We do not have an informed citizenry. A viable, democratic nation is impossible without one. My main goal these days is to figure out how to protect my loved ones and myself from the stupidity of my fellow citizens and the very stable genius that they inflicted upon us. Sad.
2
Nationalism is spreading around the globe. While nicely word-smithed this article does not nothing to elucidate the causes or possible remedies to confronting nationalism. Unfortunately the author failed to clearly frame the argument, and presented a "salad" of opinions, not coherently stated.
7
‘Nationalism’ too often is an attempt to redefine what our nation is. Why don’t we just pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and the Republic for which it stands?
1
If we were to regard the planet as one sacred entity and humanity as one group of special beings, that would be a great start. If we looked at nations as having autonomy such that individual differences could flourish and be respected but not foisted upon others. If we lived without aggression and did not covet that which was the provenance of others, we could shout about our own strengths while also championing those of others.
Greed, selfishness, superiority, self-aggrandizement, the idea that being rich makes you better, these and many more things go into the ideals of individuals and nations. The further we go away from the Golden Rule, the worse off we are. The more we degrade the earth, cheapen public education, mock the arts and sciences, and hold up religion as a panacea, the worse off we are.
The threat is within each of us. The fear, the anger, the weakness is in everyone. The more it is faced and acknowledged, the less power it has over our choices, both individuall and collectively. Morality isn't possible when it ignores that which is for the common good.
If, and only if, we had a collective consciousness that exaulted generosity, kindness, sharing, forgiveness, fairness, etc., we and the world would flourish but so few people trust those values in their own hearts, they don't show up in the world. We have the government that we deserve and, to me, that is the worst thought of all. How can so many people think that our present direction is a good one?
12
Perhaps a starting point would be a required Civics/American History/Constitution Class for all where at the end there would be 2 test questions: 1) How do you define America? (the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave is an unacceptable answer) and 2) How do you plan on living up to that definition.
8
Fascism treats people as instruments of the state, while liberalism treats the state as an instrument of the people.
32
Maybe this is an intellectual's view of nationalism, but my support of the Democratic Party springs from the ideals encoded into law that are outlined in our Constitution, our nation's founding document. My experience of the current nationalist movement is that it supports the 2nd Amendment without understanding its true meaning and has little respect for any other aspect of our Constitution and is founded on racism and fear. The U.S.A. was established as a nation of laws, not personalities; we were escaping the reign of a capricious monarch who greatly resembled the capricious president who now occupies the White House. If nationalism is truly about support for and pride in our country, then that pride should be focused on fulfilling all of our Constitutional ideals, not simply the Second Amendment. I am astonished to watch a president who so blatantly tramples upon the First Amendment in his depredations of the free press, and even more astonished that there is a section of the population who believes that this represents "nationalism" or "patriotism." The United States has no claim to an identity based on genetics. We stole this land from its natives, and all but the First Peoples are immigrants here. If we're to be compared to a culinary dish, then we are a stew containing many different ingredients suspended within the broth that holds the stew together, that broth that serves as the stew's base is our nation's ideals as expressed within the Constitution.
10
What great set of thoughtful NYT Picks on the Nationalism Op-Ed.
I may have missed a reference to an engaged citizenry and specifically voting. If less and less of us vote for various reasons, our voices cannot be heard.
Its all well and good to protest, wear pink caps, "Like" an FB post or retweet strong opinions, do an Occupy movement, a BLM and now the young people of Florida finding their voice against guns.
But...all this is naught unless we have a majority of citizens voting in each and every election from local all the way to the federal level. Only then we can have a vibrant Democracy. There is no reason why we have to fall like previous empires but it is a sure thing if we are not engaged politically.
11
The adoption in every national constitution of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would be a good start for claiming that the universal brotherhood of humankind is the goal. National borders are irrelevant when contending with climate change, refugee crises, and rising authoritarianism. A truly cosmopolitan, liberal, multicultural future is what the majority of humans want, no matter the nationality.
5
While I agree with the writer's general comments and policy direction, his comments about Canada reflect the same ignorance of conditions in Canada I see displayed so often in the United States. Canada's issues with racism are far different than those in the USA. While Canada is still struggling to reconcile with indigenous people, overall there is much less resentment of immigrants and much more acceptance of a multi-ethnic society compared to the US. Furthermore, the hard right in Canada and their white supremacist ideas are quite marginalized and rejected by the vast majority of Canadians.
Liberals who want to craft a more accepting society in the USA should take the trouble to learn more about their neighbor.
30
This essay has no real content. Suppose I read this and wanted to actually DO SOMETHING, what would I do? How exactly does the life of an "inclusive nationalist" vary from that of someone who (tries to) accept all people and reject nationalism altogether?
I also think the idea that this generation is going to finally wipe away the sin of racism that so thoroughly stains this country (and many others) is a seductive lie that serves only to absolve privileged people of guilt. Racism has not merely been a bug in the system of America...it has been an integral part of the system from the very beginning right through to the election of Trump. Does it make sense to say "I am thoroughly against racism and I fully embrace America"? Only by ignoring history would that make sense. Thousands of black soldiers fought and died for "America" and returned home to Jim Crowe and to find themselves excluded from the GI Bill and from government subsidized home loans. How many more times do you expect people to make the same mistake? I see no historical evidence that White American society will ever yield equality and justice to black people. So what kind of nationalism does that leave us with?
6
Absolutely. The Right "owns" the Stars and Stripes. WHY? It's a total right-wing branding effort. We should all have sported American Flag bumper stickers next to the Hillary and Bernie stickers....
3
"In the United States, the model had once been a melting pot. But asking individuals to conform to one unified culture puts the price of admission to the nation too high."
If you think the price is too high, don't buy. No one is forcing you come here. It's this kind of smug contempt for national identity that propels people like Trump into the White House.
24
Then there's the perhaps crazy hope that our media landscape, currently fragmented on so many fronts (political, ethnic, religious, economic, sexual, even consumer), will in the long run eventually come around to unite us along more common and benign human instincts. Just as the internet has united once outsiders, making them feel part of something bigger, it is also exposing us to these outsiders in a way that we might determine which of them are harmful, helpful, or benign. As these revelations sink in, there's hope we will take them into account and adjust accordingly into something beyond nationalism or patriotism, something global that is beyond global economics.
3
What worsens resentment between various groups is increasing economic insecurity. This is “un-American”, contradicting our stated historical ideals of upward mobility/opportunity. Millions of jobs are off shored, then the profits are off shored to avoid taxes. This, in a democracy?
We are seeing un-American class stratification and inequality. Then we get a President Trump who is a definition of an UnAmerican leader---an authoritarian, who admires dictators and disrespects the public. Make the connection.
The US ranks lower than many advanced nations in the GINI Index of economic equality and mobility. This huge fact is completely neglected by our news media and columnists.
Could a NYT columnist stick his/her neck out and discuss how strong unions would unite people of all races/ethnicities along common goals for good work conditions, wages, health care?
But strong corporate/political forces work against this, as a norm. A fragmented and divided public is good for their hold on power.
Corporations are in effect "unionized”---they’re organized and well funded for max effect. We the People are kept individualized, disorganized, thus little political clout.
Forbes: Sweden 67% unionized. US 10.6. (and 6.4 of private sector.)
Vox article: As of 2013, over 2/3 of workers in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland were unionized. In France and Austria, a minority of workers are in unions, but 98 % are covered by collective bargaining contracts.
