21–30 of 224 posts
The world needs to be rid of Nationalism sooner rather than later. The narrative is changing slowly but surely. Our ability to use the internet, aside from obvious propaganda, has made the world smaller yet more interconnected than ever.
Given whats going on in the World now, Orwell's "Notes on Nationalism" is a pertinent read. We must be careful that we don't get carried away by Propaganda and start demonizing "the other side" reflexively. Summary on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_Nationalism
Totally agree but it's too late, it already happened. It took only about 4 days of intense propaganda, for people to start asking for racial sanctions. People started demonizing Dostoevsky. Russians have lost their jobs all over the world for not publicly taking a stance against their own people. Next step is going to be the burning of russian books. Trust me, at this rate, it will come soon.
The world needs to be rid of Nationalism sooner rather than later. The narrative is changing slowly but surely. Our ability to use the internet, aside from obvious propaganda, has made the world smaller yet more interconnected than ever.
Something else will replace it. Tribalism is built in to our ‘firmware’.
Former allows to keep it at sports, lame memes and kitchen. Yet find common ground on internal politics. Even if political narratives divide, there’s still something to unite people. Meanwhile political tribalism seem to be penetrating everything with little chance for something in common.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something else will replace it. Tribalism is built in to our ‘firmware’.
Looking at US - it’s already being replaced by political divide. I prefer Euro style ethnic tribalism to US style political tribalism much more. Former allows to keep it at sports, lame memes and kitchen. Yet find common ground on internal politics. Even if political narratives divide, there’s still something to unite people. Meanwhile political tribalism seem to be penetrating everything with little chance for somet…
Very Orwellian definition of nationalism, I must say. I always considered nationalism as the antithesis of imperialism. A nation should be ruled from their own land and by their own people. Not by foreigners from a far far away land. Almost makes you think Orwell was some kind of an imperialist (a reformist, but still) who tried to vilify nationalism in order to keep the British empire together. Good think that faile…
Blair supposedly changed his views of the British Empire and started hating imperialism after spending time in Burma and seeing the oppression of the locals. That transpired years before he started writing under the pseudonym George Orwell.
I heard an opinion that identification of oneself with a group based on some principle (ethnicity / religion / class, etc) is a mechanism produced by evolution, allowing humans to form lager groups than the number of individuals one can personally know. In contrast, for example, to apes. Chimpanzees can only form group up to 150 members. BTW, on wars between chimpanzees: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanz…
One should be aware that this is an optimization and in fact the entire dichotomy of friend or foe is an optimization in itself.
Starship Troopers (1997) is an interesting movie that is basically a “war propaganda” movie seen from the viewpoint of a fascistic government. The whole point of the movie is to make the enemy seem like “the other” , and in this case these are actual alien bugs in the movie. All of the human characters in the movie are beautiful and everything on “our” side as we view it is shiny and “the good side” Paul Verhoeven al…
The book (one of my favourites) is a little diffrent. There the perspective is that of the mobile infantist. The classic hero arc but in a fashist world. Like in the movie, there is no enlightenment or revolution though, just the story of a regular directionless Joe who finds his true self and a purpose in life in the Mobile Infantry. The movie is brilliant in a diffrent way. It's basically satire on all levels. Paul…
Verhoeven's book is more obviously satirical, and I recall getting the clear message of how the Humans are a mirror image of the Bugs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something else will replace it. Tribalism is built in to our ‘firmware’.
Looking at US - it’s already being replaced by political divide. I prefer Euro style ethnic tribalism to US style political tribalism much more. Former allows to keep it at sports, lame memes and kitchen. Yet find common ground on internal politics. Even if political narratives divide, there’s still something to unite people. Meanwhile political tribalism seem to be penetrating everything with little chance for somet…
Maybe if we eliminate states and administrative regions in favour of municipalities only (almost flat hierarchy with just two levels of government: municipality level and EU level), the localized "ethnic" tribes would be a lot weaker.
It frustrates me to no end when people confuse patriotism with nationalism, some even cite this essay! They say despicable things (in my view) like "patriotism is the root of all evil" while enjoying the lifestyle/security provided by the altruistic patriotism of many others.
Nationalism as nations’ right to self determination and self rule is great. And that’s what brought down the old empires. While now empires are rebuilt under anti-nationalist slogans and we are sliding back to multinational behemoths.
Good case why healthy dose of patriotism-nationalism is necessary is Ukraine war.
Very Orwellian definition of nationalism, I must say. I always considered nationalism as the antithesis of imperialism. A nation should be ruled from their own land and by their own people. Not by foreigners from a far far away land. Almost makes you think Orwell was some kind of an imperialist (a reformist, but still) who tried to vilify nationalism in order to keep the British empire together. Good think that faile…