| Abstract: | Based on Max Weber's concept of Kulturnation and Hans Blumenberg's project of metaphorology, this essay argues that modern nations follow distinct cultural programmes that are inherent to their national ideas. Each national idea is propagated by a particular biopolitical metaphor, which performs a transfer from practical or scientific ideas about how nature structures and organises life to cultural ideas about how human lives should be socially and politically organised. The essay examines the emergence of the principal metaphors of grafting in England (Great Britain), of regeneration and elective affinities in France, and of organic self-generation in Prussia (Germany). The fact that each nation claims for its particular national idea the status of a universal principle constitutes the intrinsic paradox of nationalism. |