13
Nationalism means taking care of people in the nation, and we don't do that, and, actually few countries do that well.
Immigration is a problem because we can't even take care of our own, or, I should say, we choose not to, and many immigrants arrive with little and we offer them little, so their lives may be better than before, but for many, their lives wouldn't be called 'good'.
We refuse to talk about equality. Refuse. Freedom is easy, because the rich talk of the freedom to make and take as much as possible. But, equality is a non-starter, because the rich don't want near that one.
Our wealth, income, property and power are concentrating; here in the US and in much of the world. The corruption is deep and destructive. Why do you think the anti-immigration mob is so popular now? It's because the people already in these countries are given no hope for a good life. They see the few take more and more, and they're left behind. Struggling. Losing. Falling.
So, we attack the immigrant instead of the rich and powerful. We accept the oligarch and plutocrat but not the immigrant. We're a sad country, too lost and lazy politically to elect people of the left that might try to create a better society, a common good. We're too greedy for democratic-socialism. We want to be rich like Trump. Poor folks vote for the supposed-billionaire. They don't care that he's a bully, they're mad, they relate to the anger.
But, don't call them patriots. They're just selfish, angry and afraid.
9
why should anyone, conservative or liberal, embrace nationalism? please show me one instance in history where the embrace of nationalism had a positive lasting infuence over a nation...
3
Einstein defined nationalism as "the measles of mankind," an infantile human condition. For as long as we fail to see ourselves in one another, we'll suffer with the malaise of nationalism.
5
This piece is a wonderful example of the old leftist adage “scratch a liberal, and a fascist bleeds.”
Liberalism today is losing ground because it has traded in whatever fire, whatever spine, whatever worthy unshakeable convictions it had, in for money and approval with the wealthy. It does so incredibly little to actually help the working class, which still and always will be the most populous class so long as capitalism is extant, and then extols itself when it makes those little token efforts. American liberals seem to think Obamacare is something comparable to the NHS; the reality is that the ACA was a Republican (Romney’s) health care plan that the Republicans gutted even more before voting it through.
No, the answer to nationalists is not “we need more nationalism”. Liberals have plenty of nationalism already; why else would they support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq so happily? If anything, liberal nationalism is exactly what enabled the rise of nationalists. If conservatives and anyone to their right are by definition nationalist, and liberals are ALSO nationalist, then who exactly is going to really oppose someone primarily defined as a nationalist?
Liberalism is rotten, dying, and incapable of mounting any real defense against the resurrected fascism that is ascending across the Western Hemisphere. No, the answer isn’t “we gotta get more racist”. It’s fighting against nationalism, using INTERnationalism. Try socialism.
2
Open borders, multiculturalism and unsustainable population growth are incompatible with nationalism, environmentalism and patriotism.
13
Let's not throw "melting pot" out with the bathwater. If you've made the momentous decision to uproot and relocate here in the states you have also made a decision to contribute to this society. To do that you must acquire some cultural currency: learn the language, learn American culture AND sprinkle your experiences into the pot. No ghettos. Ghettos bad. BTW, I am a bleeding heart liberal.
7
Most politicians that get the label "nationalist" are really authoritarians or more correctly fascists. A true nationalist leader would build infrastructure, would build education, and would have health care to build the strength of the people. I have never seen such a politician. They do not exist. Certainly, Trump is not that. Like most supposed nationalist leaders he is a fraud, a bully and a moron. The only thing good about such idiots is that they fail fast because their political tendencies are unconnected to reality and sure to fail.
4
What makes America a great nation and worthy of nationalistic pride is how our ideals try to honor what it means to be a free human being. We grow stronger as a nation by welcoming and encouraging others to join us and live in this way. Of course our history has shown us falling well short of our professed ideals, as we are a work in progress; but this basic truth of honoring, above all else, what it means to be human, is a liberal value that American ideals stands for.
3
The implementation of these "ideals" obviously leaves much to be desired where laborers must sign non-compete agreements to become employed, and the majority of votes cast in presidential elections are discarded in the counting process.
1
This is is a wonderful piece. It’s one flaw is the call for the nationalism described is a call to liberals. Why not all. This description of nationalism fundamentally seeks a culture where the common good takes precedent. To be sure there are those we call nationalists in America for whom race is paramount. I believe they are in the minority. Our best opportunity is in resisting the labels and choosing sides based on those labels.
2
"Nationalism" is a game played by megalomaniacs with dreams of global conquest.
2
Liberals can reclaim nationalism by cracking down on immigration. The very idea that someone can buy citizenship through investment or overstay of a visa and then gain access to the rights and privileges of every US citizen for themselves and their extended family derides the very idea of citizenship. Friedman was correct in his pronouncement that mass immigration and the welfare state are incompatible. Why would taxpayers willingly vote to redistribute their income if citizenship is cheapened?
Democrats won't do it. Firstly because wealthy Asian and Hispanic voters are a reliable voting bloc. Secondly Democrats and their wall street donors aren't actually interested in building a functional social safety net. In the past, periods of high immigration were followed by long periods of closed borders and assimilation. That is not happening now and we will all suffer for it.
18
"One common reaction to the dangerous excesses of nationalism has been to forgo the need for any form of collective identity, exhorting people to transcend tribal allegiances completely. But for better or probably worse, it’s easier to be moved by the suffering of people with whom we have some form of kinship. That is why nationalism remains one of the most powerful vehicles for expanding our circle of sympathy."
With all respect, this is one of the most absurd things I've ever read.
What nationalism wants, as a POLITICAL theory (= justifying certain new laws), is to translate all conflicts AMONG citizens of the same country into conflicts based on cultural identity.
Why would a worker accept a law that "deregulates" worker protections today? For the same reason workers accepted to work in the wild capitalist economies of the 19th century: because "culture" is all that counts, and by doing so he contributes to the "wealth" of HIS "nation", rather than that of "other" cultures. That hides the fact that within that nation, TWO very different cultures exist, notwithstanding unity of language: the elitist cultures and those of ordinary citizens, who systematically see the wealth they produce transferred to those elites.
Anti-nationalism doesn't promote forgetting about CULTURAL differences, it's a political theory reminding what workers all over the world have in common, and how uniting in order to get more anti-elitist laws is the only thing that will improve their lives.
2
Yascha Mounk's essay seems to conflict with what most New York Times’ readers consider a prudent response to reactionary politics based in a revival of nationalism. I also agree liberals should not try to promote a “better kind of nationalism” based on a celebration of our many sources of diversity which is not even possible without addressing the realities of white supremacy. Nationalism, like capitalism, promotes competitiveness resulting in winners and losers and both have been at the core of what most consider being an American. However, neither are now the most useful basis for America to work together with other nations, not only to increase own domestic well-being, but also to prevent a world-wide calamity from inadequate international efforts to reduce climate change.
3
> In the United States, the model had once been a melting pot. But asking individuals to conform to one unified culture puts the price of admission to the nation too high.<
Yeah, so high that millions upon millions of people did whatever it took to get here and enthusiastically blended into that melting pot. How much better off we would have been if the nation had become a Balkanized collection of neighborhoods without a common language, political system, etc.!
6
In the US, we have developed divergent understandings of the meanings of the same words, such that "liberal" has become an epithet totalitarians use to project their own totalitarianism onto others.
