation and the effect of race on the life of man. Yet, it goes beyond this, also destroying the very concept of the state in both the efficient and final cause of the state.

The proximate efficient cause of the state is man’s reason which freely joins together in order to designate a public authority for the common good. National Socialism denies that the cause of the state is an act of reason, but states that it is an act of racial instinct.

The principle of nationality...denies man’s reason and liberty, i.e., his rational nature, or at least it subordinates them to racial instincts: for it declares that the proximate efficient cause of civil society is the nation’s instincts, not reason. (Grenier)

Further, it destroys the final cause of the state. The final cause of the state is a certain good of reason, i.e., the common good. Yet, national socialism states that it is not that good of reason that is the final cause of the state, but only the preservation of the nation. As we noted above from Pius XI, the preservation of national characteristics is a good thing. Yet, its goodness comes from its proper subordination to higher goods, not as an end in itself. The preservation of national characteristics is good insofar as this seeks the goods of reason, not as an end to be pursued without this subordination. Else, it would turn us into beasts, seeking material goods as our highest goods, rather than as men, seeking material goods, yet in a subordinate manner. As Grenier notes, “the principle of nationality...declares that the...final cause [of civil society] is the nation’s wellbeing, not the good of reason, i.e., happiness.”