Individuals and Peoples Are Not Each Other’s Enemies: Gunnar Landtman’s Sociological Foundations for Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

My chapter is concerned with Gunnar Landtman’s (1878–1940) ideas on the United States of Europe. After the economic problems at the turn of the 1920s, the ideas of international or even European unity were put in question and the states were turning to themselves. During those years, Landtman published his first essay on Europe in 1923. In the course of the years that followed, he reacted on new situations and developed his own ideas. All in all, he published many essays relating to the topic. He was interested in human nature, international relations, peace, and democracy. In my chapter, I analyze Landtman’s visions on Europe and motives for writing that at particular time. I ask how Landtman’s background as a biologically orientated, Darwinist, and Westermarckian social scientist can be seen in his ideas on the United States of Europe.

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1 Introduction

Much has been written about the theories of the integration of European nations and the history of the ideas behind this currently more or less ongoing process, which has relatively directly led to the formation of the EU.¹ However, the discussion is often drawn toward economic and political reasons surrounding integration, and this tends to narrow our views on the history of theories of cosmopolitanism, which contains more diverse dimensions. This chapter draws attention to one of those dimensions and examines Finnish sociologist and anthropologist Gunnar Landtman’s (1878–1940) ideas on cosmopolitanism and a United States of Europe based on his evolutionary sociology. It focuses on Landtman’s reasoning regarding the potential of rational cosmopolitan cooperation. It explains how Landtman put biologically orientated evolutionary sociology and ideas on human nature into action and how as an academic public intellectual he put forward these views in Finnish public debate, offering solid foundations for cosmopolitanism.

Between 1923 and 1939, Landtman wrote numerous articles, essays, and appeals in which he deployed his ideas. His works on cosmopolitanism can be divided into three main areas. First are his responses to events such as the rising nationalism and different pacts between states. Second are his formulations of solid rational cosmopolitanism, the United States of Europe being one example. Third are his papers written to lend scientific weight and importance to his responses to those events and formulations of the possibilities of uniting peoples and individuals. Reading his journalism and science together gives a rewarding picture of a forgotten² mid-war internationalist who is neither fashionably Marxian nor Freudian but an intellectual who builds on social and natural sciences. I begin by focusing on the basic assumptions and epistemology of his sociology. Then, I briefly introduce him as an academic public intellectual.

2 Access to Human Essentials: Landtman and the Epistemology of His Sociology

Landtman wrote his sociological studies during the first decades of the twentieth century. He was a student and a friend of sociologist and anthropologist Edward Westermarck (1863–1939) who was a professor in both Helsinki and London and a major figure in British intellectual life (Sanderson 2007: 94–99). This relationship shapes Landtman’s sociology and depicts his place in the field of social sciences. He has been placed in the early British social sciences as a follower of Westermarck (Allardt 1997: 101–104).³ His research interests revolved around social inequality and social classes. He published in total four monographs on that topic, of which three were published in English and one in his native Swedish.⁴ Landtman was the first professor of sociology at the University of Helsinki starting at 1927. During his tenure, sociology became one of the most popular subjects at the Faculty of Philosophy in which it was located (Ahmajärvi 2012: 140–145).

Since 1850, the social sciences were dominated by evolutionary theories of human social life. Well-known figures like Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), E.B. Tylor (1832–1917), William Graham Sumner (1840–1910), and Westermarck wrote studies in which elaborate evolutionary schemes were supported by extensive compilations of data (Allardt 1997: 94–100; Sanderson 2007: 10). Göran Therborn has explained well the basic assumptions of early sociology. To him, sociology’s social cosmology was evolution, its social direction was progress, and its mode of cognition was science, biology being the most influential model (Therborn 2000: 39–40, 44). Many early classical evolutionists wrote about the basic characteristics of social evolution and formulated “laws” to explain it. In many cases, social evolution was described as a development of different hierarchical stages of evolution, usually from a more primitive stage progressing toward civilization (Sanderson 2007: 10; Stocking 2001: 109–110).