6
All due respect, to construe this as a way to "reclaim nationalism" is wrongheaded (or perhaps, just poorly put). I'm not sure that political parties can get past the current civil war between them. But as citizens we should not be thinking about "claiming" anything for our group. We should be thinking about how to find common ground that bridge the political divide, and to rebuild a common civic identity all Americans can share. As citizens we should be thinking about our shared values and how we can govern ourseives. This means not only best practices locally. It means we need to work out how together we can take our country back from economic elites and corporate interests, their toadies in Congress and the clown prince in the White House.
For a delightful PBS segment on how the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots and the co-founder of MoveOn.org became friends and realized how much they had in common), see http://bit.ly/2I0PqUC . This is from the new PBS documentary, "American Creed." And this is just the beginning.
3
This article does nothing to fully explain why some groups feel "nationalism". Could it be that them or their fathers fought to protect the rights enshrined in the bill of rights ? Ah yes,those rights that make our country unique and a light in a world that is mostly corrupt and dictatorial.
The world is not at the " Star Trek" moment, we cannot come together when most of the world does not respect basic human rights. That's why more than ever this county and what it stands for needs to be celebrated and promoted. "We the people" one day should be a global bill of rights for all. Maybe in 200 years we will all get there.
3
The "Bill of Rights" is misnamed. It is actually a set of instructions to Congress limiting its use of powers delegated to it by the people.
If liberals are to reclaim nationalism, it behooves them to actually create a new identity, rather than attempt to modify a 19th century idea to 21st century realities. The notion of the American melting pot was an remains exclusive, I would argue, because it demanded that all conform to the Protestant idea, which is itself an exclusive one. The Canadian endorsement of multiculturalism represents a better attempt, yet it also presents the contradictory idea that strength is found in diversity. Needless to add, the conviction that Canadian identity is governed by multiculturalism and official bilingualism renders a paradox: one can celebrate his/her ethnicity, but only in 2 official languages.
If multiculturalism becomes the basis of founding a new liberal identity, it's further incumbent on liberals to become more inclusive themselves. By this, liberals should view multiculturalism as an manifestation of modernity, rather than a medium through which they express smugness and self satisfaction. While it's one thing to articulate that sentiment to conservatives, it's quite another to signal that to Third World immigrants, who particularly resent such patronizing.
Then again, the revival in ethnic nationalism and patriotism may be as short lived, as the cosmopolitan ethos celebrated twenty years ago with the advent of globalization.
1
Ken Galbraith (a 1960s liberal political economist) coined the expression "word-fact." When society does not approve of some aspect of itself, but saw it as too difficult to improve, Galbraith said, it just gave it a more favorable name. This tendency, noted from Orwell through Trump, seems too useful to die and appears, among many other places, in this column.
By any moderately accurate definition, "nationalism" is exclusive. Let's not ruin the word just because it's non-P.C. It is what it is, and for better or worse it's strongly reflective of, and strengthened by, our inherited tendency to divide the world into groups of some kind of "us vs. them." Even on the original Star Trek, the United Federation of Planets was at never-ending war with the Klingons and the Romulans. We real people have been expanding the "us" for a century or so, and I hope and expect we will continue, in spite of the current bump. The forces behind this expansion are mighty, but so is our genome, which will never be comfortable with the meme of expansion. Compromises will continue to be made. But the pure idea of "liberals" is not, never were, and never will partake of the pure idea of "nationalism."
Let's at least be honest and accurate virtues to be prized now more than ever...
2
It seems that a major problem lately is that we've lost most of the shared values that used to bind Americans. When those are all gone, we have no remaining basis to make political decisions on except pure tribalism. Maybe the current shock to our system will reaffirm a certain population segment's faith in the American institutions that used to inoculate us from Banana Republicanism. But it can only happen if Fox News is willing to relax their brain tentacles.
4
Nationalism is a part of fascism, which is by definition a right wing ideology. It has no place in any correct-thinking (liberal or conservative) person’s mind.
5
Maybe if liberals would focus on our glorious history, rather than always focusing on our faults and warts. When you push a book such as 'A People's History of the United States' in our schools, you can't suddenly decide you're patriotic.
Liberals denigrate the military, liberals fled to Canada to avoid military service, liberals threaten to tear down statues of Jefferson and Washington, and you tell us you love your country?
5
Progressivists want to END nationalism, not claim it. Nationalism is a noxious force in modern history. The one of the goals of internationalism and progressivism is promote just rule of law, and nationalism at its core is myth-making that divides people on the premise of socially constructed, imagined pasts.
In the meta of things, a just, humanist world is not a world arbitrarily divided into warmongering nation-states. I don't want progressivists to reclaim nationalism. Gaining people's trust based on the victimization of others is self-defeating. Nothing in the course of the last two centuries suggests that the nation-state can be repurposed to the greater good of humanity.
2
In a society that does everything it can to promote one person understanding that they are better than the rest - through money, sports, religion, race, etc - you want to make everyone realizes they are all the same?
Good luck on that.
2
I believe collectively citizens can express and embody collective political idealism. While this ability can be diminished when they feel threatened and is easily manipulated for political gain- it can be genuine and constructively channeled.
The best way this can be achieved and sustained is by their direct participation in democratic process- whether protests, elections, movements, initiatives, etc. Unfortunately too many shy away, rationalize or avoid such levels of commitment- even to the point that they can't be inconvenienced to even vote. And it is this state of malaise and indifference that is seized upon by autocrats such as Trump to attain and consolidate power.
More importantly this collective idealism, should not require charismatic leaders- but rather a sense of individual and communal empowerment. In the end this should be one of the chief aims of political education. But unfortunately we are still far off the mark- and instead we find our society gravitating towards totalitarianism, fear and dis-empowerment in a sea of ignorance.
1
Orwell described nationalism as "the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests." A popular quote from Albert Einstein says: "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."
Can there really be a "good" from of nationalism? Have we given up on humanism?
1
What should define nationalism for US is not so much the romantic notion of a nation, but a scaling back of all the meddling the US does around the world and a focus on whats within the borders. The regime changes, the arming of rebels, the hundreds of military bases around the world, all of this needs to be scaled back. Now is the time to invest in national education, health care, and infrastructure. Investing in the Nation, that's nationalism to me. The identity stuff and religion, thats not for me.
11
Liberals have zero chance of "reclaiming nationalism" while they employ employ deliberate misinformation to undermine constitutional rights as a way to suit their whims.
For example, homicides by rifle gunshot number less than 1% of all gun deaths in the US annually. homicides by small, inexpensive handgun exceed 30% of all gun deaths in the US annually. Yet liberal media, such as this paper, have run sensationalist headlines above the fold, daily, in an attempt to deprive Americans of their -clear- constitutional right to own and use rifles.
This deliberate misinformation of the public is truly untenable and conservatives, and now most moderates, recognize this. Were such an assault on the 4th amendment underway in conservative media, the liberals would be enraged. Yet, Stop & Frisk has been proven to work, whereas, the former 10 year long assault weapons ban had -zero- statistical effect on gun deaths in the US.
The current liberal attack on US constitutional rights renders any -talk- of liberal "nationalism" a mockery.
4
Mmm. Whatever. I still say allowing 11 million people to walk in to our constructed nation illegally, or overstay their visas, is wrong. Exploiting them is wrong. Using them to lower everyone’s wages is wrong. So whatever about nationalism. Just fix the mess 30 years of border neglect has made.
24
Nationalism is what ignites war. Only inter-dependence can save humanity, actually progress it.
