[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?

[coldtea]

>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....")?

Sorry, can you state your original question more clearly? It seems obvious to me which is the extreme example I was referring to, and how it answers your question -- besides, I even quoted the part I was replying to.

You asked about how "the phenomenon of why actual (dictionary) nationalism has become synonymous with racism/Nazism" could be addressed.

My answer is that the reason actual (dictionary) nationalism has become synonymous with racism/Nazism is because Nazism was an extreme example of nationalism, and people tend to use extreme examples when discussing a phenomenon.

Plus, racism/Nazism have very ugly connotations, so it makes sense to associate nationalism with those phenomena, in an era when nationalism is in disfavor in favor of globalization.

>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?

Yes.

[mistermann]

> My answer is that the reason actual (dictionary) nationalism has become synonymous with racism/Nazism is because Nazism was an extreme example of nationalism, and people tend to use extreme examples when discussing a phenomenon.

I mean, this is certainly plausible, but I don't think it's that simple. There are all sorts of examples of degrees of one thing or another, yet is there any other example where a major portion of the public suddenly lost all perspective to the degree that they believe things that are literally incorrect (and mock those who are not)? It's not just that people are exaggerating things, the fundamental beliefs are such that it is considered not possible for a nationalist to not be a racist, if not worse. Rarely are such outrageous and objectively false claims challenged, and frequently any challenge is downvoted to net negative.

[coldtea]

>It's not just that people are exaggerating things, the fundamental beliefs are such that it is considered not possible for a nationalist to not be a racist, if not worse. Rarely are such outrageous and objectively false claims challenged, and frequently any challenge is downvoted to net negative.

It's not like the general public (or even more media / public figures for that matter) are well rooted in the history of ideas, or care to examine most the conventional understanding of ideas of their time.

Once a thing falls out of favor (like nationalism has) it gets reduced to some caricature very quickly and can be associated (falsely) with all kinds of prejudices.

Consider the case of the hippy and the underground movements, how they were all the rage in the 60s and 70s and utterly mocked (and misunderstood) from the 80s onwards.