[JohnStrangeII]

Both nationalism nor patriotism barely make sense any more. Time are changing. When Orwell wrote this piece he was influenced by the war, extreme situations like wars or famines always cloud your judgements.

I recommend reading the seemingly unrelated The Knowledge by Lewis Dartnell. It describes the skills that would be necessary to rebuild civilisation after a hypothetical global cataclysm. Why is it relevant? If you read it, you will realize that all of civilization is fundamentally based on global markets and the global shipping of crude oil and other resources. Without these, nearly all technologies of daily life would break down in a very short time frame, including agriculture and medicine. The connections and dependences between countries are massive and completely unavoidable at our current level of technological development. In the long run, all countries have to work together or modern society will fail. (It may also fail because the resources dwindle extremely fast, viewed at an evolutionary time scale. Expanding mankind into space is unavoidable, or at least robot mining will be needed.)

Add to this the fact that we can communicate in real-time with the whole world and get news about distant events and politics within minutes, and patriotism starts to appear in a completely different light - as a silly appeal to traditions with no substance. Bear in mind that nations are entirely artificial entities and territorial conflicts have become (almost) impossible due to the global trade dependences.

This doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with mild forms of patriotism, of course, just that there are no particular advantages to it in the long run.

In a nutshell, we live in an essentially transnational society and this cannot change unless you're willing to give up almost all of modern technology.

[humanrebar]

I suppose there's some semantic clarification needed here. I don't see why identifying with one's ancestors [1] (patriotism) or nation (nationalism) precludes free trade, multiculturalism, human decency, etc.

On the contrary, if we want people to think long-term, it's important to get them to associate personal motivations (love of their grandchildren, love of their neighborhoods) with the sacrifices needed to keep civilization healthy (taxes, public service, military service, compliance with environmental regulations, etc.).

I guess it's possible you see "patriotism" and "nationalism" as requiring negative isolationism, xenophobia, etc. If that's true, is there a word for "thinking locally, acting globally" that allows for appreciating your homeland, ancestors, neighbors, etc.?

[andrepd]

Do you love your country, your homeland, your family, your culture? Then that's very okay. Do you think that your country, your homeland, your family, or your culture are objectively superior to others? Then you're a fanatic/xenophobe.

[humanrebar]

> Do you think that... your culture are objectively superior to others?

Fair enough, but what do we do about the culture of "citizens of the world"? Aren't we trying to create or grow a better culture when we reject nationalism? Is that fanaticism? Why not?

[boomboomsubban]

Culture constantly changes, it's unavoidable even when you love your current culture. If you aren't viewing it as the objectively superior culture it isn't fanaticism.

[dmarusic16]

Are politics becoming outdated, in your opinion, too?

[andrepd]

?? I don't follow.

[dmarusic16]

Maybe I was reading too far into your statement. But in general terms, politics (and conflict in general) stems from a struggle over the power to allocate scarce resources towards conflicting conceptions of what is “good” or “deserving”. Often times, statements against privileging your own group to the detriment of others—and I concede you didn’t make that case directly, but I’ve often seen your comparison invoked in such arguments—implicitly assumes that politics, too, should be transcended. There is a sentiment that politics is a vestige of irrationality, and that if everyone was properly educated and could see the greater good, they would necessarily favor that over parochial group interests.

[ardent_uno]

The survival and unity of a nation gives substantial long term benefits, contrary to what you believe, because effective nations make modern life possible through their guarantee of property rights and rule of law which are both prerequisites for any substantial economic activity. Not only this, but they also facilitate managed capitalism within their borders through their enforcement of regulation and wealth transfers in the form of taxation and public spending.

The nation is an integral part of the global economic and social structure not because of petty adherence to "tradition" as you believe, but because it plays a necessary and valuable role.

Given this, to say Patriotism is unproductive or backwards is foolish.

Nations are fundamentally a collection of people and entities that accept (sometimes begrudgingly) living in a union is better than living apart. It's important that people feel proud of their union and value its existence just as two people in a romantic relationship must value that relationship in order for it to survive and thrive.

[thankthunk]

> Both nationalism nor patriotism barely make sense any more. Time are changing.

People said the same thing in the late and early 20th century before ww1 and ww2. They were wrong.

> If you read it, you will realize that all of civilization is fundamentally based on global markets and the global shipping of crude oil and other resources.

Modern nations are dependent on oil for sure. That's what ww1 and ww2 was fought over.

> In the long run, all countries have to work together or modern society will fail.

That's fundamentally not true. Certain nations, like the US, don't have to work with anyone. We are one of the few nations who have enough resources ( including oil ) to keep our civilization running. If you expand the US to include the anglo-nations ( Canada, Australia, etc ), then we are more than able to keep our society running without the rest of the world.