6
I've had this disturbing feeling in my liberal bones recently that because trump has refused to do anything about past,present and future meddling in our elections,the corrupt GOP and trump will "postpone"the mid terms for fear that they can't be legit.Just saying…..
1
Nope, we need to get over nationalism and promote internationalism!
I agree with George Orwell - nothing wrong with patriotism, patriotism is love of native land. Nationalism is saying my people are superior to you people...
4
Let’s start by working towards winning the midterms and that means foregrounding four or five broadly popular winning themes, front and center of which should be the GOP plans are to attack, diminished, privatize and generally ruin two of the most popular national programs, Medicare and Social Security. Why the Democrats aren’t talking about this daily or hourly just stuns me since there is ample proof in the president’s budge as well as Paul Ryan’s explicit wish to do so. Also, Democrats should seek out every region and state that will lose and are losing jobs as the result of this stupid trade war. Stop talking in generalities but, instead, pin point every company and district where there are job losses as the result of the president’s idiocy. There so many low hanging fruit for Democratic victory, but they seem determined to ignore the easiest and most obvious path to winning votes.
5
Liberalism and nationalism are contradictory terms one cannot be both.
The biggest mistake that liberals have been making for the last fifty years is that we haven’t become multi-lingual.
2
"How Liberals Can Act as Threatened and Paranoid as Republicans"
Fixed it for you
1
There is a fascist idea that has taken a pretty deep hold in America and the oligarchs who have foisted this upon US are not going to go away quietly. We might very well end up a real two tiered Nation with our feudal lords living in extreme wealth on islands of plenty surrounded by oceans of desperate and heavily armed people.
The republican party has worked very hard to create a divided Nation of us against them; they are coming for our guns, they won't let us be Christians, they want to turn us all into moochers and takers, they are trying to install Sharia law, they believe illegal Mexicans are better than "real" Americans.
These tactics have worked better than imagined because they have concentrated their wrath on issues like abortion and gay rights; which really do deeply offend some of us.
I don't know if We the People will be able to negate the influence of the koch bother's money and F(alse)ox not news but we had better.
When our government is once again under the guidance of public servants who believe in serving their Nation and everyone in it we can then begin to educate and welcome back those who believe us to be the enemy.
If we don't put our government back into capable hands we have lost.
3
The motto for America’s multiethnic nationalism is on the Great Seal of the United States —
“e pluribus unum”.
Progressives can take that and run with it!
3
What's a liberal to base their nationalism on? Certainly not the Constitution. According to them it was written by white men, slave owners who wrote the Bill of Rights to keep the black man on the plantations. No! America is not a nation worth getting national about. America's history is one of racism and genocide. Even the Declaration of Independence was penned by a white supremacist who owned slaves and used the slave women for his sex toys.
Why are liberals even thinking about nationalism in America? Call it a squatter's rights ism. They have attempted to repudiate the very foundations of this country. Not even the elections are valid. The Electoral system is flawed. It was written to protect the plantations and keep the slaves down. The second amendment was included to suppress slave rebellions. American territory was stolen from the native tribes through genocide.
1
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." I suppose Sinclair Lewis never actually said it, but it sure appropriately captures the sentiment of so many fascist regimes. I don't think liberals and progressives should emulate the rabid patriotism of the Mussolini's/Hitlers.
Love it. Would require liberals to blow up their sacred cow, the calamitous cultural revolution of the 1960s.
1
Duane Coyle says, in a NYT selected comment, "Until we require universal, involuntary, uncomfortable, multi-year service we will be fractured alienated from one another."
Yes, Mr. Coyle, but young people must have options other than "military". The Peace Corps was another way for young people to gain experience about the world. I believe we need a mandatory two-year "civil service" requirement for every young person upon the time of high school graduation and/or their dropping out of high school. No exceptions for any reason.
Each young person could choose military service or civil/community service and would be required to serve in a place away from home and in the opposite kind of community where they were raised. OUR United States of America is huge and diverse and every person/community has something unique to contribute. Young people from wealthy communities must see first hand what it means to struggle like those from Appalachia. Young people from poor communities must see first hand the opportunity available to them by serving in wealthy communities.
This would be a proactive approach to educating young people about the possibilities and dangers of the world and would foster a greater understanding about OUR U.S.A. and world.
15
Perhaps if all of us concentrated on what we have in common, our humanity, we could change our counries identity. Until we all realize what we actually have in common, liberals, moderates and conservatives will never be able to help us heal.
2
I agree basically with Sensible Bob, below. People need to escape from the desperate daily struggle of attaining food, shelter, and safety for their families and themselves before they can have room to remember the ideals on which our beautiful country was founded. Universal education is the most important factor in even being able to think of, much less act on those ideals. With the basic tools of education -- literacy, math, and now technology -- individuals might have a chance to get a stable job and begin the route to independence and the above safeties. However, accomplishing that takes money to develop effective education for everyone, housing availability, neighborhood safety for all, and local economies that create jobs. A Federal government that takes billions of dollars from the Departments tasked with funding those efforts for people's development -- rural and urban -- and allots those billions to departments that focus on war and punishment, ends up having to spend more billions on safety nets. Even many GOP Governors realize that they need to develop constructive, positive, and respectful programs to help their state and local communities help individuals build their tools for success. Investment in such programs may cost money, but it ends up saving money and results in a good kind of pride, the pride of accomplishment, not the pride and false nationalism of claiming to be better than your different neighbors and blaming them for your problems.
1
You have absolutely no data to support any of your claims. Exactly what program ends up saving money?
Correction of typos in previous post.
This article missed a real opportunity to craft a modern American liberal nationalism in the tradition of Theodore Roosevelt’s New Nationalism speech. It first attempts to belittle nationalism by conflating the concepts of “nation” and “state”. While the modern-day state is arguably a recent phenomenon, nationhood is almost as old as humanity itself. States are legal entities that have sovereignty over territory. Nations, on the other hand, are peoples with a common heritage, usually ethnic in nature. The history of most Eurasian nations is rooted in ethnic-based nationalism and so it will be a driving force of their domestic and foreign policies for the foreseeable future.
In contrast, the United States was founded not on an ethnic or denominational basis, but on the concept that all were created equal and were endowed with basic human rights. While we have struggled, sometimes bloodily, to fully realize this vision, we should never forget how revolutionary the concept was during the monarchical, absolutist nationalism of the 18th and 19th centuries. We fashioned a nationalism that was committed to achieving this American Dream for all our citizens regardless of origin or religion in the hope that other nations would see the benefits of such a society and adopt those ideals in their own unique way. The author rightly touts these ideals without realizing how unique, indeed exceptional, they are.
3
Throw out the "culinary metaphors." Our country is a mosaic. Each piece is unique and no two shapes are identical. Yet even as we remain identifiable in our uniqueness, together we make the picture. That's what we have to remember.
5
I think pointillism is a much better metaphor than mosaic.
There's only one thing that may explain why some liberals today believe in the possibility of a liberal version of nationalism: having forgotten how, when and why liberalism as a philosophy was created in the first place.
Liberalism was an answer not only to conservative philosophy, but was created precisely at the moment when that conservative philosophy invented nationalism.