The fundamental assumptions of classical sociology were given different meanings and were expressed with different accents. They shared basic assumptions, but otherwise were often radically different (Therborn 2000: 38–39). One cannot really find, in Landtman’s sociology, a systematic attempt to explain why societies have passed from one stage of evolution to another. Landtman was influenced by the classical evolutionary ideas and concepts, but already his teacher Westermarck had developed doubts about the methods of earlier evolutionists and was more interested in a Darwinian approach to human nature and its reflection in social arrangements (Sanderson 2007: 94; Kuper 2005: 103; Ihanus 1990: 34–35; Therborn 2000: 38–39; Stocking 1996: 152–153). Westermarck and his Finnish students like Landtman used social evolutionary concepts, but focused on the origin and development of one particular social phenomenon, not the development of culture as a whole starting from primitive societies and progressing toward civilized culture.⁵ Landtman had not followed the evolution of social classes higher than it was theoretically significant or necessary, until the semi-civilized stage until he saw that the phenomena under study had fully developed. In his view, this enabled him to lay down the realities of his subject and to throw light upon the course and conditions of evolution (Landtman 1938: 3).

In his sociology, Landtman was not particularly interested in the societies of his own time. For him modern societies presented comparatively little theoretical interest. Seeking the theoretical significance of primitive societies (e.g. Landtman 1932b) was not a form of exoticism, although there may have been an element of sociological botany of herbarium. Evolutionary sociology which looked for the origins of social phenomena from the so-called primitive societies had, as Göran Therborn has put it, privileged entry to essentials of humanity (Therborn 2000: 39). This is what Landtman was also looking for in order to understand, for example, how society comes into existence or social classes have developed.

Many early sociologists, like Landtman, were almost obsessed with finding the “origin” of a social phenomenon. The origin was thought to lay among the uncivilized peoples of the world. Landtman thought that he was able to move backwards in the course of evolution and direct our attention to the earliest known organizations of society (Landtman 1938: 3). In Landtman’s view, the contemporary primitive peoples of the time were like “open-air” museums for sociologists to make observations about early societies. Landtman also used his opportunity to work among one such society, which provided access to human essentials. He carried out anthropological field studies in the Kiwai Island of New Papua Guinea (1910–1912). For him the Kiwai people represented a theoretically significant early society. Many of his conclusions about the early societies and human behavior were based on his empirical observations made during the expedition (Landtman 1918: 4; Allardt 1997: 103; Lawrence 2010).

Following the general practice of the social science of his time, which can prove, inter alia, to be important material for critical, contemporary readings of the European scientific gaze and developmentalist notions of the early twentieth century, Landtman made extensive use of comparative method and compared the customs of early stages of social evolution in order to understand the evolution of a social phenomenon. His sociology was based on an idea of relative uniformity of humans around the world, i.e., human nature (Landtman 1920: 5–8). The Darwinian understanding of human nature played a crucial role for the Westermarckians. Anyway, despite the numerous similarities with Westermarck, Landtman does not make references to Darwin. Notwithstanding, one can see that Darwin-based biological conclusions that Westermarck further developed also underpin Landtman’s sociology. To Landtman, what Darwin and Westermarck were alluding was that there is human nature, the biological substrate that determines our basic needs; and society is a manifestation of human nature that greatly influences our day to day wants and preferences including moral inclinations. Westermarck had concluded at the time that social customs should be studied in their connection with biological conditions (Stocking 1996: 152).

However, Westermarckians should not be confused with the so-called social Darwinists. One could describe the popular notion of a Darwinist social scientist as a proponent of a simple social philosophy: the idea of individuals or societies in a war against one another (West 2005: 254–255, 261). Instead, the Westermarckians were interested in social arrangements as manifestations of human nature (Sanderson 2007: 94; Westermarck 2014/1889: 158). Their sociology was close to what we would now call evolutionary psychology. As I will explain later, Landtman considered ideas that we can today call “social Darwinist” old-fashioned misunderstandings and labeled them “cultural zoology.” For him the importance of Darwin’s theory was not in the survival of the fittest but in its power to explain human sociality.

Landtman’s sociological work aimed to explain the origin of society. As already explained, the basic assumption of Landtman’s sociology was that the “origin” was the location of theoretical significance. His epistemological premises included the idea of human nature, the human ability to feel sympathy, and the potential of expanding sympathy to a wider circle than that of the “near and dear.” To Landtman, the earliest forms of social bonds between individuals were families. This connection between two individuals is based on reproduction and parenting. What binds individuals together is the feeling of sympathy. In his words, people in an early society are kept together by social instinct and mutual interest, not by any kind of coercion (Landtman 1938: 320).