> In a nutshell, we live in an essentially transnational society and this cannot change unless you're willing to give up almost all of modern technology.

What? Maybe if you are denmark or iceland, but that doesn't hold true for the US.

Also, your entire argument is about international trade, not transnationalism. You need nations to have international trade.

And as I said, your argument isn't new. It's been long debunked. The same argument was made in the midst of pax britannica before ww1 and ww2. People argued that nations were too dependent on each other for wars to break out. Hell, people argued that germany would never attack the soviet union since most of germany's oil/resources came from the soviet union.

The current international system will continue as long as nations deem it beneficial to themselves. If it ceases to be, then it will end.

There is nothing inherently good or bad about any system. And I highly doubt china, russia and much of the world will adhere to the US/European led international system for much longer.

Pax americana will come to an end like all "pax" in the past. Instead of clinging to silly utopian transnationalism, we should be preparing ourselves for a multipolar nationalistic world.

The post ww2 era is an anomaly in human history where one nation ruled the world. The only comparable situation in human history was the mongol empire where mongol's established direct or indirect control over pretty much all of eurasia. That system crumbled also.

[andrepd]

>Modern nations are dependent on oil for sure. That's what ww1 and ww2 was fought over.

This is simply, objectively, not true.

>Certain nations, like the US, don't have to work with anyone. We are one of the few nations who have enough resources ( including oil ) to keep our civilization running.

Doesn't the US import almost double what it exports (https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727&t=6)? Also, why has the US worked so hard in the past 70 years to maintain influence across the world, warring and pillaging and murdering, and trading and bribing as well? Doesn't their standard of living rest on the global state of affairs they strive to maintain (or further exploit)?

>The post ww2 era is an anomaly in human history where one nation ruled the world.

In terms of technology, the last 100 years have been more transformative than the 10,000 before. It's silly to compare this to the mongol empire.

[paulddraper]

> Doesn't the US import almost double what it exports

Yes, though that's due to legal restrictions on domestic drilling, not some sort of physical necessity.

> Also, why has the US worked so hard in the past 70 years to maintain influence across the world, warring and pillaging and murdering, and trading and bribing as well? Doesn't their standard of living rest on the global state of affairs they strive to maintain (or further exploit)?

There are multiple schools of thought and multiple eras of the US. What should be US involvement in UN, Syria, Iraq, Vietnam, Cuba, etc.

I don't think that really disproves the point.

[verylittlemeat]

>Pax americana will come to an end like all "pax" in the past. Instead of clinging to silly utopian transnationalism, we should be preparing ourselves for a multipolar nationalistic world.

What if most hegemonic powers in a "pax" period tend toward your pragmatic attitude and as a result create a societal gestalt which becomes a self fufilling prophecy of paralyzed stagnation? Why should we assume that just because a "silly utopian transnationalism" hasn't happened yet it can't possibly happen at all? The technology available to a hegemon in the 21st century is unlike anything a previous hegemon has ever known. Betting the future will follow the patterns of the past is a safe bet until it isn't.

[naeemtee]

> And as I said, your argument isn't new. It's been long debunked. The same argument was made in the midst of pax britannica before ww1 and ww2. People argued that nations were too dependent on each other for wars to break out. Hell, people argued that germany would never attack the soviet union since most of germany's oil/resources came from the soviet union.

Bingo. Nation states drove society, and they'll continue to drive society.

[mistermann]

Very well said. Along the same line of thinking, I'd like to point out a few things from the article that were a bit of a revelation for me:

"As the nearest existing equivalent I have chosen the word ‘nationalism’, but it will be seen in a moment that I am not using it in quite the ordinary sense, if only because the emotion I am speaking about does not always attach itself to what is called a nation — that is, a single race or a geographical area."

"By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’(1)."

"But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests."

"Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality."

Now, maybe this is somewhat skewed by when it was written, but based on my interpretation of modern people's usage of the word nationalism, it seems completely consistent with current times.....so my question is basically: why is race (and force/violence) considered inseparable from nationalism? Or even more precisely, why is it seemingly only people who live in extremely ethnically diverse societies who think this way (go watch some "man on the street" interview videos on YouTube and you'll see that Modern Western Progressive values that only originated in the last 20 years aren't shared universally across the planet)?

Let's check the dictionary:

Nationalism:

1. spirit or aspirations common to the whole of a nation.

2. devotion and loyalty to one's own country; patriotism.

3. excessive patriotism; chauvinism.

4. the desire for national advancement or political independence.

5. the policy or doctrine of asserting the interests of one's own nation viewed as separate from the interests of other nations or the common interests of all nations.

6. an idiom or trait peculiar to a nation.

7. a movement, as in the arts, based upon the folk idioms, history, aspirations, etc., of a nation.