In nationalism, what is supposed to bind people together is the fact that they are supposed to belong to one single "nation", an organic unity with its own soul and history, as defined by one single language and ancestry and "culture". Of course, THAT never existed, so nationalism was an ideology invented in order to justify the cultural homogenization of the population living in newly invented "nation-states". THAT in turn served as an excuse to justify horrible capitalist exploitation of ordinary citizens by the wealthiest ones. Workers with ridiculously low wages, 12 hour shifts, no holidays, no healthcare etc. were idealized as contributing to the "wealth of the nation". And it's those same elites who colonized Africa etc., needing cheap foreign labor to increase their own wealth.
Liberalism shows people that what binds us together POLITICALLY is our common humanity, even though language and ancestry are of course part of our individual identity. And politically, we have more in common with an exploited African worker than with our own elites exploiting both, that's why we have to unite globally
4
It is hard to shift to a nationalistic theme of equality for all when far too many people in this country feel threatened by it and do not want to give up their "identity" of privilege--whether race, sex, religion, or wealth.
Too many people think of life as a zero sum game -- whether by nature or nurture or both.
Key is how to get people beyond this?
3
Mounk’s challenge to liberals to reclaim nationalism was stirring. It infers that this restoration will come from a contest with conservatives. Liberal-conservative or Democrat-Republican, seeking our better angels by overcoming tribal divisions is not promising.
Gordon in her book about the KKK explained its 1920s success was due to six deeply held American tenets such as nativism, evangelicalism, and populism. These beliefs have remained strong as evidenced in the red hysteria in the 1920s, the un-American hearings in the 1950s, the war support in the 1960s and up today with bumper stickers of “these colors don’t run.”
Based upon past, a liberal-conservative contest for being more American has been disheartening. There remains effective politicians who have tapped into America’s core values and triumphed—Nixon, Reagan, Trump.
There was a liberal who tried to achieve the results that Mounk believes possible. Former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern. McGovern said, “The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one’s country deep enough to call her to a higher plain.”
Nixon crushed McGovern 520 electoral votes to 17. Since then, liberalism became a pejorative, still in use. The Democratic Party abandoned their philosophy and moved towards the Republican positions.
It is with our laws and our court system and its promise that all Americans will have their civil rights protected—this is our foremost commonality.
3
I agree with “doughboy” but am pessimistic that there is any way of turning the country around. We’re now going through the process of getting Irish citizenship.
Nationalism, a sense of identity, will hopefull be achieved
through a public aware of diversity as a good thing and
globalism as a way for understand that human beings are
in the same boat. The flag will then be a proud but
waving advocate of consanguinity. We are all blood relatives,
just check universal DNA vs. racial or ethnic DNA count.
Nationalism should just be fun.
1
This piece makes at least a couple of errors. First is its assumption that all of today's "nationalists" are racist and do not share "liberal" inclusiveness. That dismissiveness characterizes today's liberal class and belies their own claims. Second, and more crucially to the argument, is the avoidance of what liberals have truly forsaken and disdain: populism. The mainstream "liberal" parties are now openly parties of Wall Street and War, parties of Empire. It is no mystery that people are forsaking them for any voice that speaks up for workers and against the waste of war.
8
Terrible. Appeal to your voters' actual self interests instead of turning to myths that immiserate them and lead to imperialist wars. Redistribute wealth!
1
This piece should be studied by every democratic candidate entering the upcoming elections. The notion that all of us, despite many different backgrounds, are one “nation” seems so self-evident but our politicians do not embody this ideal; to the contrary, the dems are focused on dissecting each group into distinct political entities. This strategy will not work. Many people are more in line with the democrat ideals but will not vote for a party that seemingly focuses on tearing down the very idea of one nation.
6
Yascha Mounk says patriotism is relatively dovish, while nationalism can be hawkish and aggressive, because it’s about excessive or fanatical devotion to one’s motherland and its interests, which is often associated with the belief that one’s country is superior to all others. There is little room for moderation, tolerance and respect for minority groups and those that don’t fit into the mould.
While the globalised economy had lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, the opportunities had been accompanied by a new set of problems, like social inequality, wealth gap, erosion of national identity, as a result of multiculturalism etc. Nationalists capitalise on popular grievances by proffering a more aggressive and isolationist stance – closed borders and protectionist trade measures etc. – hoping to solve the problems.
Indeed, mainstream politicians and the civil society will have to get their act together, if they seek to build a strong country. Only a secular and inclusive society will secure viable peace and stability.
3
The kind of "nationalism" I want to see is Social and Economic Justice for ALL Americans.
That is what the democratic party stood for in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt/Eleanor Roosevelt years and until Nixon.
Teddy Roosevelt (R) busted the trusts, which allowed true business opportunity and competition in OUR United States of America. He set aside public lands.
Today's "republicans", are fully owned by the International Mafia Top 1% Global Financial Elite Robber Baron/radical religion Good Old Boys' Cabal who enthroned The Con Don as their talking head in America and Mike Pence as their main supposedly christian man to roll back human rights.
Anyone who votes for a "conservative" in today's world is putting another nail in the coffin of the world the vast majority of us want.
4
We all need a frank discussion about nationalism. what it means and how do we each lay claim to it. It should not be some scale that we use to weigh loyalty or quality, a flag to wave in front of the world. It should be that big tent that we talk so much about where we are all different and come from different places, but stand under that tent that is constructed of our Constitution, Laws, and The language of our Declaration of Independence. It is a tent that we should invite all who honor it to join us under. A place where religion, race and gender are not qualifications for entry. Both Republicans and Democrats should embrace this.
2
Today only Democrats embrace this idea - together with a clear majority of the American people.
And there's a reason why that's the case: liberal philosophy has always refused to build a society cultivating language/ancestry/culture (= what nationalists decided to call a "nation") as what should bind us together, and instead decided to build a society cultivating certain particular values, which are precisely rejecting the idea that only people sharing the same language/religion/culture should have the same rights and opportunities.
"Inclusive nationalism" is a contradictio in terminis. It simply doesn't make any sense.
Nationalism has been invented to IMPOSE, by force, one single language on people living within the states that resulted from internal wars in big European empires rules by aristocratic families, and as such actively create "nation-states". That was then supposed to make ordinary citizens forget that they were completely exploited by the new capitalist elites, and instead make them believe that they were contributing to building one great - and wealthy - nation.
Liberalism denounced those fake ideologies, remembering that it's NOT "the nation" that is requiring people to work in such bad conditions, but wealthy elites who couldn't care less about "nation", in real life.
Today, the exact same thing is true. Trump and the GOP only pass bills benefiting those elites, making working conditions worse for ordinary Americans AND workers of other "nations"...
3
"There is a sizable number of Americans for whom the idea of the nation remains synonymous with whiteness and Christianity."
Perhaps that is so, but my idea of the nation is synonymous with the idea that laws. once passed, needs be obeyed until changed and that voting, not rioting, is the way to change them. When I see members of any religion, race, or political spectrum who do not act in accordance with that, I think they are bot part of the real nation.
Nationalism is a natural outgrowth of tribalism, and like any tool can be used for good or evil. It embraces whatever the principles of the nation are, and those can change over time.
3
Mike, our country came into being with acts of civil disobedience and, soon after, an act of war.
Thinking that an oppressed underclass can always achieve economic parity by presenting their needs as rational requests is a pleasant dream not substantiated by history.
