On Nationalism

The new, spring semester was ripe with new possibilities, which I decided to focus on rather than that super-negative Prof. Irving. The class I most remember though is Prof. Block, who taught alternative theories, and there were many of them. I recall reading the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, and then another week reading the secondary literature on the book -- which is to say people who had written about and commented on Thucydides. I also recall the paper I wrote that week referenced the book's naval battles, which I called "navel" battles and which isn't correct because the Spartans and Athenians didn't fight each other with their belly buttons.

However, the alternative theory that left the biggest impression was Anthony D. Smith's theories of nationalism, which to me just seemed correct. Nationalism was something productive and natural, not something to be overcome but embraced, understood, and shaped into a productive force. There's this long line of universal, utopian, one-world government, new world order, and globalization that is a constant through the 20th century that, in retrospect, is more than a little problematic. There's the League of Nations and United Nations that were both supposed to make war illegal or impossible though collective action. After the horrors of the two World Wars, the sentiment is understandable, but the solution is unworkable. Moreover, it may be the case that globalization over the long-term will unleash destructive forces even larger than nationalization, but let's leave that argument for another time.

While the motivations for globalization are well known, let's instead revisit nationalism and develop a vocabulary of its underpinnings so we can better understand it. Nationalism is rooted primarily in shared identity in the form of common history, feeling that we're all in this together. This can take a modern, civic form as well as an older ethnic form, with Smith calling these ethnic foundations, "ethnie." Recently I was watching Bridge of Spies where they got a bit preachy on this point, saying the only thing that made people Americans was a commitment to the Constitution. Tocqueville would argue against that as his analysis was based on the people being primarily Anglo-American, especially when he compared and contrasted the Anglo-American experience with the Spanish countries that went from anarchy to dictatorship and then from dictatorship back to anarchy. Tocqueville would agree with Smith that nations grow out of an ethnic core. Modern internationalist definitions of nationalism have been changed through modernity and economics, so they have more civic and legal underpinnings rather than ethnic.

Smith provides multiple examples that these shared notions of identity and history are often idealized and not strictly true, which opens up several opportunities for political manipulation. First, political entrepreneurs can claim to be part of nationalities simply by repeating key national myths. Second, new myths can be created, especially in era dominated by omnipresent and convincing media. Third, attacks on nations can be undertaken simply by questioning the veracity of national myths. This is perhaps the most insidious type of attack, because it is undertaken with supposedly rational and scientific motivations, which are really designed to undermine national myths. Notice how corresponding narratives behind anti-nationalist movements are rarely examined with corresponding levels of depth and rigor, and if such studies are undertaken, then they are deemed "out of bounds" through political correctness.

Finally, these feelings of shared identity and common history serve to connect elites and non-elites. Smith spends considerable time contrasting and comparing elites and non-elites within a national context. Within a nationalist context, the elites travel and meet with other elites, but non-elites live behind borders and do not mix with other populations. And the church helps to unite and bind the population, both elites and non-elites. In the modern, economic era, the power of nation-states and churches has waned. The elites have become bureaucrats, what is called a "new class," quite separate from the non-elites. This is a communist and increasingly globalist term. The World Economic Forum, which meets at Davos every year, represents in my mind the apogee of this newly formed communist and globalist perspective. However, the point is that this globalist worldview is very different from those held by the non-elites in the western world. In fact, it would be fair to say that the nationalist bonds between elites and non-elites have been broken with the elites viewing the non-elites as benighted who exist only to be taxed, which is a common historical dynamic called 'tyranny'. 

The goal of this piece was to create a vocabulary for nationalism, which took three parts. First, there are ethnic and civic conceptualizations of nationalism, which the history always being ethnic that transforms into civic through modern conceptions of the state. Second, nationalism takes the form of  shared identity and common history, which underpin a range of modern political dynamics in a global media age. Third, nationalism help to connect elites and non-elites, and when nationalism fades, so too do these bonds, which weakens the supports of the nation-state. Modern conceptions are tied to the rise of technology and economy, which weaken nationalism and the Church. While this is a simplified analysis that merits much more detailed analysis, this at least gives a vocabulary of the key notions of nationalism as a way to understand the stakes of globalization and argue against globalism (for more see here).