The only definition even remotely close to race/racism is #3, yet do a google search for "nationalism" in the news and on forums (including this one, and in this very thread) and I bet you'll discover that in the vast majority of cases you'll find it being used in a way that's synonymous with racism.

I will often ask people I see doing this why they do it, what their exact meaning is, but no one will ever answer. In my opinion, these types of people are, ironically, similarly as evil as racists, in that they hate a group of people based on falsehoods or false stereotypes.

I'd love to know if anyone can think of a good explanation for this phenomenon. And considering how widespread it is, "people are dumb, get over it" seems like a completely disingenuous copout, equivalent to a racist-apologist.

[coldtea]

>The only definition even remotely close to race/racism is #3, yet do a google search for "nationalism" in the news and on forums (including this one, and in this very thread) and I bet you'll discover that in the vast majority of cases you'll find it being used in a way that's synonymous with racism.

That's because, US and a few other multi-ethnic nations aside, most nation states are either somewhat ethnically consistent, or have one dominant ethnic majority -- and thus nationalism there is also related to ethnicity (and/or race).

Race is also not always seen as meaning whole classes of people (like black, white, asian, latin, etc) but can seen as defined for historically and genetically similar lineage too, so, e.g. Norwegians could be seen as different to Swedish in racial terms (and often such arguments invoke such terms).

[mistermann]

Sure, but this doesn't address the phenomenon of why actual (dictionary) nationalism has become synonymous with racism/Nazism. If anything, and I don't mean this disrespectfully, your difficulty in seeing how Western multicultural societies are different in this respect (the assumption that nothing but extreme malice can possibly be behind nationalism) demonstrates my point. Unless I've misinterpreted you, which is very easy (and common) to do in these types of conversations.

[coldtea]

>Sure, but this doesn't address the phenomenon of why actual (dictionary) nationalism has become synonymous with racism/Nazism.

Because it was an extreme example, and those tend to dominate further discussion.

Plus nationalism (even in the legit patriotism version) has fallen out of favor in the age of globalism, so everyone who wants to follow the cultural party line feels free to compare it to Nazism.

>If anything, and I don't mean this disrespectfully, your difficulty in seeing how Western multicultural societies are different in this respect (the assumption that nothing but extreme malice can possibly be behind nationalism) demonstrates my point.

Well, for what is worth, I'm not an American, and not exactly westerner either.

[mistermann]

> Because it was an extreme example, and those tend to dominate further discussion.

I'm sorry, I'm not understanding your line of thinking. What is an extreme example? And this explains what (I'm referring to "because....")?

> Plus nationalism (even in the legit patriotism version) has fallen out of favor in the age of globalism, so everyone who wants to follow the cultural party line feels free to compare it to Nazism.

No disagreement here, but if this is the case, are people simply unable to see this in themselves? Do they intuitively (as seems to be the case) know not to reply to any questions that might broach that particular possibility?

[forapurpose]

That's all academic. Current nationalists base their 'nation' on skin color and religion: white and Christian (though the religious aspect is sometimes less emphasized), like ISIS'/Daesh's nationalism based on Islam. You can read people advocating it in HN, just like you can read many attempts to whitewash it.

The endlessly repeated lesson of history is that if human rights are not universal, if you accept the nationalist argument that 'people on my side have rights and those on the other don't', then it ends up justifying denying rights to any person or group, and the brutality that follows. That's why the foundation of the United States is universal human rights, 'all men are created equal and endowed ... with inalienable rights'. We've had enough slavery, segregation, Holocausts, Tutsi massacres, Milosovic's, ISIS's, oppression of women, Nazis, etc, etc. to know how it turns out; we don't need to try again and hope it's different this time.

In contrast, universal human rights as the basis of the post-WWII order has provided the greatest expansion of freedom and prosperity in human history, with no comparison. Why would anyone want to give that up? Why are we looking for ways to divide people and to justify and whitewash hate?

What is the basis of nationalism? That a human being's rights and my regard from them depend on an imaginary line on the earth? One step this way, I love them; one step the other way, I oppose them? It's absurd.

Finally, nationalism is an obsession of a small group imposed on others. The nationalists say all white Christian people are part of their nation, but a most of those people don't see it that way. Certain nationalists claim me as part of their 'nation', but I abhor and oppose them and certainly am not a member. Nationalists are a small group of people who, just like the tyrants and evil people before them, simply try to impose their will on others. I believe the others should live free.

[mantas]

> That's all academic. Current nationalists base their 'nation' on skin color and religion: white and Christian (though the religious aspect is sometimes less emphasized), like ISIS'/Daesh's nationalism based on Islam. You can read people advocating it in HN, just like you can read many attempts to whitewash it.