This article missed a real opportunity to craft a modern American liberal nationalism in the tradition of Theodore Roosevelt’s New Nationalism speech. It first attempts to belittle nationalism by conflating the concepts of “nation” and “state”. While the modern-day state is arguably a recent phenomenon, nationhood is almost as old as humanity itself. that have sovereignty over territory. Nations, on the other hand, are peoples with a common heritage, usually ethnic in nature. There are states that are not nations and nations that are not states. The African states created after the end of colonialism are the best example of the former and the world is full of examples of the latter, such as the Kurds.
In contrast, the United States was founded not on an ethnic or denominational basis, but on the concept that all were created equal and were endowed with basic human rights. While we have struggled, sometimes bloodily, to fully realize this vision, we should never forget how revolutionary the concept was during the monarchical, absolutist nationalism of the 18th and 19th centuries. We fashioned a nationalism that was committed to achieving this American Dream for all our citizens regardless of origin or religion in the hope that other nations would see the benefits of such a society and adopt those ideals in their own unique way. The author rightly touts these ideals without realizing how unique, indeed exceptional, they are.
2
We are all born encoded by our DNA. However what makes life very interesting is that then culture kicks in to allow the DNA model to adapt to the "living conditions" of the moment.
This is where education, without restrictive personal agenda, starts to embed the surrounding culture into the virgin minds. Education in school starts to show you the diversity of life in all disciplines. It counterbalances what may be too one-sided in a home or a spiritual church.
In fact, it is the combination of all these elements school, home, church that elevates a human mind above parochial concepts.
Recall also that teachers in these different arenas namely school teachers, parents, pastors, have to have also been properly taught.
All of this should present a system of checks and balances that will sustain a democracy.
If any of these pillars is too corrupt then you will have endemic problems then and in the generations to come. Take the examples of churches who take it upon themselves to condemn liberal education at every turn or parents who instruct based on what they feel and fear.
The term "nationalism" has recently been re-characterized by partisans to taint any expression of patriotism or love of country with racist innuendos and tribal intolerance. The term, nationalism, was originally used to describe the rise and development of nation states, which had as its primary motive to achieve economic advantages. Larger countries simply have more economically resources than smaller countries or city states. The imperative to achieve these advantages, had initially forced some unification through conquest, from which comes the current characterization that nationalism necessitates authoritative/military rule. The reality is that the hierarchical nature of power in these early nation states was fundementally based on class structure. That changed In 1776 with the founding of this country on democratic principles. In our Constitution there is no trace of tribalism and there is no racial, ethnic or religious qualification for rule. We are not nor will we become tribal. We have always been a diverse people and our principles have enabled us to evolve away from provincial prejudices and make us a freer people.
We, as a nation, are part of a global community of nations, just as we are a nation of individual states and diverse peoples. It is not the forsaking of our love of country that will enable us to forge a more perfect union and a more perfect world, but rather, our continued dedication to our democratic principles.
1
Mr. Mounk, count me in. Your article gives me hope that traditional liberalism can return from the ashes of right wing demonization and left wing marginalization.
I would argue, though, that what you are suggesting is for liberals to articulate a vision of nationhood, not nationalism.
There is too strong a likelihood that liberal nationalism would go by the way of right wing nationalism, something that liberals could never condone or support.
But a liberal vision that can inspire and unite us as a nation, that promotes democracy, citizenship, freedom, rights, and responsibilities, including the right of all to think, express themselves, and believe freely, and the responsibility to be tolerant of those who think and live differently from ourselves- need not inevitably lead to the tribalism and oppression that results when the nationalist beast breaks its leash.
3
"But the attempt to turn countries with monoethnic identities into truly multiethnic nations is a historically unique experiment (...)."
If you study the history of nationalism, you cannot but observe that the exact opposite is true. Nationalism was created in Europe 2 centuries ago in order to serve a very particular purpose: for almost 2,000 years, most of Europe had been governed by aristocratic families that controlled vast regions of the continent (often called "empires"), which were by definition multi-ethnic.
In the 19th century, however, after incessant wars and the rise of capitalism as economical system, "intellectuals" invented the notion of a "nation-state" in order to justify splitting up those empires into smaller political units (often because that made it easier for the elites to exploit the uneducated masses economically).
A "nation-state" is a state which borders are supposed to coincide with those of a "nation", a group of people sharing the same "soul" through sharing the same language and having lived on the same soil for generations.
There was only one problem: those "nations" didn't exist. So "nationalism" was invented in order to homogenize the people living between those new borders - imposing one language/religion etc.
Today nationalism serves the exact same purpose. The left has always replied that what binds us together is much more profound than language or ancestry, that's why it's anti-nationalist. "Inclusive nationalism" is an oxymoron...
3
"(...) a state in which all members have the same rights and opportunities irrespective of the group into which they are born or the culture to which they belong."
But why would such a political system somehow still be called "nationalism"? Where's the "nation" in this kind of "inclusive nationalism"? What defines it? The very notion of a "nation", compared to that of "country", has from its creation in the 18th century on implied the existence of 1 single language and ancestry (and often also religion/race/...). The very purpose of nationalism has always been to IMPOSE the "culture" of the elites on an entire region. That's how a country acquires a collective "soul" and becomes a "nation-state", rather than merely a state among other states.
So what is the "soul" of an "inclusive" nation-state, IF you want to maintain the notion of a "nation" and the idea that the American people should be transformed into 1 "nation" ... ?
Let's suppose that Mounk doesn't have any answers to those questions for a moment. The question then becomes: why is nationalism rejecting equal rights and opportunities for all (and why do people vote for it)?
This goes to the very heart of what "democracy" means: if we allow those with very different (and sometimes even anti-democratic) values to vote, I will lose my democratic rights as a citizen. THAT's why so many Evangelicals want the US to actively promote ONE religion, for instance. I don't see how "inclusive nationalism" addresses this ... ?
''For the foreseeable future, nationalism is likely to remain a defining political force. ''
No.
We are in the last throws of nationalism, misogyny, racism, white privilege and so on. The new order is going to be democracy, equality and humanism ( even socialism ) carried in by the young. The demographic is just about ready to take over the world. The numbers show that more and more.
This administration ( U.S. ) is an abhorrent blip that was decided by a mere 77k votes over 3 states. ( helped by another nationalistic power or person from Russia ) It will be correct in November and further in 2 years after that.
We are getting closer ~ not further apart.
2
Uh-huh. The Young were supposed to make all this stuff happen in the 1960s. Read Reich’s “The Greening of America” from that era. Very attractive. Very forward-looking. Very peace-love-dove stuff. Very pipe dream, utopian and nonsensical.
1
With apologies to Yogi Berra, "It's déja vu all over again. Time to dust off a copy of Randolph Bourne's "Trans-national America" and revisit his now forgotten concept of a "the Beloved Community" of all Americans regardless their origins.
Big assumption made here is that “opposition to a more equal multiethnic society” has led to fervent nationalism. As if all the Trump voters are extreme racists. The resurgence of nationalism is the opposition of Middle America to selling out our homeland to the multi- nationalist corporations and globalists who don’t give a whit about Kansas. The only exclusion in recent years has come from the Left with its pro-minority, LBGTQ social justice warrior crusade infiltrating every aspect of our communities. The collective identity you lament the lack of is what used to be called “the melting pot.” We all knew where we came from but respected our differences. It certainly did not enforce conformity to a unified culture. The “worst aspects of nationalism” are more prevalent in the imagination of Ms. Mounck than actually a problem in our towns.
2
“It is a state in which all members have the same rights and opportunities.” This is a utopian fantasy. How can people truly have equal rights, with the stark difference in wealth that exists? Answer: They can’t.
