Olympic Flame

There are two things here. One thing is the nation itself. The other thing is the phenomenon of nationalism.

I was refering the phenomenon of nationalism when nation-state start function as what they are and extend their political vigour even into today's world. That's the concensus of the academia that nationalism itself is a modern phenomenon that originated in Europe after the decline of religious obligarchy.

The interesting and the tricky part is the nation itself. Nationalist no doubt see nation as primordial and their job is only to rediscover it. Modernists see it as an imagined community where political power see it as the most effective way of rallying in Europe at the dawn of the age of printing press. For post-modernist the problem is more problematic, nationalist's and elite's selective choice of historical event in their preaching constitutes the forging of the idea nation that never itself has even been a constant.

I think you are refering to ethno-nationalism that branch itself apart from other forms of nationalism. If that's a intrinsic human behaviour it should be easily theorised, predictable or even reproducable by common standard of science as far as we can tell but the reality is far from the simple story. Today you can be part of my tribe but tomorrow you are not. Today the standard is about our language and shared history but tomorrow it will all about the name by which you call God. In modern politics it usually focus on exclusiveness to members outside the national boundary rather than unity within what it defines the nation. If there is anything intrinsic it might have alot to do with our human psychology rather than the intrinsic reality of "ethno" or "nation".

Wowbanger TIP

It is not really possible to separate nation from nationalism anymore than it is possible to build a steam engine without understanding the underlying principles. You are right that it is the consensus of most academics, although good historians would certainly not be accounted among them, that nationalism is a nineteenth century phenomenon and the reasons why that is are critical to understanding the "progress paradigm" which underlies most intellectual though in the West from the Enlightenment onwards. The matter being made made complex because nationalists are looking back to a time when the fundamental intellectual foundations of modern thought were laid and so are the inheritors of that tradition and both drawing radically different conclusions. Its worth noting that according to that school of thought Conservatism began in the same period, "invented" by Burke as if no-one had ever pointed out that not every new idea was necessarily a good move before.

It would be ridiculously easy to find examples of nationalist sentiment pre-dating the consensus view of the nineteenth century. Starting with the American Revolution working backwards through the rabidly nationalist propaganda of Shakespeare and down to the claims of the French Capet dynasty to rule all "French" lands to where written records fail us in Western Europe. I dare say a good look would find such sentiments written in Linear B.

To be fair to the academics when they talk of nationalism most are talking of the Nationalism of GCSE history which leads in an unwavering straight line to Nazism. This kind of "historical reverse engineering" makes decent historians grind their teeth and entertain dark thoughts of licenses issued for historical inquiry with Draconian penalties for "social scientists" practicing illegally. So when the average Academic talks of Nationalism what he means is "the intellectual antecedents of Nazism" because that is as far as their historical literacy goes, which stated in those terms might indeed be considered to largely correct in that they were largely Enlightenment ideas. Incidentally it would be at least as accurate to track the evolution of Nazism through it's socialist heritage.


You correctly identify the main problem of nationalism, the identification of who is and isn't part of the nation. Using deconstruction techniques (which have been described as a simple intellectual bomb making kit which allows the dull to spread chaos and doubt without offering anything useful to replace the damaged concept) it is easy to state that because absolute line can not be drawn (usually) the concept on nation is meaningless. Of course it could equally argued that because such a definitive line can not be drawn between red and orange they can not be said to be distinct colours.

Nationalism is not a perfect system, it is to paraphrase Churchill in a different context, the worst system of organizing humanity apart from all the others conceived. However its great strength is that it is not based on what could be but what is. It is this which sets it apart from the Enlightenment Utopian ideologies which were all based on the Progress theory idea of the "perfectibility of man".

The difference between "post modernists" looking at the concstruction of national mythologies and nationalists is not that nationalist are jingoistic morons instead of cool observers. Well, not in all cases anyway. In much the same way as people need to construct semi mythical personal back stories in order to achieve cognitive equilibrium so do nations. So I can accept that British people have one view of the Spanish Armada's destruction and history quite another, and that at different times the British have drawn contradictory lessons from the same event. This is a natural process and if it is intellectually distasteful to purist fans of historiography, frankly, grow up.

Having said all that it's worth noting that most nations, even those constructed arbitrarily by people with a sense of humor like Iraq, are incredibly resilient things. Few nations have ever ceased to exist or radically altered their geographical boundaries (Although there are exceptions, Germany etc)

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I don't recognize any other form since nationalism without an ethnic/cultural component is utterly meaningless.

Nationalism seeks to harness what are observable human characteristics based on genetic hardwired biology into constructive forms. We know that people will look for "others" and then attempt to destroy them. This is a product of genetic competition in a species which has no natural predators. If this is artificially suppressed (and unbelievably even deliberately aggravated by modern elites by forcing groups into close proximity) then when that suppression fails the results are appalling, see Yugoslavia, Rwanda, etc. The idea that we should stand in front of Kristallnacht mobs and use deconstructionist techniques to get them to see the error of the ways is ludicrous and most probably fatal if attempted. Nationalists recognize this and seek to minimize the potential misery on the precautionary principle.

