In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

INDIVIDUALITY VS. COLLECTIVITY 297
However far such cultivation of Individuality may go, the social roles
it produces are hopelessly heroic forms of resistance-nothing but relics
of a distant past. [see Present vs. Past] The future, in contrast, is invariably
associated with ideas and ideals of Collectivity. Collectivity thus
becomes a site of experimentation, because those who favor it over
Individuality are not sure which principles could-or should-serve as
the foundation for a new society. When Adolf Hitler postulates that "the
instinct of preserving the species is the first cause of the formation of
human communities; this makes the State a folk organism, and not an
economic organization" (Hitler, 165), "folk" and "State" are synonymous
and refer to a biologically constituted group. For Carl Schmitt, in
contrast, a clear distinction between State and people is an elementary
precondition for any legal situation. He thus reserves the sphere of
politics for the State alone (Schmitt, 4-5). Likewise, Ernst JUnger's war
memoirs evoke the State-and not the people or the nation-as a quasitranscendent
point of reference for the military actions he describes:
"The frightful thunder of battle is still increasing. It is as if it wanted to
exploit its ultimate, insane potential. Within our limited space, the State
that we represent erects a likeness of its unlimited violence before our
senses, filling our bodies with its right to power and expansion" (Junger,
107). Friedrich Panzer, a historian of language and rector of the University
of Heidelberg, rejects both the formal definition of "Collectivity" as
State and the association of Collectivity with a biologically grounded
concept of "people." After denying, in unusually strong terms, that the
notion of "race" has any intellectual legitimacy, he proposes that each
individual language be seen as embodying the unity of people, nation,
and culture: "This is the decisive fact. At all times-and especially in our
modern, highly intellectualized times-a nation derives its essential
ground from its language" (Panzer, 6). Only on the political Left does
the question regarding the unifying principle for social groups find a
unanimous response: solidarity will come from economic equality. This
is the program and the justification for the Soviet Union's dramatic social
changes, which intellectuals find so fascinating. During his visit to Moscow,
Ernst Toller is happy to see that people wear cheap clothes, that
everybody is earning small salaries (although Toller is astonished to see
that some disparities persist), and that teachers and students are supposed
to have the same rights in the classroom (Toller, 92, 113, 127,
185). Opinions diverge, however, when it comes to the rights which a