English and German race-thinking originated among middle-class writers as social reform, not nobility.

Evidence

It is as significant for English as it was for German race-thinking that it originated among middle-class writers and not the nobility, that it was born of the desire to extend the benefits of noble standards to all classes and that it was nourished by true national feelings. In this respect, Carlyle’s ideas on the genius and hero were really more the weapons of a “social reformer” than the doctrines of the “Father of British Imperialism,” a very unjust accusation, indeed. His hero worship which earned him wide audiences in both England and in Germany, had the same sources as the personality worship of German romanticism. It was the same assertion and glorification of the innate greatness of the individual character independent of his social environment. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 477

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s scaffolding on how ideology arises from class position — middle-class origin of race-thinking parallels how hegemony emerges from particular interests. — connects to: Class and social critique, not colonial experience, dominated pre-Partition Urdu fiction. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 464