Nationalism and patriotism are forever tainted terms. What Mounk is proposing would require a collective reprograming of how we perceive society.
It would be wonderful if humans could embrace a single tribe – humanity – that would recognize common goals and challenges. But racism, religion, sexism, power-lust, and capitalism have all colluded to fractionalize the human species rather than unify it. Realizing “a common future fair to all” would necessitate stripping humans of contrived tribal identities they misguidedly cling to for comfort and sense of purpose.
The only way toward a common collective identity is to force capitalism to recognize the social contract - that there is another kind of profit other than financial profit i.e. social profit. But capitalism is a rapacious shark that runs on greed, the myth of the free market, and socially toxic financial regulations that give corporations license to seek profits only for their shareholders.
Capitalism is the “half-wild” beast that needs to be domesticated. To do that we also need to re-imagine our democracy and recognize that, from day one, it was never meant to be egalitarian, but a process – contrary to national myth – intentionally designed to keep power and wealth in the hands of a few.
1
Yascha Mounk ignores some important lessons of history with his advocacy of what we might call, "better nationalism."
A knowledge of history, or even the careful reading of newspapers, shows that government is a major source of evilism based on racism, nationalism and religion, exterminating hundreds of millions and oppressing many more.
The correct choice is a consistent and resolute anti-evilism approach, not by joining the evilists with a "better nationalism," while believing in a fantasy of consistently winning all future elections.
1
It is vexing. Patriotism and nationalism draw on collective historical memory to varying degrees. The Nazi Party even fabricated historical memory for racist ends. Last summer I wrote an op-ed (http://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/larry-mccallum-to-know-canada-visi... that modestly (I thought) celebrated Canada's 150th year since Confederation. But in highlighting aspects of my country's cultural history I inevitably, perhaps, foregrounded its white culture at the exclusion of other ethnicities. We are indeed entering uncharted multiethnic territory, where a nation's history sometimes sits a bit uneasily with its present and future.
Liberals abandoned the principles of nationalism and freedom after WW II when they saw peace as more important than liberty, a horrible mistake for the opposition against the American war in Vietnam that started when Eisenhower backed the French puppet government's refusal to participate in national elections and secede in southern Vietnam. JFK and LBJ trampled into the Vietnamese mud everything my father and their generation fought to preserve in Europe and Asia. Our nation since Truman bought French propaganda about a Domino Theory and supported their war to reclaim Asian and African colonies. American liberals rejected the Atlantic Charter FDR and Churchill developed during the war that said among other things, 1. territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of the peoples concerned and 2. ALL people had a right to self-determination. Thailand means land of free people and the pride of Asia for never becoming a European colony simply laughed at our fear of Communists, gladly taking our money while thousands of our boys died fighting for a government with almost no support among the Vietnamese.
American liberals can reclaim nationalism based on liberty and equality. Lennon was naive to Imagine a world with no countries, a desire Palestinians, Kurds, and other marginalized minorities hope to attain. Liberals must stand for self-determination of all peoples and make sure Americans understand we're being ruled by people with little interest in liberty.
Mr. Mounk makes a compelling argument for liberals to work within the reality of how nation states define themselves within their respective borders and across the community of nations. His proposal is sound. However, in addition to liberals recognizing the indelible nature of national identity as a step toward a better patriotism, enough of us across political spectrums must acknowledge other realities. In the United States, for example, the fact is that we have always been a racially interdependent society. The problem has been with our national identify's failure to acknowledge it. The United States could not have conceivably emerged with its global influence in less than a century had it not been for the contribution of its diverse populations, fundamentally its slaves whose labor was totally capitalized to their owners and to the world markets that consumed our exported commodities at costs discounted of wages. Even the physical appearance of our population is evidence of our shared history long before any legal ruling sanctioning "mixed-marriages." We have been integrated throughout our history, but we have yet to acknowledge the unjust terms of that integration let alone account for its essential role within our national identity. Before the world can realize Mr. Mounk's vision, even Europe's identity, which ascended on the backs of other continents, must embrace its historic dependence on the very parts of the world whose populations they now reject.
1
Focusing on what unites us rather than divides us as "Americans" may be fine on the micro level of making us a more empathetic and successful society, but when it is couched as nationalism, it will always be corrosive on the macro level. As human beings regardless of where we were born on this planet, there is only one road that does not lead to species extinction, which is to remember that what we all have in common dwarfs what divides us. I have spent most of a long life traveling around the world with a backpack, observing foreign cultures and beliefs, eating local foods, visiting places of worship, sleeping in local guesthouses and people's homes. My nationality has almost never been any part of the equation and having seen and learned all that I have, it is a personal imperative to keep it that way.
I still embrace the idea of the United States as a melting pot. My in-laws married outside their cultural heritage and religion. My father-in-law was a city boy raised in the Jewish tradition while my mother-in-law was of Swedish-Finnish descent and Lutheran, and grew up in rural Upper Peninsula Michigan. They married in 1950. My dad, who grew up on the west side of Chicago in his Taylor Street Italian neighborhood was the first in his generation of cousins to marry someone who was not of Italian ancestry - his first wife was "Pennsylvania Dutch" and after she died unexpectedly, he married my mother, who was of English, Dutch and French ancestry.
2
Inclusive patriotism is a good concept and I wish it the best in the world. But am I supposed to feel patriotic inclusiveness to those whose rigid moral or religious codes are oppressive and anti-egalitarian? This is especially true of the Muslim regard for sharia. If you doubt the anti-egalitarian nature of Muslim culture, look up the "Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam" (1990) signed by 45 "Muslim" nations. This document specifically embraces sharia as the proper Muslim response to the U.N. "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" which is considered a Judeo-Christian and Western social construct. Secular liberals love inclusiveness and think that their beliefs are superior to anti-egalitarian and exclusive religious belief. How this clash of civilizations plays out over the distant future will be most apparent in Europe. The author of this article seems to think that we just need to be inclusive and it will all work out. He gives no voice to the apprehensions of those who see irreconcilable differences.
4
... "a state in which all members have the same rights and opportunities irrespective of the group into which they are born or the culture to which they they belong."
That is the problem, sadly, right there. The US has large groups of people today who primarily identify themselves with their own history of supremacy and privilege. And to give that up, in the name of equality, means a loss of "identity" to them.
The same for religion: too many devout whatevers are convinced their beliefs are the "correct" ones--thus superior--and should thus be forced on others. It is not enough for them to have the freedom to practice their own religion (or not).
Republicans love to complain that Liberals don't listen to them. Why is that, do you think?
Liberals, while sympathetic to the economic issues, don't have an interest in listening to their rationalizations to defend their privilege over others. And they're not interested in listening to their arguments of religious supremacy.
It will be impossible for us to respect and celebrate diversity when we insist on attaching labels of superior/inferior, right/wrong etc on every cultural and religious difference.
2
America's nationalism narrative shifts with circumstances, but after 6+ decades here, the message was one of inclusion of foreigners, sought equality for all, was a forward looking country expanding our knowledge, technology, and help to the world - the dream.
Reality is there is a dark strain of racism, bigotry, oppression and disenfranchisement in this country, a underlying police state whose extremes have become more evident, and a obvious deliberate effort by the current administration and republican governments of the country to undermine the principles and values of the country in the gas lighting phrase of "Make America Great Again".
