Explaining the World to US Nationalists

[Refugee]

I like patriotism. It collectively celebrates who we are through shared culture and customs. Call it our roots, or home sweet home; every country cheers itself on. Nationalism is different. Nationalism doesn’t just see differences, but puts a country above others and sees other societies and peoples as less worthy. It produces the word, ‘s**t hole’ when referring to other societies, labels opposing leaders as ‘monsters’ or ‘dictators’ and usually ends in wars. It’s an, us-against-them idea based on emotion and lacks the capacity for reason. Because of the damage it does to others and inevitably reaps in return, nationalism always ends in failure.

An example of the difference between patriotism and nationalism is the award winning movie, ‘The Patriot’, in which Mel Gibson leads a group of freedom fighters for independence against the occupying British. Ironically, in today’s era if the movie was about the Middle-East and American occupation, Mel Gibson would be portrayed as a terrorist and those who aid the US occupying forces would become freedom fighters.

If patriotism is a natural ingrained response in societies, nationalism requires political indoctrination to produce the fear, hysteria and paranoia needed to create an antagonistic society. The Germans previously used communism. The Soviets capitalism and more recently the US population are presented with a bewildering array of both domestic and external threats designed to provoke continual fear.

In his famous book ‘1984’, Orwell explained how nationalism became authoritarian producing the same fear and paranoia using propaganda, ‘forever wars’ and extremist politicians who were elevated by those they served to God-like status. A militarized dystopia controlled by disinformation in a surveillance society. In the US, what was unimaginable 30 years ago has now achieved all the trappings of normality.



As nationalism reflects a state of mind, population control is also required. The media becomes regulated, whistleblowers who delve too deeply become traitors and dissent becomes the enemy. “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” President Trump, Twitter, February 2017.

All dominant societies throughout history were nationalistic and considered themselves exceptional and so the current political in-fighting between the left and right in the US is both immaterial and a distraction. The ‘indispensable nation’, one ordained by God, ‘MAGA’ or ‘America First’ simply echo’s that of ‘Rule Britannia’ and ‘The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire.’

Something to think about. No country once its empire and industrial revolution has been lost has ever regained it. Under nationalism, the vast majority of the population do not get to share in the wealth and spoils of the conquest it produces. They all include authoritarian leaders and are anti-democratic in nature. There is no doubt China will soon out produce the US and become the world’s leading economic super power as it starts to build its Silk Road trade routes bypassing the US controlled oceans and Russia has already stalemated the US in further expansionism, both in the Ukraine and Syria. Yet as their societies also move to first-world level with all the costs involved, eventually they too will be re-placed by other developing countries because throughout history, that’s what happens. In a globalized world nationalism has a short shelf-life and only its adherents aren’t able to see that.

The world is not a s**t hole.’ Just like the US it has fluctuating areas of poverty and places of amazing technology. The images nationalists choose to see are the places of ruin and chaos that are caused by the consequences of exceptionalism that further fuels the idea of nationalism. You break it, you pay for it and the irony is that you the tax payer have paid for all the damage and re-building.

Beijing (China), St Petersburg (Russia) and Tehran (Iran)

Further reading:

http://theconversation.com/a-new-wor...-lead-it-98362

‘From pulling out of treaties to denigrating allies to starting trade wars, the impulsive actions of President Donald Trump are upending the international order that has been in place since the end of World War II. But even before Trump’s belligerent foreign policy positions, America had been gradually losing its dominant role in world affairs.’

https://www.criminaljusticedegreehub.com/police-state/

‘The U.S. Police State: How The United States Has Become Its Own Worst Nightmare’

[Peter1469]

I reject that definition of nationalism.

Your use of patriotism covers nationalism.

[Refugee]

I reject that definition of nationalism.

Your use of patriotism covers nationalism.

OK, then you define the differences between patriotism and nationalism.

[MMC]

For those that think they can't be taught. Key Clue: Perception.


The Ethics of Globalism, Nationalism, and Patriotism.....