The notion that individuals need help and protection by their kin and depend on cooperation is theoretically significant for Landtman’s cosmopolitanism. He explained the origin of society and communal life as a process where even the most stubborn individual understood the benefits of cooperation and social life and that, from then on, there are no limits to the extension of sympathy and common interests beyond the borders of one’s own family, society, or even a state. According to him, humans have a natural tendency toward cosmopolitanism and the potential of broadening and extending the circle of sympathy. Cooperation which brings individuals together and leads to interaction was, for Landtman, as we will see later, a main factor of social evolution (Landtman 1920: 37–51, 1930: 21, 1938: 231). According to Darwin, grasping the benefits of wider cooperation required developed reason (Darwin 2004/1879: 147); as I argue later, the development of reason was one of Landtman’s motives for writing about international cooperation which would lead to cosmopolitanism.

According to Therborn, evolutionism lost its appeal in the trenches of World War I. The new focus of social sciences was the structure of the social rather than its evolution (Therborn 2000: 40). However, Landtman held on to his basic assumptions. During the 1930s, some other scholars also began to turn to evolutionism seriously again (Sanderson 2007: 2, 105–131). Landtman’s evolutionism was not out of fashion and particularly not in Finland, where he and other Westermarckians still held high academic positions (Ahmajärvi 2012; Lagerspetz and Suolinna 2014: 67–95).

3 Utilizing Sociological Knowledge: Landtman as an Academic Public Intellectual

Outside the university, Landtman was a quite well-known academic public intellectual using the tools of a civil society in mid-war Finland.⁶ He forged his intellectual career in opposition to Finnish nationalism and conservative forces. One obituary clearly reveals his reputation and gives us a picture of his role in the debates. Even though Landtman had difficulties, especially during the 1930s, as society became more authoritarian, he had the courage to keep up humanism, to oppose dictatorships and violence, and to defend democracy and civil rights. His contemporaries also admired his enthusiasm and ambitious trust in science (Rauhaa kohti 10–11/1940).

As Eliason and Kallberg point out (2008: 1), an academic public intellectual is a person who communicates his specialized knowledge in an understandable and relevant way for the public outside his specialty. This does not only mean popularizing their research. The main purpose is to employ the specific knowledge, in Landtman’s case his understanding of human nature and factors of social evolution, for a better future. For intellectuals, involvement is vital. For a scholar like Landtman, the facts were crucial, and as a public writer, he had to know how to use the facts. As Kolakowski puts it, intellectuals derive the rules how the facts of the existing world must be interpreted. They produce the meaning of facts (Kolakowski 1990: 36). As a modernist sociologist, Landtman had his facts, and as an academic public intellectual, he used these facts as tools in creating a worldview, in this case cosmopolitanism.

For many classical evolutionists, progress was not necessarily an inevitable process of steady improvement. There was space for involvement. One of the major tasks of sociology was to align itself with progress and contribute to it (Therborn 2000: 39; Sanderson 2007: 30). Especially in Landtman’s evolutionism, there was no uncompromising illusion of historical determinism. Auguste Comte (1798–1857) saying savoir pour prévoir, prévoir pour pouvoir (Weiler 2008: 66) captures also much of Landtman’s outlook. Sociologists, in many cases, understood their role as active individuals who possessed a kind of positivistic understanding and who had to take action for the future. In 1902, Victor Branford (1863–1930), an influential figure in British sociology and one of the organizers of the Sociological Society in Britain (Renwick 2014: 80–82), writing about purposes of sociology, divided sociology into two aspects: first the speculative, the purpose of which was to understand and interpret the process of social evolution, and, second, the practical aspect whose purpose is the utilization of knowledge, gathered and unified from its manifold sources, for directing, as far as possible, and in part controlling, of this evolutionary progress (Branford 1903: 154).

Landtman also saw that, as there was no ars gratia artis, social science could claim its justification from its potential for serving humanity (Landtman 1935: 261). He strictly followed this “pure” form of science, but, in mid-war Europe, he also wanted to start directing and maybe even controlling the evolutionary progress using his scientific knowledge. His motives and understanding of human nature and social evolution come close to J.B.S. Haldane’s (1892–1964) who meanwhile asked the social question as a biologist. According to Haldane, “To biologists, the social problem is not ‘How can we get these men and women fit into a society?’” but “how can we make a society into which these men and women will fit” (Haldane 1933: 262). Landtman’s substantial question was formulated well by William Beveridge (1879–1963), another of Landtman’s contemporaries: under what conditions it is possible for men as a whole to live (Judt 2011b: 176).

