The bane of Nationalism

[LordShiva]

Nationalism

Feeling kinship with those who live around you is important, especially when they're of different religions, linguistic groups, races, etc.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


I challenge you to find a single socially binding ideology that is not an 'invention'.

Why? Obviously you have missed the point completely. It is nationalists who claim that the nation is something "natural". All ideologies are inventions, Nationalism just being an unfortunate one.

[GePap]

Originally posted by LordShiva

Feeling kinship with those who live around you is important, especially when they're of different religions, linguistic groups, races, etc.

That is not nationalism. If people are of different religious, linguistic, and racial groups, then obviously they are not part of your Nation.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
So the differences are HISTORICAL. They were the product of different individuals, weighing the costs and benefits of different options for identity, and for the political expression of identity. Into to which linguistic concerns were important interests, but so were economic interests, religious interests, etc.

Empires are also Historical constructs. What does that have to do with the underlying political theory, which helps drive the history by creating motivations for individuals?

But then, in my view thats what MAKES nations - history, and historical circumstance. Theres no magic formula that says X is a nation based on attributes A, B, and C. Its a fuzzy concept. Just as is class, and every social grouping. And so people make decisions as to what they belong to, and how politicaly salient that political belonging is, based on real circumstances.

And this runs counter to the very notion of Nationalism, which assumes that these groups belong together based on existing cultural and lingusitic connections which a lot of times have not much to do with political forces shaping maps.

Thats why I find it so dissatisfying to discuss this in the abstract. What real historical situation do you want to apply it to? Should country X join the EU? Should the US be more positive about international law? Should Japan allow more immigration? One can almost certainly find a "nationalist" argument on each side, and, more surprisingly find "universalist" arguements on more than one side (for ex many EU skeptics in France are Marxists, who dislike the EU not because they dislike "internationalism" per se, but because they fear imposition of market liberalism by the EU. I would suggest that many American Christian conservatives would have a very different view of the value of sovereignty and the UN if most member states were (non secularist) Christian, and if the US itself were more secularist. Those guys are really more devoted to (universalist) Christianity than to American Nationalism)

Nationalism is a political ideology. It is inherently an abstract idea which then has concrete consequences when individuals attempt to shape the world based on its precepts.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by GePap
If people are of different religious, linguistic, and racial groups, then obviously they are not part of your Nation.

"Nations" don't need to be racially, religiously or linguistically pure.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Odin
Cultural similarity is usually greatly exaggerated by the nationalists themselves. In 1400AD the people in Lower Saxony were more similar in language and culture to the Dutch then they were to Barvarians

While you do expose a problem with nationalism, I think that you're exposing something different than what you're attempting to point out. Rather that showing that nationalists "greatly exaggerate" cultural simularity, I think that your example shows that nationalists have a hard time defining the margains of where their nation ends and where other nations begin.
They don't try to argue that clearly distinct cultural groups belong to their nations. German nationalists didn't argue that Spaniards or Russians were Germans. Heck, most didn't argue that the Dutch were Germans, which is something that I'd certainly expect if nationalists greatly exaggerated cultural homogeniety.

Nationalism's arbitrariness is most noticable when dividing between two largely similar groups. Why is Platt deutsch a dialect, but Dutch a seperate language? I think that, in these cases, history and political clout become the definitional determinants. Had the Dutch not had a history of being a significant independent power prior to the 18th century, then I think that they probably would have been considered German and would have been incorporated into German nationalism. As you point out, the Dutch certainly would have been considered German had nationalism been a meaningful concept in the early 15th century. However, by the 19th century, they had established themselves as unique and independent ethnicity more so than the Bavarians, Saxons, Hessians, etc. had.

In other words, I think that nationalists define their nations in ways that are broadly reasonable, but their definitions are seemingly irrationally applied in certain circumstances. I think this irrational application is caused when significant intervening historical events or political concerns outweigh the shared sense of cultural history.

[GePap]

Originally posted by LordShiva


"Nations" don't need to be racially, religiously or linguistically pure.

Then why define it as a single nation as opposed to multiple ones? Especially if the groups are lingusitically and racially different?

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by GePap
Then why define it as a single nation as opposed to multiple ones? Especially if the groups are lingusitically and racially different?

The nationalists do the defining - they can (and do) appeal to things like race, language, religion, but also common history, culture, etc.

As an example, the Indian national movement pre-independence and in the first years after independence defined the Indian nation in a complex way, as a secular, linguistically diverse entity bound by historic affinities and a forward-looking utopian (but unfortunately socialist) world view. Without this nationalism, India would consist of a number of independent countries and principalities, much like Europe. The creation of Pakistan on the basis of religion was seen by the (secular) nationalists of the time as a betrayal of their national dream.

[Ramo]

Which is false. By the time of the Revolution, 50% of the French population already spoke French. Examples of the monarchy trying to assimilate regionalism are the creation of the Academy (in the 17th century) and imposing the protectorate of Bordeaux French as its legal language.

