Anglo-German relations have improved beyond measure in recent months, and that is most welcome. But-as someone who knows both countries well-let me warn you not to make the mistake of supposing that the two understand each other. Austen Chamberlain was aware of the problem: he wrote in his memoirs that his experience of the French and the Germans was quite different. With the French, you began by disagreeing but then gradually found you had a lot in common. With the Germans, when you first met you thought that you agreed on everything, but as the relationship developed you found it more and more difficult.
Why should this be? Are not Britain and Germany very similar? Both are north European countries; both speak a Germanic language; both share a common Christian culture and a common classical inheritance. The great movements of recent centuries-the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and even the Romantic movement-are part of a common history. The Hanseatic League, the royal family and a thousand other things belong to a common European past.
The great historical enmities in Europe have been between Britain and France and between France and Germany. Britain and Germany (with the exception of Bavaria) have been allies more often than enemies. Indeed, people in Britain and Germany instinctively feel that they are similar and that it is the French who are different. There is truth in this, but it is not the whole truth. At a particular, perhaps fundamental level, Britain and Germany are very different from each other. In some respects the two countries are even opposites-with France falling in between.
Perhaps a different geography is more important than a common history. As Elias Canetti wrote in Masse und Macht: "The Englishman likes to imagine himself at sea, the German in a forest. It is impossible to express the difference of their national feeling more concisely." As far as Britain is concerned, Canetti is right. The sea runs through British national mythology: the defeat of the Spanish Armada; the Battle of Trafalgar (the only national event commemorated in the English calendar); Dunkirk, a seaborne retreat; and the Battle of Britain, an air battle whose purpose was to defend the English Channel.
De Tocqueville associated the sea with liberalism. Here we must be careful. Britain has had its illiberal periods and is certainly not uniquely liberal among western countries. Nevertheless, there may be something in de Tocqueville's view. The countries with the strongest liberal tradition in Europe-Britain and the Netherlands-are the old seafaring countries. Economic liberalism goes naturally with the sea: trading interests dominate over manufacturing. In a sea power economy, vested interests are in open markets and free trade. The theory of free trade was first developed in Britain (by Adam Smith and David Ricardo). Free trade ideology dominated British politics in the 19th century.
In Germany, by contrast, advocates of the market have never achieved intellectual dominance. Even today, we are told that the social market is good and by implication that the free market is less good, if not actually bad. The single intellectually respectable argument for industrial protection is associated with the German name of Friedrich List. Ralf Dahrendorf talks of the social democratic consensus in Germany; in Britain, the difference between the parties today is between those who are moderately liberal and those who are ultra liberal.
While Britain thinks of itself as a trading country, Germany-with justification-thinks of itself as a manufacturing country. Among the OECD countries, Germany and Japan stand out as having an unusually high share of GNP in manufacturing, while Britain and the US stand out as having an unusually high share in the service sector. In Germany, the boardrooms are dominated by engineers and lawyers. In Britain, the heroes of the economy are financiers, traders and advertising men.
Seafaring has also promoted political liberalism in Britain. The defence of Britain has depended on its navy more than on its army. Kings rarely had at their disposal an army which could be used for internal suppression as well as for defence against foreign powers. In these circumstances it was easier for a liberal tradition to develop. Britain was neither ravaged by foreign armies nor dominated by domestic ones (except in the period of Cromwellian absolutism). A state whose main armed force is afloat, outside its borders, is a state always likely to be less absolute, less threatening and less centralised than one whose military forces parade regularly in the streets.
There is a further, subtler connection between liberalism and the sea. The sea is bigger than we are: a force of nature which we can never hope to control. You have to ride it, wait for the right wind, wait for the tide to turn, trust to luck and occasionally take a risk. An army and a navy are fundamentally different. Good generals do not make good admirals.
Napoleon, the greatest of all generals, dismissed and disgraced Admiral Bruix when he questioned an order to sail his fleet. His deputy obeyed the command, although the wind was wrong: 20 ships were wrecked on the coast and 2,000 men drowned. The absolute obedience which a general can command is not appropriate at sea. The sea, and the ships on it, do not obey orders in the way that armies do. Ship captains have to be able to make their own judgements and take their own risks.
The engineer differs from the trader much as the general differs from the sea captain. The trader knows that the market is beyond his control, that he must try to swim with the tide, take risks, be flexible. Planning may be useful, but only up to a point. In contrast, the engineer's ambition is to control, to organise, to plan and to eliminate risks. Can it be surprising that Germany, a country of engineers, prefers the security of managed markets? Especially when, in the postwar period, they have been managed with intelligence and success; perhaps more so than the so-called free market economies?