4 Statesmen Are Under the Influence of Cultural Zoology: Responding to Current Affairs

Landtman raised cosmopolitanism first at a presentation during the annual meeting of the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland⁷ in early 1923. Most likely, there he felt that he had a responsive audience which was not keen about the growing Finnish nationalism in the country (Kirby 1989: 117–118). Landtman had evidently chosen a safe place for testing his ideas. One should not forget that the era was not particularly helpful to internationalist ideas; for example, in 1922, Walther Rathenau (1867–1922), a German cabinet minister and proponent of the unification of European states, had been murdered by German nationalists (Judt 2011a: 8).⁸

In Landtman’s presentation, we trace many elements and forms of argumentation that he developed further later. He argued that individuals or peoples were not each other’s enemies. He also, shortly, mentioned the sociological facts that he later used more emphatically. Sympathy was a human feeling produced in the interaction between individuals. He also mentioned another important conclusion: morality may be influenced by suggestion, meaning that the moral sense of individuals could be molded. Thus, the concept of morality denoted shared values born in that precise society. But, as Landtman implied, nationalism was not a solid basis for shared values. He understood this suggestion as a requirement, hand in hand with science, to prevent facile and pernicious ideas from taking the lead in building a popular worldview.

At the time, he saw the rivalry between states as the true enemy to social progress. It was not individuals or peoples of recently established states who were organizing wars. They were not each other’s enemies but, in Landtman’s view, the states themselves were. In his opinion, if people had a chance to decide, the future would belong to a form of natural, rational, and wholesome cosmopolitanism. Landtman saw strong nation states as opponents of international interaction, welfare, and interaction between peoples (Landtman 1923a: 150–151).

Landtman realized that the states had, even after the World War, not stopped competing against each other. There were no convincing signs of any growing rational cosmopolitan cooperation. To Landtman, there was then a winners’ and losers’ arrangement. Landtman could not see this as a fruitful basis for the future and felt that international cooperation was needed. He did not assume that his sociological facts meant that human nature was peaceful. He was offering frames and terms of reference for social life, which would lead to peaceful social evolution. Cosmopolitanism and international cooperation and integration were, for him, better solutions than nationalism (Landtman 1923a: 148–155). It is important to understand that, then, industrialization and other developments were in many cases bound up with nation building and competition. For example, in Hungary, state ownership was used in order to compete in economic rivalries, especially with Germany (Judt 2011a: 63). This kind of world order meant competition, which Landtman considered a disabling basis for the future.

Later, in 1923, Landtman published an essay titled “Immanuel Kant and the Question of Peace.”⁹ The timing of the publication suggests that he, as a public intellectual, was reacting on the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr. As I have shown, Landtman had already been presenting his cosmopolitan ideas to a limited audience, but this time he wanted publicity. He wrote this essay in Finnish which was not his native language, but it was the language of the majority in Finland.¹⁰ It seems obvious that he wanted more readers and rise the level effectiveness of his words. Choosing Finnish indicates the weight he gave to this topic. He had been an active proponent of the Swedish language in Finland, and his decision to use Finnish must have been difficult but important to him.

Landtman introduced Kant as one who believed in rationality, justice, and humanity, and he saw Kant’s study Zum Ewigen Frieden (1795) as a philosopher’s testament to human kind. For Landtman, Kant provided sound arguments to react strongly to the Ruhr occupation. Kant had written, according Landtman, that one should not make peace treaties which could provide excuses for further war. This was clearly pointed out against the Treaty of Versailles, which was made in many ways to punish Germany. More important was that Kant had also said that people will say no to war so long as it is possible to do so (Landtman 1923b: 239–241). In a way, Kant had already introduced Landtman’s favorite phrase individuals and peoples are not each other’s enemies.

Nevertheless, he added sociological facts to the Kantian argument. Landtman wrote that, generally though unfortunately, in the sociology of the times, the old idea of human nature and the processes of social evolution were still popular. In his view, such ideas declared nations in a state of eternal war against each other likening them to animal species in the natural world. Within that framework, the fittest will survive, and a nation defeating another is the fittest and deserves to rule the less fit. Each nation assumes itself to be the fittest and the only existing solidarity appeared on a national level. For Landtman, this general framework was false, not based on facts. Landtman called this false idea, which was still a reality in international relations at the time, “cultural zoology” (Landtman 1923b: 242).

Cultural zoology had not, according to Landtman, been able to solve problems in 1914 and neither could it do so now. In his view any potential cooperative effort made to bring states closer together was useless because those believing in cultural zoology were not able to admit the facts. These being the existing dimensions of international reliance and peaceful interaction, individuals, peoples, nations, and states, existed in interaction, and this was a fact, but those under the influence of cultural zoology refused to admit it (Landtman 1923b: 243–243).