But the point is that there might have been strong attempts to assimilate other nations, there weren't strong nationalist seperatist movements at the time. The question here is, why is that?

I think I formulated my argument sloppily before. If liberals supported nationalism because these were the fault lines of politics, that's blaming it on the fact that there were liberal nationalists of other cultural leanings in the state. And the question remains, why were minority liberals nationalists?

And my explanation is that nationalism was a middle class tendency, thus the middle class ideology - liberalism - became intrinsically tied to nationalism. Since the bourgeoisie were literate but in a vernacular, the "skin depth" of shared ideas was limited to the rest of their cultural group. The aristocracy was connected by the lingua franca, and the peasants and workers couldn't much communicate beyond their localities. Their welfare was highly dependent on the welfare of the nation-state, through the enlargement of the civil service, creation of economic infrastructure like roads, the dominance of colonial markets, and protection and subsidization of industry.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Ramo


But the point is that there might have been strong attempts to assimilate other nations, there weren't strong nationalist seperatist movements at the time. The question here is, why is that?

Because the rise of nationalism in France is strongly related to the failures and therefore decreasing legitimacy of the French monarchy. Centuries earlier the basic idea of the monarch ruling due to divine right was much more accepted, so there wasn't much room for nationalist ideas.

[Ramo]

Perhaps I should've been more clear, that wasn't the question. What I was asking is, why was liberal nationalism born in a society where culture wasn't the fault line of politics (as was the case of the Habsburgs).

[lord of the mark]

nm

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by BeBro


Because the rise of nationalism in France is strongly related to the failures and therefore decreasing legitimacy of the French monarchy. Centuries earlier the basic idea of the monarch ruling due to divine right was much more accepted, so there wasn't much room for nationalist ideas.

I think that the idea of nationality rose with the supremacy of the monarchs in most western european nations, Germany and Italy being exceptions. Consider the fact that during the English Civil War there was very little pressure for the dissolution of the United Kingdom. Likewise the resistence to the French Revolution fought to regain the country, not to seperate from it. Early nationalism was intermixed with fealty to the king and the church. Liberal nationalism was born during the struggles between the English parliament and the English king in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, then spread to British North America, France and then on to the rest of the european continent. The revolutionaries of the 18th and 19th centuries had to believe that they already were nationalities before overthrowing their monarchs in order to found liberal democratic states, or otherwise they simply would have seceeded. During their national revolutions power was transferred from already existing national royal dictatorships to national dempcratic institutions. Exceptions to this rule include Belgium, Norway, Greece and other ehtnic groups which found themselves under foreign rule against which they rebelled.

[lord of the mark]

Nation, How Great You Are!
by Uri Zvi Greenberg


Even in captivity mounting to millions!
Your sons, broad of shoulder and strong in spirit,
Arms of iron, thighs of steel;
Sons to work the soil and make homes,
Sons to build houses and factories,
Bridges and tunnels, harbours and highways;
Sons marching to battle against the foe,
Striking the fear of their ancient race into his heart;
Sons to run trains, steer ships, pilot planes,
To sing Hebrew chanteys
In all the seaports of the world,
Wherever they put in with their cargoes;
Shades of sunset in their faces,
And the might of the sea in their eyes.
Nation, your abundant daughters, lovely and sound,
Daughters to work in village and town;
Blessed, themselves, to branch forth like trees,
Giving birth to a new generation
Healthy and fair and tanned by the sun.
And from them-prophets and scholars,
Men of action and daring,
Rulers to take command.
What shall they do here today,
Your sons and daughters,
In the fullness of their vigour,
With the storm of their dammed-up fury,
The force of revolt within them?
What shall they do
With the pulse of battle pounding in their blood?
Bid them conquer the land,
Scale the peaks with standards flying;
Command them to go through fire,
Storm the walls of Titus, raze Bastilles;
As rebels they will go forth,
And you shall hear them, singing their song
Of freedom and conquest and redemption,
Full redemption!
Bid them span the deepest chasms,
And they will turn their bodies into bridges!
Bid them tear down a bridge,
And they will break their bodies with it!
Therefore, O Nation,
Are your sons and daughters walking the earth in anger;
Hundreds, thousands, with rage in their blood,
Bitter of soul, grinding their teeth,
Blaspheming the Kingdom and House of David blessing the House of Stalin,
Trapped like tigers-so many silently expiring
In prisons, in the bloom of their youth,
Dragged off at sunrise to eternal sleep
In an alien land.
Can they be charged with betrayal?
No, it is not they who are guilty!
They are in need of men who are leaders,
Who like themselves are rebels in spirit
With rage in their blood.
They are in need of prophets
To march before them like pillars of fire,
In this-their own generation.

[MJW]

Everyone should not repsond to the Lord of the Marks attempt to make this into an ot flamewar...