> a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures.
Hope I'm not referencing Godwin's law so soon in the discussion, but this quote makes me think about the deference most of the German intellectuals had for "Der Staat", starting with Hegel. There are countless examples, but a quick search brought me to this (which is actually a book written from an "individualist" POV, as far as I can tell):
> Oppenheimer's view of the state is profoundly opposed to the then dominant characterisation propounded by G. W. F. Hegel of the state as an admirable achievement of modern civilisation.[1] Proponents of this view tend to accept the social contract view that the State came about as every larger groups of people agreed to subordinate their private interests for the common good.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_State_%28book%29)
As an outsider, I always regarded the Anglo-Saxon system (meaning the United States and Britain) as an antidote to the views expressed by Continental Europe, seems things have changed.
> Hope I'm not referencing Godwin's law so soon in the discussion, but this quote makes me think about the deference most of the German intellectuals had for "Der Staat", starting with Hegel.
There is a lot more to take away from the history of Germany than "respect for the state allowed the Nazis to rise."
For hundreds of years, "Germany" was composed of bickering territories that were kept divided by the continual intervention of the major European powers. Unification and the rise of the German state brought tremendous prosperity and economic progress to Germans. Modern Germany still draws tremendous benefit from that unification.
The United States is a unique country in the sense that it was carefully designed from the ground up, in accordance with the latest scientific and philosophical theories of the time, in opposition to the political systems of the old world, and most importantly with a healthy dose of skepticism about all those romantic ideals of the state. See Thomas Paine's Common Sense [1] for a good example.
> The United States is a unique country in the sense that it was carefully designed from the ground up, in accordance with the latest scientific and philosophical theories of the time, in opposition to the political systems of the old world, and most importantly with a healthy dose of skepticism about all those romantic ideals of the state.
This is wrong on a number of levels; the US wasn't designed from the ground up -- at the ground level, and the whole way up to the level of the States, it was a pretty direct carry over from the pre-revolutionary structure under British colonial rule, with the "colonies" renamed "states". And, while it certainly was inspired by a particular strain of philosophy, this was neither scientific (empirical political/social science, wasn't even a thing) nor is it even remotely unique for revolutionary regimes to create regimes based on currently-popular trends in political philosophy in opposition to the contemporary dominant models, its also not uncommon for them to fall apart rather quickly, as the US revolutionary regime under the Articles of Confederation did, and be replaced by one that (while it may retain some of its revolutionary flavor) hews a lot closer to the previously dominant models (as the US system under the Constitution -- which borrowed heavily from the system in Britain and those in many of the colonies-that-became-states -- did.)
"As an outsider, I always regarded the Anglo-Saxon system (meaning the United States and Britain) as an antidote to the views expressed by Continental Europe, seems things have changed."
On one hand, I believe the British Empire was built on "a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures". That's just the way it's done, after all.
On the other, I suspect the United States is becoming a civilized country.
Hope I'm not referencing Godwin's law so soon in the discussion, but this quote makes me think about the deference most of the German intellectuals had for "Der Staat", starting with Hegel. There are countless examples, but a quick search brought me to this (which is actually a book written from an "individualist" POV, as far as I can tell):
> Oppenheimer's view of the state is profoundly opposed to the then dominant characterisation propounded by G. W. F. Hegel of the state as an admirable achievement of modern civilisation.[1] Proponents of this view tend to accept the social contract view that the State came about as every larger groups of people agreed to subordinate their private interests for the common good. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_State_%28book%29)
As an outsider, I always regarded the Anglo-Saxon system (meaning the United States and Britain) as an antidote to the views expressed by Continental Europe, seems things have changed.