According to Landtman, there were visible proofs of dimensions of international reliance and peaceful interaction. The products moved daily around the globe, and such phenomena as the stock exchange, capital, diplomacy, labor movement, science, and art were all international. The world had evolved to a new stage. His conclusion was that the goal must be a new world order, which included all civilized nations and made the rational division of labor between different peoples and cooperation possible. After all, they were already possible in one state. What happened inside the borders of states could and should also happen internationally. The world was already international, and states were in trouble because they did not cooperate. He reminded his audience that most of the social problems in any state were actually caused by international factors. The biggest problem was the competition between the states. For example, the states were seeking a better competitiveness. In this race, states made structural changes but only inside their borders, often causing more social problems. The main reason for the competition between states was their enthusiasm to attract investors. This had, for example, created serious tax competition between the states in Europe. The capital was able to invite the states to bid. These problems could be solved by rational cooperation (Landtman 1923b: 243). He was already in 1923 worried of the diminishing power of democratic institutions which operated at the national level; some years after that paper, Landtman proposed world parliament as a solution.

According to Landtman’s cosmopolitanism, it is dangerous to think another state as an enemy, since social evolution was based on understanding common interests and utility. Cooperation was the force of social evolution toward progress. Nationalism had in the war taken on such disastrous forms that there was now an urgent need for organizing international relations. Cosmopolitanism was needed to prevent another war and to ensure peaceful social evolution, which had already experienced a huge standstill, the war. War was only in the interests of the financial world, but definitely not in the interest of the people. In Landtman’s view, nationalism should be directed toward international cooperation (Landtman 1923b: 243–244).

Later, in 1929, Landtman published another response, a trenchant essay titled “Do Not Believe the Statesmen.” By this time, Landtman had become a professor of sociology at the University of Helsinki, and his views and concepts of sociology were prominent in that essay. Landtman had obviously become what Stefan Collini has called “an individual of cultural authority” (Collini 2006: 54).

Landtman was repeating his main arguments but only in stronger terms. Sociology teaches that society and social evolution are based on human sociality, sympathy, and common interests. Just as in early societies, also in modern societies, individuals rely on one another, require interaction, and should cooperate. Landtman, as a writer who believed in cooperation in international relations, was very dissatisfied with the then state of affairs. He deemed confounding that politicians and statesmen were the only social domain that had not understood this basic principle proven in his view by sociology (Landtman 1929: 37–38).

The winners of the Great War leading the continent were still working under the influence of old diplomacy, which Landtman previously had called cultural zoology. States like France, England, and Italy were merely hiding behind a curtain of peaceful pacts¹¹ and common interests, but this was only the surface. Reality still reflected the war of one nation state against another. Behind each other’s backs, states were still arming themselves. Secret negotiations were common practice, and this took responsibility away from the politicians in democratic countries: hence it was against the will of people. This was, according to Landtman, also the convention in The League of Nations. In his view, the statesmen had forgotten what has always been the main factor of social evolution – cooperation and understanding of common interest. To prove his diagnosis, Landtman was suggesting a European wide referendum. He believed that individuals and peoples did not want war against each other; only statesmen did (Landtman 1929: 38–39). He felt the sphere of common interest and utility was now international and individuals were ready for cosmopolitanism.

5 Current Situation Observed, Conclusions Made: United States of Europe

In addition to his responses and sociological articles, Landtman also wrote two essays published in 1927 and 1932 (Landtman 1927, 1932a) and focused on a United States of Europe. In his way, he participated in the discussion on pan-Europeanism. His ideas on a United States of Europe can be seen as his rational cosmopolitanism’s practical solution to the problems of international relations. He was not entirely alone in the field of integration proposals and theories, but his ideas on integration were more inclusive than many. In many cases, a United States of Europe or pan-Europe meant regrouping financial and industrial aspects of Europe to assure France and Germany against the ever growing strength of non-European powers. And Coudenhove-Kalergi’s project did not include Britain or Russia. Some proposals were limited to regions within geographic Europe. Josef Pildsuski in Poland included only Eastern and Central European nations in order to balance Russian and German powers, and, as another example, Ukrainian Dmytro Dontsov used a reminiscent idea of Intermarium: The Land between the Black and Baltic Seas (Wojnar 2014: 162–167). In many cases, the theorists for integration based their theories on economic competition against another power. In Landtman’s eyes, those must have seemed like “cultural zoology” disguised as integration. His cosmopolitanism was in favor of uniting all the civilized cultures.¹²