In my previous essay for the Center for Humans and Nature, “How Capitalism Changes Conscience,” I discussed research using the World Values Survey, which shows that rising prosperity changes the values of the educated elite, particularly in capital cities and university towns.[1] In an essay in The American Interest entitled, “When and Why Nationalism Beats Globalism,” I described how this new cosmopolitan elite then acts and talks in ways that insult, alienate, and energize many of their fellow citizens, particularly those who have a psychological predisposition to authoritarianism.[2] The globalists strongly support open borders and high levels of immigration while (often) opposing efforts to encourage assimilation of the new arrivals. (“Integration” is usually acceptable, but “assimilation” is controversial.) The globalists generally support transnational organizations, even when these organizations require reductions in national sovereignty. The globalists frequently accuse their opponents of racism.


I drew on work by the political scientist Karen Stenner to show how these sorts of steps add up to a “normative threat”—a perceived threat to the existing moral order that activates the “authoritarian dynamic” in those who are predisposed to authoritarianism. So if you want to understand why nationalism and right-wing populism have grown so strong so quickly, you must start by looking at the actions of the globalists. In a sense, the globalists “started it.” They initiated the chain of events which have caused right-wing nationalist reactions in many countries. This is consistent with scholarship suggesting that conservative movements are usually best understood as reactions to waves of change promoted by progressives.


It would behoove us all, therefore, to understand the two sides better. What do globalists want, and why? What do nationalists want, and why? The answers will differ across nations based on their differing historical, economic, and demographic trajectories. Yet if we step back far enough, we will see networks of psychological traits and philosophical commitments—recognizable across countries and centuries—that predispose some people to join one team or the other.


Emile Durkheim was not a conservative, but as one of the founders of modern sociology he studied the forces that bound groups together and created communities in which individuals were willing to restrain themselves and live according to rules and norms. In his master work Suicide (from which the excerpt on the right is taken) he described the process by which individuals come to accept the constraint of external authority. Such constraint is essential for the creation of any society or institution. It is also generally good for people, Durkheim believed. Using only the primitive data available in the 1890s, Durkheim showed that people who are more tightly bound by ties of family, religion, and local community have lower rates of suicide. But when people escape from the constraints of community they live in a world of “anomie” or normlessness, and their rate of suicide goes up.


What Is Human Nature?


In his book A Conflict of Visions, the economist Thomas Sowell offers us a detailed and profound analysis of these two views of human nature.[6] He calls them the “unconstrained vision” and the “constrained vision.”


Sowell’s point is that social and political perception is like visual perception: social reality presents itself to us as fact, not as interpretation. People who hold the unconstrained vision believe that people are fundamentally good, and they think it is obvious that all have the same potential to succeed. Any inequality we find in the world is therefore obviously caused by institutionally entrenched racism, sexism, or some other form of injustice. This is why the unconstrained vision is usually held by people on the left; it underpins and gives rise to the progressive impulse to question, challenge, and replace existing institutions in the name of “social justice.”


But people who hold the constrained vision of human nature see things differently. They start from the presupposition that people are deeply flawed, egocentric, irrational, and prone to violence. They see peace and civil order as hard-won accomplishments; Furthermore, it seems obvious to them that people are different—some are smarter, stronger, or harder working than others, and therefore the mere presence of inequality in the world is not proof of injustice. This is why the constrained vision is usually held by people on the right; it underpins and gives rise to the conservative impulse to maintain the status quo, even when that status quo contains inequalities, and even when the person him or herself seems (to a progressive) to be a victim of that status quo.


Globalists see nationalists as hopelessly parochial. The word “parochial” means, literally, concerned with matters of the local parish, rather than the larger world. But as it is commonly used, the word is an insult. OxfordDictionaries.com offers these synonyms: narrow-minded, illiberal, intolerant, conservative.



Burke noted that “turbulent, discontented men of quality” who are “puffed up with personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order.”


Adam Smith offered a similar argument that parochialism and local commitments more generally are good things because they cause people to apply themselves in ways that can do the most good:

That wisdom which contrived the system of human affections . . . seems to have judged that the interest of the great society of mankind would be best promoted by directing the principal attention of each individual to that particular portion of it, which was most within the sphere both of his abilities and of his understanding.[11]

Burke and Smith are each offering a moral justification for parochialism—for caring more about those close to you than those far away. Burke and Smith doubted that people freed from local commitments and parochial identities would work as hard or care as much about distant others. Indeed, the repeated finding that conservatives in the United States give a larger percentage of their money and time to charity than do more cosmopolitan progressives seems to support their speculation.


