The Development of the Individual

Chapter from The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, by Jacob Burckhardt.

Consider (from the section The Development of the Individual):

In the character of these States, whether republics or despotisms, lies, not the only, but the chief reason for the early development of the Italian. To this it is due that he was the firstborn among the sons of modern Europe.

In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness—that which was turned within as that which was turned without—lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or  corporation—only through some general category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment and consideration of the State and of all the things of this world became possible. The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual individual, recognized himself as such. In the same way the Greek had once distinguished himself from the barbarian, and the Arab had felt himself an individual at a time when other Asiatics knew themselves only as members of a race. It will not be difficult to show that this result was due above all to the political circumstances of Italy.

In far earlier times we can here and there detect a development of free personality which in Northern Europe either did not occur at all, or could not display itself in the same manner. The band of audacious wrongdoers in the tenth century described to us by Liudprand, some of the contemporaries of Gregory VII (for example, Benzo of Alba), and a few of the opponents of the first Hohenstaufen, show us characters of this kind. But at the close of the thirteenth century Italy began to swarm with individuality; the ban laid upon human personality was dissolved; and a thousand figures meet us each in its own special shape and dress.

Putting aside that this thesis – that individualism in modern Europe originated in Italy and that the “development of free personality…in Northern Europe either did not occur at all, or could not display itself in the same manner” – goes completely against the endlessly refuted nonsense of the HBD Nordicists, let us consider the comment “It will not be difficult to show that this result was due above all to the political circumstances of Italy.”

The issue I have is this. When people want to point out negative aspects of the Italian character, then that negativity is typically ascribed to innate, heritable traits. The HBDers, the Nordicists, virtually the entire “movement,” does this – e.g., the wops are admixed mongrels with consequent unstable characters, they have suffered from dysgenics, they have high levels of “anxiety and neurosis” – the permutations are myriad.  Similarly, positive aspects of Nordics are ascribed to inborn traits. But, alas, when positive traits, a positive historical development – “the firstborn among the sons of modern Europe” – is associated with Italians, and if such was, at least at that time, lacking in Northern Europe, then of course it must be due to some external circumstances. In this case – “the political circumstances of Italy” (but can’t we say that those particular “political circumstances” are at least in part due to the innate character of the people?). Similarly, climate, geography, etc. have been invoked to explain positive developments of human progress among swarthoids.

Some will try to dismiss this by saying that it is just different people from different times saying different things, and that Burckhardt cannot be responsible for the later memes and paradigms promoted by Nutzis, Nordicists, and HBDers. Well, in one sense that is true.  But in a broader sense, if we look at the issue from the perspective of non-Italians critically examining Italians through time, then we see hypocrisy here, a hypocrisy designed to portray wops in the worst possible light, or, at the very least, to explain their failures by their innate nature and explain their successes by external circumstances.

Why not say that the flowering of the individual in Italy was due, at least in part, to positive innate characteristics of the Italian ethny?  Is that a form of blasphemy?

Just like, in general, phenotype = genes + environment, the historical narrative of a people = innate characteristics + external circumstances. It is hypocritical to choose one component and then another dependent upon what story you want to tell to push a particular dogma. The "movement" wants to ascribe human progress in Southern Europe to external circumstances, but then wants to assert that greater progress in Northcentral vs. Southern Italy as being a result of "movement" fantasies about "Nordic" Northern Italians vs. "Mongrel" Southern Italians. As we know, the "movement" is not noted for intellectual and moral consistency.