7 - Barking Dogs and Beating Drums

Summary

Explanations for Germany’s aggressive and bellicose foreign policy during the Wilhelmine period often point to efforts by entrenched elites to distract from the country’s stunted democratic development by generating international threats to unify the country. These accounts fail to come to terms with the moral revolution occurring in Germany at the time – the rise of nationalism. The identification of the group as the nation, and the understanding that the nation’s welfare is the leader’s primary concern, required a revolution in the basis of authority, one which implied that the emperor owed loyalty to the people. The nationalist right began to question the indecisive policy of the Wilhelmine regime in a way that was previously ethically sanctioned, condemning the emperor in particular for a lack of will and resolve during the second Moroccan crisis. In a dangerous world, this amounted to moral castigation. I supplement this chapter with a survey experiment conducted on the American public. For those who hold dangerous world beliefs, four virtues generally thought to indicate “competence” – disciplined and hardworking, strong-willed and determined, tough and strong, and persistent and resolute – are actually used as moral benchmarks, particularly for leaders.