Most definitions of patriotism refer to positive feelings about one’s country (love, devotion, pride) and a sense of duty or obligation to support or protect it. Patriotism is therefore a form of parochialism—it is a commitment to a local and circumscribed group instead of adopting a universal or “citizen of the world” identity. This is why Globalists are often critical of patriotism, and why they sometimes say things about patriotism, or about their country, that Nationalists perceive to be disloyal at best, and treasonous at worst.


When confronted with a conflict between the interests of your country and those of another, patriotism, by definition, demands that you should choose those of your own. Internationalism, by contrast, means choosing the option which delivers most good or least harm to people, regardless of where they live. It tells us that someone living in Kinshasa is of no less worth than someone living in Kensington, and that a policy which favours the interests of 100 British people at the expense of 101 Congolese is one we should not pursue. Patriotism, if it means anything, tells us we should favour the interests of the 100 British people. How do you reconcile this choice with liberalism? How, for that matter, do you distinguish it from racism?


This is the kind of statement that turns many people away from Globalism. Most people believe that that their own government should place their welfare above that of foreigners, just as most people believe that their own spouse, mother, friend, boss, or teammate should care more about them than about a stranger far away. The willingness to erase local loyalties and obligations in order to maximize overall utility makes sense in John Lennon’s imaginary world, but it is sacrilege from a Durkheimian perspective in which people have distinctive duties tied to their particular roles and relationships. And if Burke and Smith are correct, then universalism won’t even deliver the benefits in reality that it promises in the abstract.


To be a nationalist, in America or in Europe, is to be frequently lectured to and called a rube by the globalist elite. The globalists assert things to be obvious and indisputable facts (e.g., “diversity is our strength”) that seem to nationalists to be obvious and indisputable falsehoods. The globalists explain away the nationalists’ policy preferences as resulting both from lack of education and from selfishness (i.e., not wanting immigrants taking scarce resources from the National Health Service). The globalists assemble panels of economists and other academics, and sometimes even movie stars, to argue their case. This is why Brexit leader Michael Gove said, “I think people in this country have had enough of experts.” This is why Donald Trump’s attacks on “political correctness” have won him the gratitude of so many working-class and rural white voters.


Diversity is difficult and often divisive. It’s not shades of skin color that divide; it is the perception that people in other groups have different values, and that they behave in ways that violate our moral worldview. Among the most important divisions within many Western nations is now the division between globalists and nationalists. The two sides have many real differences that must be worked out by a long and difficult political process. But political disagreements may become more tractable if both sides can understand each other a little better, and if both sides share a love of their country that is both passionate and—to varying degrees, perhaps—welcoming.....snip~


https://www.humansandnature.org/the-...and-patriotism


And yet all the promise there is of coming together. Is doomed to fail all due globalists not accepting. When they are wrong. Especially thinking they know what Patriotism is. Even more terrifying to globalist and leftists is the reality of physical perception and what stands before them. A reality they can't escape.

[Hoosier8]

The only reason nationalism is being portrayed as bad is due to TDS.

Nationalism - identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.

This directly thwarts the interests of globalists.

[Common Sense]

In the most simplest terms, patriotism is simply love and devotion to ones country. Nationalism is the belief that your nation is superior to others.

[Common Sense]

The only reason nationalism is being portrayed as bad is due to TDS.

Nationalism - identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.

This directly thwarts the interests of globalists.

Nationalism had negative connotations long before Trump came along.

TDS seems to go both ways. Trump seems to have deranged his opponents and his supporters.

[Chris]

In the most simplest terms, patriotism is simply love and devotion to ones country. Nationalism is the belief that your nation is superior to others.

That's special. Dictionary says the common meaning is "Identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations." https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/nationalism

[Hoosier8]

Nationalism had negative connotations long before Trump came along.

TDS seems to go both ways. Trump seems to have deranged his opponents and his supporters.

Democrats used to be nationalists so....

[Refugee]

Oh, I don’t do copy and paste from others MCC. I like to explain myself and expect others to give their own views. I’m discussing nationalism, not capitalism or Durkheim. I’m certainly not a globalist and cheer on European patriots who want to keep their countries cultures and values, in the same way that I agree with Trump about the wall and immigration quotas. I’m talking about nationalism, the control of others using the idea of exceptionalism.