It is often alleged that liberalism and nationalism are mutually antagonistic in theory and practice. Max Weber is a good example, the dominant interpretation maintains, as his political thought betrays its liberal foundation by embracing an ardent nationalism that was popular in Wilhelmine Germany. Weber was, in short, a nationalist, and thus illiberal, political thinker. Against this conventional wisdom I argue that Weber's liberal nationalism cannot be placed squarely in the authoritarian, ethnic tradition of German nationalism, and its idiosyncrasy becomes (...) evident once Weber's twofold political project of revivifying a robust civil society while imbuing it with the spirit of public citizenship is foregrounded more clearly. Thus recast, Weber's political thought reveals a strong affinity with that of Tocqueville and Mill, especially in their similar concern with moral personality and political maturity in a mass democracy. (shrink)

But with the member of a Nonconforming or self-made religious community, how different! The sectary's eigene grosse Erfindungen, as Goethe calls them,—the precious discoveries of himself and his friends for expressing the inexpressible and defining the undefinable in peculiar forms of their own,—cannot but, as he has voluntarily chosen them and is personally responsible for them, fill his whole mind. He is zealous to do battle for them and affirm them; for in affirming them, he affirms himself, and that is (...) what we all like. Matthew Arnold. (shrink)