True, few people in Britain today have anything to do with the sea-there are far more engineers than sea captains. But values and cultural ideas have a way of perpetuating themselves. The acceptance of risk, for example, is part of everyday life in Britain. A survey of management attitudes in Britain and Germany showed that one of the big differences between British and German managers is that the Germans have low tolerance of uncertainty. This seems to be characteristic of German society as a whole. In the last general election one party ran with the slogan "Sicherheit statt Angst"(security not fear) and the other with the slogan "Sicher in der Zukunft" (secure into the future). Of course we would all rather be secure than insecure. But in Germany the need for security seems to run deeper. It is visible in the rock-solid way that German people build their houses; in the all-encompassing nature of the social security system (in Britain you can bet on anything; in Germany you can insure against anything). You see it in the enormous consumption of medicines and medical services (the highest in Europe); and in the panic which grips Germany when there is thought to be even an infinitesimally small risk in some food product.
german longing for security has its intellectual counterpart in the search for certainty. This search for absolutes and for absolute certainty is what (to most foreigners at least) seems most characteristic of the German intellectual tradition.
The great thinkers of the 19th century were, for the most part, Germanic; their ideas have dominated the 20th century: Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud have been the master spirits of our age. Even within the British philosophical tradition, two outstanding figures, Popper and Wittgenstein, came from Vienna.
Maybe this search for certainty explains the power and glory of German thought. The greatest German thinkers, from Luther onwards, have shown a thoroughness, a persistence and an intellectual ruthlessness unmatched elsewhere. Sometimes the drive for certainty has led to the overthrow of common sense. But even then it has produced works of great power, insight and beauty, such as Hegel's and Nietzsche's.
The desire to build systems is also characteristic of the German intellectual tradition. Rousseau did not think of his ideas as a system; neither did Locke. But the drive to construct systems runs through German philosophy from Leibniz to Marx. Whether we should attribute this to the search for certainty, the tradition of intellectual rigour, or the mental structure of the engineer is a matter of taste. But, put together, the search for systems and certainty can lead to ideology-a unified theory which answers all questions, solves all problems, resolves all doubts. Germany's finest product over the last two centuries has been ideas-but ideas have likewise been Germany's most dangerous product: communism, fascism and Freudianism are systems of ideas which promise certainty. All have the appearance of reason but in the end require justification by faith.
On a more mundane level, the search for certainty reveals itself among German scientists in the attempt to find comprehensive and eternal solutions. Anglo-Saxon colleagues-in a sense, more slap-dash -are ready to by-pass bits of a problem which seem too difficult; they look instead for partial solutions. In the Anglo-Saxon tradition, science is perceived as an iterative, evolutionary process: solutions are seen as preliminary and probably temporary.
This also applies to politics. There is something very German in the wish to achieve not simply peace (which is good enough for the rest of us) but a perpetual peace. Europe, we are told, must be made irreversible. Both "irreversible" and "must" are part of a peculiarly German tradition. The demand for certainty and the insecurity behind it belong to this same tradition. For the British, the words "peace order" have a sinister ring. For Germans, it is only order which makes peace possible. Given Germany's history both as victim and aggressor, such insecurity is entirely natural. Equally, Britain has had centuries of relatively undisturbed independence and constitutional continuity, so a certain confidence comes as no surprise.
Idealism and pessimism are part of Germany's image. By contrast, the British tradition is associated with pragmatism and optimism. Pragmatism is a much abused term. Often it means a complete absence of thought, theory or conscious plan. Thomas Mann probably had Britain in mind when he wrote: "Zur Weltherrschaft geh?rt vor allem Naivit?t, eine gl?ckliche Beschr?nktheit und sogar Vorsatzlosigkeit." (Ruling the world requires a certain na?vety, a fortunate stupidity and even a degree of absentmindedness.)
On a more serious intellectual level, the British tradition is that of the empiricist school of philosophy. In its most radical form-the philosophy of David Hume-the empiricists altogether deny the possibility of certainty. They argue that nothing in the future has a necessary connection to the past; nothing in the present has a necessary connection to anything else. Faced with this intellectual void, all we can do is to live with uncertainty, make the best guesses possible, based on the best available evidence, and see what happens.
This approach lacks the intellectual drive and ambition of the German approach, providing a refuge for sloppy as well as profound thinkers. But it also constitutes an admirable basis for liberalism. If there are no certainties, then the intellectual basis for authority is weak. And if there are no certainties, the intellectual basis for authoritarianism (and for every other kind of "ism") is non-existent. In the absence of certainty, tolerance is required. Rulers cannot claim to be wiser than the people whom they rule. Political scientists and philosophers have no monopoly on the truth; they must begin by admitting that they may be wrong. If nothing is connected to anything else then it is wrong to view a man's work in the light of his race or his politics. The essence of liberalism is the belief that all things are necessarily disconnected.
Did I say that the greatest thinkers of the 19th century were all Germans? There is one exception: Charles Darwin. Among German philosophers the idea of purpose is frequent and powerful; many of the German philosophical systems were teleological. By contrast, the most powerful idea to emerge from Britain in the 19th century was Darwin's thesis that the world was constructed by accident, without plan, will or intention. (In a sense, Darwin is the 19th century successor to Hume.) Although Darwin sought to explain the connections between things, and the reasons why certain creatures exist, he did so in a way which gave randomness a central role. Darwin could be described as a biological Burke: growth is not planned or engineered for any purpose; it happens organically. This, too, offers a philosophical basis for liberalism.