His argumentation clearly reflects his awareness of the need to be careful about what he said when writing against nationalism. He understood that any international division of labor and production would cause problems, for example, to Finnish agriculture, but eventually European cooperation would benefit all. One problem was, as Landtman wrote, that an ordinary man still sees the nation state as being significant concept, as object of identification, and also as the only sphere of solidarity. He started cautiously explaining that even such concepts as patriotism and fatherland were not eternal but more like steps of social evolution. Also, highly regarded concepts such as “nation” could lose their prestige if misused. He explained that this concept can be understood in many ways. A communist understands fatherland in a different way than a middle class man. He did not deny the power of patriotic sentiments, but his point was that such ideas as patriotism also needed to gain the approval of universal humanism. In Landtman’s view, one needs to understand it from humanity’s point of view. Again, sociology had something to contribute, especially from Landtman’s account of the origin of society and sociality. In his view, sociology had shown that each individual must give up parts of his sovereignty for the sake of common utility. Even in early society, each individual needed to follow various regulations in the name of unity and common utility. This also works in modern societies at the national and the international level (Landtman 1932a: 106).

In the new world, the sense of solidarity could not be restricted to the borders of nation states. The world had become too small for exclusive and restricted units such as sovereign nation states. For the sake of comparison, he stated that, for example, Europe was no bigger than Germany was before the invention of railways. Landtman compared integrating European states to the unification of Germany in 1871 when separate smaller units with their own identities had become one nation. Uniting Europe would be as meaningful but, he admitted, a little more complicated (Landtman 1932a: 106). Anyhow, he was saying that Europe could become one such unity.

Landtman did not expect a united Europe to happen in 1 day. He understood that it had taken time even for existing states to develop. In his view, it would eventually happen, if the right decisions were made, because people are not each other’s enemies. He concluded that, as soon as the will of people comes to the fore, integration is possible. He argued that, if there was a European wide referendum about rearmament, people would vote against. In keeping with Landtman, it was the people who naturally wanted a United States of Europe because they already lived in interaction with each other. It would need time, but after unification the future would be peaceful. One can see that Landtman had experienced the World War and was observing signs of the next one coming. A united Europe was a pacifist program for him. Integration and broader sympathy in his view guaranteed peace. He stated that one can no longer imagine a war between two towns in Finland. He felt that this sense of solidarity should be taken to the European level (Landtman 1932a: 111).

More concretely, Landtman suggested first economic union, which was the easiest to execute, and a European customs union. But it was not a growing economy that he was after. Economic union was for him a way to achieving a social Europe, and it would also be one step toward a united Europe. It would also prevent a divisive resentment among European states. This would have positive effects, even though it meant huge revision of production structures, on economics and also social policy. If there was no competition in Europe but, rather, a rational form of cooperation, the negative consequences of competitiveness would also cease. The rational cooperation was in the common interest and also one of the factors of peaceful social evolution. The European states which were at the time living under economic turmoil were unfortunately, as stated by Landtman, directing their action against each other. The used keyword was lowering the production costs, and this was done by lowering wages and extending working hours. One popular answer was also to reduce levels of social security. Landtman disagreed and offered a cooperative united Europe as an answer to questions which each state tried to answer separately. To him economic problems were merely problems of distribution and organization. What was needed was international rationalization. In his vision, rationality meant organized production for European markets. This would preclude competition and add European wide solidarity. He understood the complexity of rational production: which country produces what? He did not offer precise answers but wanted to see free movement of labor, across the borders. Basically, his vision was close to the United States of America, which he also mentioned as approximating a rational system. For Landtman, economic unification was one step toward confederation (Landtman 1932a: 111). Later in his writings, he thought highly of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal (Landtman 1937: 284–285).

6 Landtman Explaining the Sociological Facts: Reasserting Sociological Arguments

Although Landtman’s articles on ethics have not been highly regarded (Salmela 1998: 37, 99), reading them as part of his cosmopolitanism brings a new, rewarding perspective. This reappraisal gives them value and importance. In his articles on ethics, Landtman attempted to reassert the sociological arguments used in his journalism.

In 1930, Landtman published an article titled “The Essence of Morality and Utilitarianism” in the journal of the Finnish Philosophical Society. There he said more about the basic conclusions drawn and also about the history of sociology and sociological ethics. Landtman placed the roots of his sociological understanding in thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment such as David Hume and Adam Smith, the sentimentalists who associated human morality with human sentiments and human nature. As Landtman points out, his teacher Westermarck had developed these ideas further (Landtman 1930: 17–19, 1933a: 174–175).

