of the 19th century, romantic nationalism was influenced by racist theories that were then gaining wide acceptance, and which led to the claim that European races were superior to the other races of the world, and therefore, had the right to rule them.
Romantic nationalism spread quickly, again, especially in Germany, during the first two decades of the 19th century. Writers such as Paul Lagarde and Julius Langbehn supported the idea of a kind of hierarchical world-order which Germans were to administer. They claimed this could be achieved due to the natural superiority of the “German spirit” and “German blood,” and that, to this end, Germans must turn their backs on monotheistic religions, such as Christianity, and return to their pagan past.
Indeed, romantic nationalism’s only contribution to humanity has been to have prepared the foundation for Nazism, one of history’s most brutal and bloody regimes.
Because romantic nationalists believed they were to find truth through “feeling and intuition,” and not through reason, they came to adopt a most confused view of the world, one which reflected their poor spiritual condition. The foundation of romantic nationalism was based on “feeling.” This fanciful ideology produced individuals who were cut off from reality, lost in the confusion of their own minds. Romanticism, by enslaving people to their feelings, leads them to lose touch with reality, and in this manner, can be compared to the psychological disease of schizophrenia. (Those who suffer from schizophrenia are completely cut off from reality and live in a world created by their own imaginations.)
The disease of schizophrenia provides a poignant analogy of the spiritual