Liberalism is an optimistic philosophy. Free trade theory concludes that maximum prosperity will be achieved with less rather than more intervention. Prosperity occurs automatically. Liberal political ideas have always argued that openness, trade and prosperity would bring peace. Liberalism preaches a minimum state because it believes in the people more than in the state. The pessimistic view, associated with Germany (and Thomas Hobbes), is that without the state, society would descend into chaos. But Germany also takes a pessimistic view of the state and encumbers it with domestic handicaps and external obligations. You can neither trust the people nor the state.
in germany, the state is the essential framework for society. Society is possible only because of the rules imposed by the state. In Britain it is the other way round. Society is the framework for the state. The state functions through conventions, understandings, gentlemen's agreements; social habits are the basis of law and not vice versa. On the escalators in the London underground, people stand on the right, leaving the left side free for those who want to walk up. No law tells them to do so; only habit and courtesy. But if law seems contrary to common sense they may decide to ignore it-as they did over Sunday shopping.
Take another example. A reform of German spelling and grammar has been proposed. Its proposers were German government ministers. The question of whether they had the right to do so or whether a parliamentary vote is required is being disputed in the courts. In Germany, the state sets the framework for that most important social activity: reading and writing. In Britain, and in the US, language belongs to society. Standards are set by usage and codified by the writers of dictionaries. The state accepts what society proposes.
If you can trust neither the people nor the state, then what can you trust? The German answer must be found in some outside authority: God, the Bundesbank, history, principles, law. Corresponding to the physical security of an engineer's design and the intellectual security of a philosophical system is the political security of Germany's Rechtsstaat: every possible contingency seems covered by some law. Law, courts and constitution regulate everything. In Britain, much depends not on law, but on custom and tradition. Law itself is the by-product of custom built up by habit. Precedent is more important than purpose. The German state was designed-and rather well designed. The British state grew-although it is none the worse for that. Each country is very different both in the way the state works and what people think about it.
These differences are perhaps more acute on an intellectual level than in reality. An important change in the last 50 years is that Germany has become a liberal country in both its politics and its economics. And Britain, though liberal, accepts that markets require regulation. But the contrasts still exist as tendencies-between the so-called Rhineland and Anglo-Saxon models of capitalism. The defeat of communism has made these differences more salient.
Between Britain and Germany-intellectually and geographically-lies France. France has traditions of both land and sea power. It shares some of the German pessimism but also some of the British nonchalance. France is more interested in theories than Britain, but lacks the intellectual rigour and thoroughness of the German school. And yet France is sufficiently different from both Britain and Germany that people in Britain mistakenly believe that their intellectual opposite is France and people in Germany mistakenly believe that the biggest differences are between Germany and France. Each is unable to see beyond the immediate neighbour to recognise that the real intellectual poles are Britain and Germany. In fact the poles are so far apart that the two countries hardly understand each other well enough to grasp how different they are. It is only when a joint project requires a single philosophy of government to organise it-such as the European Union-that the differences surface.
Does this matter? Such opposite intellectual and political traditions must be welcomed. Creativity flourishes in the encounter between different business cultures. John Kao, the Chinese American business thinker, argues that creativity increases with the diversity of those connected to a single framework.
Diversity should be an asset for Europe. But the attempt to create a political framework for the different countries of Europe touches precisely the point where there is greatest divergence between Britain and Germany. Is there any wonder that the two countries disagree so frequently over questions relating to the constitution of Europe?
If their attitudes are so different, can Britain and Germany reach a satisfactory solution? This will not be easy, because the two traditions define both method and solution differently. Germans would start work on a European framework by getting out their history books, their legal principles and their drawing boards. The British method is to have no method. The British would avoid any kind of design and deal with problems as they arose. As for solutions, the German tradition demands a tightly organised, locally constructed, legally watertight European framework; otherwise it would not solve the problem of a disorganised Europe of nation states. For the British, however, such qualities seem oppressive; likely to prevent growth and development. The British tradition is that freedom is best preserved through pluralism. The looser the framework the better. It is not easy to find a common solution unless you can agree on a common definition of the problem.
Can a way be found to bring together the intellectual heirs of Kant and Hume, the pessimist and the optimist, the manufacturer and the trader, the land power and the sea power? Of course rationalists and empiricists think differently; liberals and people from the tradition of Ordnungspolitik, those who think that freedom means doing what you like and those who believe it means following the laws of reason, the people of the surface and the people of the depths, readers of Jane Austen and those of Thomas Mann. Traditions are so different that we must accept that Britain and Germany will disagree.
Most of the time these disagreements do not matter. They come into prominence only when constitutional or philosophical questions about Europe are at stake (as in the recent intergovernmental conference). When it comes to policy-trade, justice, defence, unemployment-Britain and Germany agree with each other more often than not. Indeed, they agree more than either agrees with France.
So should we worry about these underlying philosophical disagreements? No. We should cherish them. Diversity among opinions is as desirable as diversity among species. These different intellectual and political traditions are like different landscapes, formed over the years by the action of wind, weather and man. The question is not that one is right and the other wrong. Each has its individual beauty. We should admire and appreciate both.