According to Landtman, sociology has given pertinence to moral philosophy because sociology has been able to provide scientific explanations to questions of human morality. Referring to Westermarck’s study The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas (1906–1908), Landtman argues that sociology has explained that morality arises from sympathetic emotions of human nature, which connect human individuals with each other (Landtman 1930: 19–20). According to Westermarck, in a small tribal community, “all the members of the community are united with one another by common interests and common feelings” (Pipatti). This was one of the sociological facts that Landtman forged for his argumentation in his essays on cosmopolitanism, which he placed in modern society. He repeated and underlined the importance of understanding the common interest and utility of cooperation for each individual and the society, applying the idea also on the international plane.

Following Westermarck and his Scottish predecessors, Landtman refers to sympathy as the human capability impartially to share in other people’s feelings. Human beings are able to identify themselves with each other’s feelings. Underneath much human interaction, you find sympathy and altruism. These were originally feelings within individuals who lived close, within visual range of each other. This means, according to Landtman, that society is the circle in which morality and the understanding of the benefits of cooperation in interaction with each other have evolved. There is no morality in nature but only when human beings interact with each other (Landtman 1930: 20, 1933a: 183).

How does this relate with cosmopolitanism? This is the question Landtman was actually answering in his scientific articles on ethics. According to Landtman, there is no doubt that the principle of common utility could be widened beyond the borders of states because international relations also work under the same principle (Landtman 1930: 24–25). In short this means that the feelings of sympathy, social instinct, altruism, and other characteristics of human nature, which he regarded as crucial factors of social evolution, could be widened beyond one’s close community, society, or even state. All that was needed was interaction between peoples. Here Landtman again follows Westermarck’s ideas: “People of different nationalities feel that in spite of all the dissimilarities between them there is much that they have in common,” and the circle of sympathy expands (Westermarck 1908: 177; Pipatti). In Landtman’s thinking, different peoples could be and on a certain level already were engaged in the needed interaction with each other, which would lead an expansion in the circle of sympathy. Wider cooperation was in the common interest, and this understanding in Landtman’s view should not be demoralized by governments (Landtman 1933a: 179).

As I have clarified, Landtman’s sociology was also influenced by Darwin. Landtman implicitly also used Darwin’s theory on widening sympathy. According to Darwin, the idea of humanity was one of the noblest virtues with which man is endowed, and it is connected to the development of sympathy, i.e., sympathy becoming more widely diffused. Landtman’s understanding of human sociality, cosmopolitanism, and ideas on international cooperation owe a great debt to Darwin’s The Descent of Man. According to Darwin, “As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities , the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to men of all nations and races” (Darwin 2004/1879: 147). Landtman was trying to convince his Finnish readers of the necessity of the “simplest reason.” For him the “artificial barriers” were the old-fashioned statesmen of the era.

7 Cosmopolitanism and Cooperation as the Next Stage of Social Evolution: World Parliament Needed

At the end of 1933, Landtman published an article in Finnish titled “The International Contradictions in the Light of Sociology.” This paper was a reaction to what Landtman termed the “politics of war,” which he believed was imminently about to break out in a world conflagration. According to Landtman, no efforts were made toward mutual understanding or equality anymore in sight. As nobody had yet proposed any fruitful reforms, he argued that sociology could provide one (Landtman 1933b: 195). Again, timing suggests why he was writing. The paper was published after Adolf Hitler had become the chancellor of Germany and Germany had left the League of Nations. For Landtman, these events were even stronger signs of the wrong path being taken. Both the League of Nations and pan-Europeanism were losing their credibility.

In his article, Landtman repeated his main arguments and linked them to current affairs. One may think this was merely reiteration or a lack of ideas, but one must admit the impressive courage Landtman expressed in his continuous involvement. He was trying to communicate with nationalists and others who promoted the competition between states. Times were hard, according to Landtman, depression seemed to be eternal, and this he thought would usher along greater threats. The constitutions in many states had become unstable and temporary. Again, he rhetorically compared domestic policy and international relations. The tensions between states were just as strong and ever increasing as the tensions between political parties and ideas were in independent states (Landtman 1933b: 195).