Moreover nationalism seeks to expand the national group as far as possible without going so far as to weaken the cohesive effect. A difficult and messy balancing act but this is not a perfect world, and (critically important this) is never going to be. Once this genetically inspired unity is achieved then we can use it to achieve amazing things, all the great achievement of organized humanity have been conducted by nation states from the building of the Pyramids to the abolition of slavery (outside the USA).

My apologies if I have missed any points, missed any counter arguments which I mught later rely on or if this is even less intelligible than my normal output. There was a good chance that I would not be able to respond to your interesting observations for a while and so opted for this stream of consciousness rant rather than no reply at all. Hopefully you will get the gist of my argument.

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Dissident Congress

Two questions:

1. If a nationalist organisation pledged to disestablish the CofE and write into our Constitution that Britain is a non-sectarian nation that supports freedom of religion, then would such a move be considered as heresy, anathema, or even outright destructive behaviour by most nationalists.

2. If a nationalist organisation repatriated ever single ethnic but tolerated the belief and practice of religions only recently introduced to Britain such as Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism by people of native British bloodlines and even allowed construction of large buildings supporting these religions, then would such a move be considered as heresy, anathema, or even outright destructive behaviour by most nationalists.

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Village Idiot

Well put! Quote of the week.

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Olympic Flame

Saying that nationalism is a modern phenomenon isn't implying that nations started to exist in recent centuries. Just like a Marxist who views continuous class struggle as a scientific characteristic of human history, nobody disagree that communist ideology flourished relatively lately in human history. That's why it is essential for those who research on nationalism take note of both of the terms and use them carefully.

Many writers write about nationalism. But the most famous two writers who have their academic influence are Benedict Anderson and Anthony D. Smith. Benedict Anderson describes nationalism as an recently imagined community while Smith agrees with other authors that nationalism is a modern phenomenon, he insists that nations have pre-modern origins.
Benedict Anderson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anthony Smith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


That's rather an unfair description of the academia studying on nationalism.
It is very theoretical based and goes beyond whatever boundaries we see in public speech or social activities.

The chapter of Nazism is not so important in the study of European nationalism or national awareness. Nazism is more of a combination of various ideologies that seems both reactionary and revolutionary. Some historians suggest there is some element of German historical roots to the rise (probably inevitable) of Nazism. Again I dont really know of these stuff anyway.

To those ultra-liberals who name nationalism simply as a form of one line event leading to Nazism maybe they can form a club with some modern conservatives who describe modern social problems as "Cultural Marxism". I suspect that they would spend more time bickering against each other though they come from the same school of thought.



In response to the "deconstruction technique" I think you are refering to certain post-modernist thoughts that have been discredited by other scholars as useless, meaningless or even existential. It is more on subjects such as interpretation of psychology and literature. They play around with abstract ideas such as the limitation of applying "scientific method" to study the "human mind". Holistically post-modernism challenges enlightenment values and all the assumptions regarding logic and universal truth that people have taken for granted for so long.
Postmodernism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Again I would say such post-modernist idea is very different, or even diametrically opposed to the critiques of primordialist view of nation. Those who regard nations as recently imagined communities built up in modern age actually derive their conclusion based on modernist school of thought, which post-modernists actively attempt to attack.

Evolutionary psychology is interesting and very controversial. A related field is on the gene-centric view of evolution represented by the famous scientist and popular writer Richard Dawkin. Just like a Economist who sees marriage as a form of social contract based on mutual benefits, we are all inclined to see the world from our own perspective. What else can you expect from an evolutionary psychologist on his explanation of the world? At our current level of understanding alot of such things are just speculation or just wild guess.



Home of the Nationalist Project
The Nationalism Project: Homepage

More advanced level of study on Nationalism that often challanges prevailing assumption.
Nations & Nationalism : What is a nation? : Definition of a Nation -* தேசியம் என்றால் என்ன?

I think I have gotten the gist of your argument and do correct me if I have not. Any sort of discussion is welcomed.

British-Conservatism

Not possible as Muslims are anti-Nationalist.
They want a world Caliphate.

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Dissident Congress

Catholics want a globalised Papacy. Therefore, can a Catholic be a nationalist?

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British-Conservatism

They do not oppose the Nation state like Islam does.

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Dissident Congress

I'm sure it is written into the Koran that Islam recognises the concept of the nation state. I shall investigate when I find time.

After all there are many Muslim dominated nations and nationalism run quite strong in most of them.

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angelman

Bukhari Vol 1, p13, where Mohammed says

"I have been ordered by God to fight with people till they bear testimony to the fact that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is his messenger, and that they establish prayer and pay Zakat (money). If they do it, their blood and their property are safe from me"

They (Islam) way well oppose a nation state, but as they want to convert the whole world to Islam, surely all countries in the world should be considered as a single "Nation" state, with the sovereign entity part playing second fiddle to a religious ideology that all and sundry should adhere to.