In his “Materials for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind,” von Herder writes about the importance of cultural nationalism and the value of local culture. A German scholar, he believes that the people of Germany are brought together by their shared language and customs, and that these attributes make the nation unique to other countries. He compares a nation-body to that of a family and believes that the two are inherently the same because they are both natural. Von Herder also believes that nature creates families and the most natural state is a group or body of people who share a national character and come together as one. He also deplores the concept of a the expansion of states that create a “a wild confusion of races and nations under one scepter.” He states, “An empire made up of a hundred peoples and 120 provinces which have been forced together is a monstrosity, not a state-body.” Von Herder emphasizes the importance of a shared cultural tradition. “Has a people anything dearer than the speech of its fathers? In its speech resides its whole thought-domain, its tradition, history, religion, and basis of life, all its heart and soul. To deprive a people of its speech is to deprive it of its one eternal good…” Von Herder believes in the idea of a community of people united together through their shared practices, values, common language, and history.

It is apparent the von Herder relies on language as a source of German community, but also as a key aspect of the nation’s culture, tradition, and history. He states, “The best culture of a people cannot be expressed through a foreign language; it thrives on the soil of a nation most beautifully, and, I may say, it thrives only by means of the nation’s inherited and inheritable dialect.” Here, von Herder is implying that the best culture of people cannot lack a traditional and historical common language, which would mean that the inclusion of any foreign or external language would be a threat to this cultural well-being. He has also explicitly states that the best culture thrives only by the means of ancestral dialect.

If we take the United States, for example, which has been infused with a plethora of languages and cultures and has even been dubbed as a cultural “melting-pot,” I would presume that von Herder would consider this a nation lacking what he would consider a “national character.” Do you agree?