Lone Wolf
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2006
- Messages
- 9,908
Nationalism is certainly not something innately intristic to human condition. It exists and is supported by concrete historical phenomena. While I think that sentiments relatively close to nationalism existed before XVIII century, they were far from universal.
Whether or not "generic tribalism" is something innate, I am not sure of. Origins of really harmful tribalism, though, often have fairly identifiable socio-political cases at work. People may naturally define their own group and groups outside them, but when nations start warfare with each other, when members of two youth subcultures violently clash etc. it's stupid to state that they did so "because humans are naturally tribalistic, duh".
Whether or not "generic tribalism" is something innate, I am not sure of. Origins of really harmful tribalism, though, often have fairly identifiable socio-political cases at work. People may naturally define their own group and groups outside them, but when nations start warfare with each other, when members of two youth subcultures violently clash etc. it's stupid to state that they did so "because humans are naturally tribalistic, duh".
I don't like the phrasing in your first sentence, since I don't think that anything is "inevitable". If nationalism disappears, it will do so because of human agency - unless it dissapears because humanity disappears itself.Not only do I think it's possible, I think it is as near to inevitable as things can get.
It's not a question of "how can Humans ever cast off nationalism" it's a question of "How long will humans make nationalism work?"
I think that's a flawed analogy. When many companies merge into one, and when these companies merge in various ways to form a transnational corporation, is it a model for "getting rid of capitalistic competition"? Capitalism has both a unificatory and a competitive aspect, each are its major "features". Nationalism seems to operate in the same way - in fact, these two are mutually dependent, even though I think that vaguely nationalistic concepts occasionally existed before capitalism.Not really. The very fact that it reaches above national identity and fosters a transnational, continental identity that's reasonably non-exclusive makes it (potentially) a model for getting rid of nationalism globally.
Hmm, how do you separate "socio-lingual" and "civic"? Anyway, nationalism in its "pure civic" form I find to be quite rare - almost an ideal type then an actual reality.Hm. I think VRCWAgent is on to something with his separation of ethnic/socio-lingual nationalism and civic nationalism.