Kultur applies to a nation as a
whole, implying an enlightened Government to which the individual is
strictly subordinated. Thus Kultur is an attribute not of
individuals--whose particular interests, on the contrary, must often be
sacrificed to it--but of nations.
Culture, for which nearest German equivalent is Bildung, is the opposite
of all this. It is an attribute not of nations as a whole but of
accomplished individuals. It acquires national import only through the
approval and admiration of these individuals by the rest, who share but
slightly in the culture they applaud. The aim of culture is the
enlightened and humane individual, conversant with the best values of
the past and sensitive to the best values of the present. The
open-mindedness and imagination implied in culture are potentially
destructive to a highly organized national Kultur. A cultured leader is
generally too much alive to the point of view of his rival to be a
wholly convinced partisan. Hence he lacks the intensity, drive, and
narrowness that make for competitive success. He keeps his place in the
sun not by masterfully overriding others, but by a series of delicate
compromises which reconcile the apparently conflicting claims.
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