Notes on Nationalism (1945)

> 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.

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.

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.

> it has become a fashion to brand any patriotic talk as "nationalistic"

Considering modern usage of the word, I can't tell what you mean by this. I've explained why here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17059121

EDIT: Aaaaand, immediately downvoted with no reply. I rest my case. :)

A better name for what Orwell calls "nationalism" here would be "partisanship".