Landtman argued that the nation states in the social evolutionary process as sovereign bodies had reached their peak. As the world had changed, he was proposing a new cosmopolitan social contract. The basic assumption of evolutionary sociology was progress. The ongoing social evolution demanded new organizations which were above the states. As I have argued, he saw many other dimensions of social life already internationally arranged. He was seeking for an international coalition of the states. The coalition would take part of the sovereignty of the states. This was part of his idea of the progress. As an evolutionist, he understood that untouchable sovereignty and competing states would not lead toward a peaceful tomorrow.

This higher organization, Landtman proposed, would keep the constitutions of the states. The coalition would connect the states just as sympathetic emotions and common interests had connected individuals in societies in the early stage of social evolution. There is a social instinct in human nature, which binds people together. In his view, because human nature has not changed, the same principle mattered also in the higher stages of social evolution. After all, the circle of sympathy had widened before (Landtman 1933b: 195–196). By this he meant social evolution, since, at first, there were families and then they formed societies, which were kept together by social instinct and mutual interest (Landtman 1938: 320); then after a long process of social evolution society reached its civilized stage, with its nation states.

For Landtman, this sociological fact was not naivety or utopianism. Adaptability, a Darwinian idea, was one feature of human nature, and people were always under external influences. Earlier he had written about influencing by suggestion. He argued that influencing people’s opinions was important because mass psychology plays a crucial role in societies (Landtman 1933b: 195–196). He was directing his arguments against nationalists and underlined the utility of the whole, this whole being the circle of human interaction. In his vision, the next step would be the utility of human kind. Humans are bound together because of the utility of cooperation, no matter whether it happened within the family, in a small-scale society, in a nation state, or finally at the level of international cosmopolitanism. Reciprocity and mutual benefits were essential for the origin of society. They are also crucial when cosmopolitanism evolves. Every piece of society must consider the common welfare, otherwise the solidarity will falter.

A coalition between states means that each state minds its own welfare but above all takes care of the international welfare. It only demands giving some of the states’ sovereignty to a higher organization. In short, Landtman was outlining a new cosmopolitan social contract which was based on sociological facts, in which the world evolved and there were recognizable factors guiding the course. The next step was going to be, or was supposed to be, a natural and rational cosmopolitanism, which he had proposed already in 1923.

Again, Landtman was explaining that the preconditions of solidarity and mutual understanding were in the people – the people are not each other’s enemies, but isolated states are. However, statesmen were suspicious and the League of Nations did not follow the will of people. In the League of Nations, the representatives were statesmen and diplomats, but in the future world parliament the representatives would come from the parliaments on the nation states. The world parliament would be democratic. However, nation states would also remain an important political configuration. Landtman understood the strength of patriotic sentiments, everybody has his or her fatherland, but there was nothing unpatriotic in international cooperation. All people had to do, according to Landtman, was to understand already existing international reliance and cooperation: every day products already travel around the globe and that even though people live basically in their small communities and states, people were also living through international interaction and mutual understanding with each other. The politics should follow to ensure cosmopolitanism (Landtman 1933b: 196). In short, cosmopolitanism was already a reality, but one simply had to admit the facts.

8 Conclusion

Landtman showed strong consistency in his writings between the world wars. His willingness to hold on to his sociological facts is reminiscent to those famous words usually connected to J.M. Keynes: “When the facts change I change my opinion, what do you do sir?” Landtman firmly believed that people have a natural ability to cosmopolitanism. The facts never changed and Landtman never had to change his opinion. His last writing on the topic was published in 1939. He was still trying to convince the Finns of the benefits of cooperation. By then, he had even more strongly striven for peace (Landtman 1939). It seems like his ideas fell on deaf ears. The world conflagration he had warned his readers about eventually occurred, and Europeans (who he wanted to unite) experienced unimaginable horrors.

As Tony Judt has stated, “we must revisit the ways in which our grandparents’ handled comparable challenges and threats” (2011b: 221). We are still living in a world easily recognizable in Landtman’s writings. The challenges he experienced are comparable to those of living generations. The facts that he promoted have not changed. Humans still have feelings of solidarity, and social beings are definitely not each other’s enemies. In the terms and references he was offering for social life, there was something valuable for us too. As British political theorist John Dunn has observed, the past is somewhat better lit than the future: we see it more clearly (Judt 2011b: 221). We should not forget that not admitting the facts of Landtman’s sociology in the 1930s leads to highly unfortunate consequences and not to a peaceful cosmopolitanism. Comparing the path taken with that which humanity failed to take may help us to choose anew or mend our ways.