Psychology of Nationalism

A very famous surgeon, by the name of E. Albert, who lived in Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century, said to his students many a time: “One thing you have to remember always. That is that in two fields you never will find any laymen; these two fields are Medicine and Politics. Here everybody considers himself to be an expert.”

We are faily well accustomed to the fact that people in society do not mind at all to confess they are not familiar with the topic if the conversation happens to be about some technical problem. But if one talks about a medical subject people, even though they admit not to have the necessary knowledge, feel entitled to an opinion and moreover they argue about it. It would be unjust to think that these people are only arrogant and therefore they would talk about things they do not understand. Persons who are otherwise very modest may show such behavior. The fact that malaise and relief are personal experiences is apparently so impressive that one is easily inclined to have here some individual standpoint. The main problem of Medicine—disease and relief—naturally have for everybody such striking qualities that the expressing of an opinion is merely a proof that Medicine concerns one's own business.

Experience is a most valuable part of knowledge, but notwithstanding this fact experience and knowledge are not identical. The more an experience approaches vital importance the more we like to consider it as if it were knowledge. As far as Medicine is concerned we can understand that the readiness to utter an opinion is due to the fact that our welfare is the final topic. To achieve and maintain welfare is indeed our vital problem in the truest sense of this word.

We find the same generalized interest for Politics. The explanation for this maybe refers to the same origin. Politics deals also with our welfare, for Politics is essentially a centralized and coherent regulation of common concern in a community and the aim of this regulation is welfare