Abstract

Individualism and nationalism are often held to be competing or even mutually exclusive concepts. Hannah Arendt, for instance, in The Origins of Totalitarianism, argues that a focus on the rights of the individual could have provided an antidote to the kind of racist nationalism established by the Nazis.¹ According to this logic, the more firmly individual rights are defended, the less dangerously nationalist the resulting society will be, because individuals' goals and desires will not be subordinated to those of a larger group. Studies of the work of Ernst Jünger have confirmed this assessment of the importance of the individual...