Is it possible to get rid of nationalism?

[ParkCungHee]

Any idea - once articulated - will always be known by someone somewhere in the world, in if it doesn't, will always be resurrected by someone somewhere in the world.

Where does this transtemporal idea reside in the meantime?

 

[Kyriakos]

In the mind's palimpsest

 

[Flying Pig]

Where does this transtemporal idea reside in the meantime?

It doesn't, but with seven billion people thinking on any number of different tangents for any number of years, if the conditions are right for it to arise once, it'll probably arise twice. See calculus and controlled electricity, for example, which were both 'invented' simultaneously by different people.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Yes, but you're getting back to the key thing, which is that Nationalism is something people make to respond to conditions. Conditions change, and therefor nationalism too, will pass with a slight chance of being revived in some form (though whether or not that form will be the same, who can say).

 

[Flying Pig]

Yes, but you're getting back to the key thing, which is that Nationalism is something people make to respond to conditions. Conditions change, and therefor nationalism too, will pass with a slight chance of being revived in some form (though whether or not that form will be the same, who can say).

I'm unconvinced that, given the intellectual background of the French Revolution, Herder and Fichte - simplified - a world in which those are remembered could ever be totally without nationalism, if only because there will always be some places in which it exerts an appeal.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I'm unconvinced that, given the intellectual background of the French Revolution, Herder and Fichte - simplified - a world in which those are remembered could ever be totally without nationalism, if only because there will always be some places in which it exerts an appeal.

Why? The French Revolution itself displaced other, equally easy to remember, methods of identity. If anything it's an excellent example of how easily and quickly these identities can fall apart.

 

[Borachio]

In the mind's palimpsest

Wow! You're good!

Palimpsest is one of my many very favourite words, btw.

 

[Kyriakos]

Wow! You're good!

Palimpsest is one of my many very favourite words, btw.

It is a very cool term in my view as well

palimpsest (n.)
"parchment from which earlier writing has been removed to clear it for new writing," 1660s, from Latin palimpsestus, from Greek palimpsestos "scraped again," from palin "again" (see palindrome) + verbal adjective of psen "to rub smooth" (of uncertain origin).

From: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=palimpsest

 

[Flying Pig]

Why? The French Revolution itself displaced other, equally easy to remember, methods of identity. If anything it's an excellent example of how easily and quickly these identities can fall apart.

True. I'm no longer sure what I think about this.

 

[Traitorfish]

Centrist fanatics tend not to be raving mad lunatics, unless we're talking about NasBols.

I don't imagine anyone believes themselves to be a raving mad lunatic. Why privilege one set of biases over another?

But is he wrong in that whatever thing comes out as nationalism that for lack of a better term he calls tribalism and nationalism is actually universal to the human experience and therefore if we apply the logic of why nationalism to separate historical instances we can come up with the same us-vs-them, united by common identity interplay that is effectively going to have the same composition of social interplay, just under different names (i.e. consistently analogous across time, space, culture, etc).

I mean, I think so, but what Terx is asking of you is why that is so. In so far as you're trying to be helpful to him, and not just to yourself or the audience at large, you're offering him the tools to figure that out.

But telling him why that is so, at this point, would be more resourceful. In fact, he could, perhaps analogize the specific argument into figuring out the tools for future examples.

Another way of putting it is, is the root of nationalism a pervasive and meaningful piece of trans-historical human nature that makes nationalism an appropriate word, pseudo-akin to saying Xerox instead of photocopy? Because that's what, I think, Terx has been hoping you would address.

The onus is on him to defend his thesis, not on me to justify my scepticism of it. I've pointed out a few major holes in his story, and he's flatly refused to address a single one of them; what more can be expected of me?

If he wants advice, then all I can tell him is to actually look at the evidence, to look at particular examples of group-identity, at what they have in common and what distinguishes them, to look at how they're structured and how they function in practice. His argument as it stands seems to proceed entirely from how he assumes group identities to work, but you have to theorises towards generalisations, not from them.

Sure, because it is not a meaningful category of analysis in that particular context, which is kind of the whole point.
While there are certainly differences between civic pride of ancient Athenian and clan loyalties of medieval Scot which may be significant for a different and more detailed analysis, those differences are currently entirely superfluous, for both still represent one particular tendency of communal species called humans: that they tend to form groups. And the stronger the group identity, the greater the antagonism towards other similar groups.

Sure, there are differences between tribalism and nationalism and imperialism, but from that point of view, they are the same thing on another degree.

All you'd be saying there is "people tend to imagine themselves as members of groups, and to identify with those groups, and sometimes to prioritise certain identities in certain contexts, unless they don't". It doesn't explain anything, it contains no mechanism which we can identify in these disparate phenomena, and there's certainly no reason why we should identify this non-observation with the otherwise historically-specific label of "nationalism". It's all but trivial.

 

[ParkCungHee]

True. I'm no longer sure what I think about this.

Keep in mind, I'm not positing any sort of general moral improvement of mankind with this or anything, only that the stuff that we think is really important probably won't matter much in 1000 years.

 

[Traitorfish]

Except Judge Dredd, mind you, which probably matter more.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Dredd doesn't care about Nationalism though, so that just proves my argument.

 

[Traitorfish]

He's a modern-minded man, that big Joe Dredd.

 

[Tahuti]

True. I'm no longer sure what I think about this.

So what? If you picked France in EU III, you could face Nationalists, even when you had a core on the French provinces. Seems obvious to me that nationalism existed before 1789...

 

[timtofly]

So when did the notion change from empire to nation?

 

[Flying Pig]

Keep in mind, I'm not positing any sort of general moral improvement of mankind with this or anything, only that the stuff that we think is really important probably won't matter much in 1000 years.

Indeed. Pan-Christian identity, for example, has largely disappeared, as has identification by the family, or social class, or any number of things. Perhaps it's fair to say that once discovered, an idea like that will never be totally dead, only absent from the world until the circumstances arise for it to come about again. However, I'm well aware that this is one of the self-fulfilling prophecies which I spend quite a lot of time pointing out around here.

So when did the notion change from empire to nation?

I would say that the French revolutionary state, with its concept of civic values native to the state and the fusion of nationality and citizenship, was the first example of a nationalistic polity. However, I'm not sure where the difference is between that and the πολίς in Classical Greece, for example, which could also unite blood and citizenship and which also had its own native values and which excited patriotism separate from loyalty to the government.

 

[Hygro]

The onus is on him to defend his thesis, not on me to justify my scepticism of it. I've pointed out a few major holes in his story, and he's flatly refused to address a single one of them; what more can be expected of me?

If he wants advice, then all I can tell him is to actually look at the evidence, to look at particular examples of group-identity, at what they have in common and what distinguishes them, to look at how they're structured and how they function in practice. His argument as it stands seems to proceed entirely from how he assumes group identities to work, [...]

True. But if I ask a question and get an answer in Esperanto, I might just repeat the question not knowing you answered it. In this case the language is the same but the part that translates from "these are words I know" to "ooooh that's what you mean" isn't developed for this specific instance. Terx is a smart enough guy so I guess I just felt more patience and taking time to explain on his terms would be helpful.

but you have to theorises towards generalisations, not from them.

Haha tell that to my econ department

 

[Borachio]

You can hypothesize a generalization and then test it against reality, can't you?

I'd have thought that was a fairly ordinary way of proceeding in science generally.

(Kind of what I'm doing here with this hypothesis.)

 

[Kyriakos]

[...]

However, I'm not sure where the difference is between that and the πολίς in Classical Greece, for example [...]

A small tonal error there It should be πόλις. 'Πολίς' is exactly how the English term 'police' is pronounced.