That's somewhat true only in a very narrow world of USA and ISIS. In most of the world, nationalism is based on very different terms.

> One step this way, I love them; one step the other way, I oppose them? It's absurd.

Nah. Nationalism doesn't mean opposing anybody. It's belonging to community and working for it's greater good.

> Finally, nationalism is an obsession of a small group imposed on others.

Most people don't care about any political, societal or any other philosophical discourses. They just follow few people who are interested in that kind of stuff. As far as I looked all revolutions were imposed by a small group of concerned citizens on the rest of the community. I'm yet to find an exception where majority people truly believed in the original idea from day 1. They just followed people who seemed worthy.

[mistermann]

> That's all academic. Current nationalists base their 'nation' on skin color and religion

They do?

> You can read people advocating it in HN, just like you can read many attempts to whitewash it.

> if you accept the nationalist argument that 'people on my side have rights and those on the other don't'

> We've had enough slavery, segregation, Holocausts, Tutsi massacres, Milosovic's, ISIS's, oppression of women, Nazis, etc, etc. to know how it turns out; we don't need to try again and hope it's different this time.

(I might as well excerpt your entire post, it is the perfect embodiment of my confusion on this topic. As are the rising downvotes, arguably proving my point and censoring my voice, as I will now have to leave this tab open and wait to post my sincere rebuttal later. Freedom of speech is a great principle until it disagrees with your ideas I guess.)

I gave you a definition of nationalism from the dictionary, I will ask you once again: what definition are you using for the word nationalism?

Going further, what is the origin of the various extreme beliefs & hatred you hold? Where did you learn these ideas?

[forapurpose]

There's no basis offered for any of the parent. Some things are obviously false:

> oil ... That's what ww1 and ww2 was fought over.

> Certain nations, like the US, don't have to work with anyone

> expand the US to include the anglo-nations ( Canada, Australia, etc )

etc.

These are arguments of white christian nationalists, who, as Orwell pointed out about nationalists in general, have no interest in reality, only justifying their hateful cause. They ignore the incredible, outrageous evil of Nazism, the universality and priority of human rights and freedom, basic economic reality, and the predictable destruction that comes with nationalism.

The American-led world order since WWII has led to an expansion of freedom and prosperity orders of magnitude beyond anything else in human history. It also embodies a just and fair way of managing international affairs, through law and democracy rather than the undemocratic system of the strong forcing the weak (it has a long a way to go, but it has come a very long way since WWII). A person must really embrace hate in order to give that up for nationalism, racism, and the destruction that inevitably follows, a return to pre-WWII or even pre-WWI. I suspect many of the white christian nationalists take that peace and prosperity for granted; they don't realize it was constructed by the survivors of WWII, who knew far more of nationalism and the world without a rules-driven world order.

[andrepd]

>The American-led world order since WWII has led to an expansion of freedom and prosperity [...] It also embodies a just and fair way of managing international affairs, through law and democracy rather than the undemocratic system of the strong forcing the weak.

Wow... The people in Guatemala [1], Iran [2], Chile [3], Timor [4], and dozens other places will disagree with you. The will of the people stamped down by the boot of American might and imperialism, for the benefit of themselves: for the maintenance of their supreme place in the world on the back of neocolonialist exploitation of weaker countries. Is this not the picture of "undemocratic system of the strong forcing the weak"? Let's not forget the odious bootlicking of Saudi princes, for instance, and their positively medieval rule, for their economic favour.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._intervention_in_Chile#The...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Timor_genocide

[forapurpose]

> The people in Guatemala [1], Iran [2], Chile [3], Timor [4], and dozens other places ...

Agreed, and I considered whether to include that part of the story. On one hand, every HN comment can be criticized for leaving out details - we always can write more; these aren't dissertations or books, and each comment needs to draw the line somewhere. On the other, I probably should have mentioned that side of it.

But with that issue in mind, I was careful to write something that didn't contradict the parent's point. I said the expansion of freedom and prosperity have been unprecedented, which is true. It should be even more, including for the people of the places mentioned above, but it still has been unprecedented. I also wrote that the international order "embodies a just and fair way of managing international affairs, through law and democracy"; I was careful not to say it implemented those things are actually is democratic; it's not nearly that. But the UN, alongside the leading country actively promoting democracy and liberty is a huge step forward compared to human history, as are other international organizations and structures. There is a very long way to do, and every person that has suffered in those places and does suffer today deserves justice; we have a lot of work to do.

[forapurpose]

Wow, do I need to proofread ... yikes. Sorry to any readers.

[dctoedt]

The incidents you cite are indeed deeply regrettable and even shameful. But quaere whether you're overweighting them.

[andrepd]

They're more than incidents, they're the intentional modus operandi of the USA.