This column talks a lot, but manages to actually say next to nothing. Since there is nothing really to rebut or affirm, as no argument is ever made, I'll make a couple of observations.
First - Obama was never a liberal, and though he was full of pretty words, his rhetoric amounted to very little. He did not act on them.
Second - Our melting pot once was the envy of the world. It no longer is. And yes, we've been pushing the "salad bowl" model, if only in our public schools, in which I have taught for over twenty years. That model is the antithesis of nationalism.
Third - Nationalism has produced some great things, including Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States.
Fourth - Waving a bible in one hand and a flag in the other while clutching an AR 15 in your teeth is not nationalism.
13
Liberalism appeals by liberating people. That is why freedom from religion is such an essential element of it. Liberalism does not support any rationale to undermine the primacy of reason over faith.
2
Nationalism and showy patriotism freak me out. They smack of dictators, propaganda, racism and brutality. Like courage and character, true love of country is quiet and heart-felt, but ready to be demonstrated if called on. We live in a world, not just a country, and the world only moves forward, Every day countries and people are more engaged, not less. Nationalism is the past.
3
Others may disagree with you and they have that right. Personally, I hope nations never disappear, because the ability to care about something larger than oneself seems important to me.
Born in 1957, I have always been a proud American (with the exception of a few years of teenage rebellious "posing" at 16 years old). However, here is the question I struggle with in 2018. Imagine that the United States does not exist. Imagine instead that there are 50 independent states. Or, 5 independent regions. Can I make a compelling argument to create a country called the United States with the current geographical outlines? What is the rationale?
Historically, this construct has allowed us to wield greater power. This has both rewarded us economically and allowed us to (at least attempt) be a force for good on the world scene. Certainly there is no longer an economic rationale that requires a "United States". Technology has seen to that. As for international relations, it is easy to imagine that we would all be better off if the US was not the dominant actor on the world stage, especially with today's leadership. All of the arguments in favor of American nationalism seem to require an implicit acceptance of the historical benefits of having a United States, coupled with an explicit unwillingness to consider an alternative construct.
The rejection of populism as constituting nationalism needs to be done not just by liberals.
Why do you want ordinary people to have no say in their own government or lives?
Nationalism is intellectually childish and morally repugnant. Can’t we get over it already?
3
Who are YOU to make that proclamation? What if others disagree with you? They have that right, by the way. Why is caring about one's country "morally repugnant"?
I'm sorry, but I think this is wrong-headed. We liberals should stick to affirming universal values and let the ignoramuses and bigots affirm xenophobia and the ignorant claim of superiority. Thinking oneself different is the slippery slope to thinking one has license to dominate and colonize the lesser people.
3
The DNA of Nationalism has too much racist genetic material to ever turn out to be something positive. The entire notion is “we are better than those living outside our borders”, is a setting up of an us against the rest mentality. This will and has led to ethnic cleansing to purify the precious bodily fluid of the mother or fatherland. The Western World had advanced past empire, medieval fiefdoms, holy emperors until it slipped on a banana republic peel and feel back into a dark history. Look at what is happening in the U. S.; quit giving us your tired, homeless yearning to be free, unless they are brain surgeons and take back your refuse. Our leader will not cooperate with other nations or his own legislature, he is only concerned with unilateral royal waves the the scepter in the name of “America First” but in the service of himself. Nationalism by definition is helping us, strengthening us, glorifying us in opposition to them.
2
Readers seem to feel that patriotism/nationalism inevitably leads to war. I disagree. Both French and the UK are countries with strong identities, but are peaceful and no longer expansionist. Switzerland and Sweden also.
2
Fifty years ago Robert Kennedy responded to a comment that Americans engaged in social change present "the best image" of the country to the world: "Well, not only our best 'image'--that's a Madison Avenue word. That IS the United States, in my opinion." Exactly.
The next month, in front of students at the University of Alabama, Robert Kennedy said this: "We have to begin to put our country together again. So I believe that any who seek high office this year must go before all Americans. Not just those who agree with them, but also those who disagree, recognizing that it is not just our supporters, not just those who vote for us, but all Americans, who we must lead in the difficult years ahead. And this is why I have come, not to New York or Chicago or Boston, but here to Alabama. Some have said there are many issues on which we disagree. For my part, I do not believe these disagreements are as great as the principles which unite us."
In 1968 Robert Kennedy called for a sharing of sacrifice, and the people cheered. That is how a nation proceeds along a path to perfection.
1
As a young man I worked for Bobby in New Jersey. His last years were spent articulating some of our best virtues. We need many like him today, idealists with passion who are willing to take risks.
1
"One of the greatest political challenges of our age requires 'principled resistance' to right wing nationalism"? Hogwash! This is political navel-gazing at its worse. Zen stuck in its own nothingness. A maya tone deaf to the allusions arrayed in imaginations removed from blood and tears. Yes, there is a danger in "blood and soil." But right wing nationalism hides its roots! It flag-wraps xenophobia/racism/misogyny; authoritarianism, the discredited beliefs of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, violent radicals and cultists under a phantasmagoria of glorious nightmares. It proffers a paradise of oppression controlled by a force of righteous, elite fools who get everything wrong. Their false conspiracies about student shootings embolden chaos! Inert to indifference and greed, nationalists use scapegoats to slip the yoke and ally with power and wealth.
This threat, is not the "greatest" we face! It is marginal, compared to the realities at its roots. First, nationalism is a response to non-national conflicts; fierce, modern attacks against citizens by competing groups armed with modern weapons of war. Financed by nations who use these groups as proxies in Syria, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Sudan. Inside Myanmar, North Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, these armed conflicts ignore state boundaries to target civilians, creating the largest displacement of citizens in modern times, disrupting schooling, employment, opportunity. Nationalism is a symptom--not a solution--that makes this worst!
3
By focusing on nationalism and not its roots in global displacement and violent conflicts, we perpetuate it! We confuse essence with appearance, ignoring substance. The left's victories must be achieved by energetic advances in the good: finding ways to end conflict displacement, physical and economic disruption—punish real offenders rather than blame victims.
Nationalism distracts from the clear path of growth outside and beyond global conflicts—and the path that the left must rigorously pursuit to ensure the practicality of its ideas in action. The complaints of nationalism must be marginalizes as being of its own making; modern nationalism is crass political exploitation! The left must respond by showing its clear understanding of transformation: using infrastructure to strengthen community economics and remove racist and sexist barriers, connecting economies without barriers, enforcing social order without imposing on freedoms, rewarding personal virtue.
Nationalists are proxies for the rich. The left must oppose stockpiles of global wealth being mined from public treasuries. In the US, healthcare paid for tax cuts! $1.5 trillion was transferred to the private sector (citizens got wishbones), leaving government with an unfunded deficit. The grab for power and massive inequity is the greatest threat in our times. Mass shootings, terrorism, and nationalism are merely symptoms that deny, conceal and distribute its pain.
2
When I look at my neighbors I see Americans. When I walk around my village I see Americans. When I go into NYC I see Americans. I don't see African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Jewish Americans, or any hyphenated Americans. I also see people. In the end what matters most is how we treat our fellow human beings whether they are citizens of our country or not. That's one way we can do this country proud: to treat all with courtesy, kindness, dignity, and respect whether or not they are citizens. It's what we expect when we're in other countries and no less than what we should do here.
7
I agree with Duane Coyle. The service is now only for those who have fewer options. Those with many options don't seem to even consider joining. It creates further division. It may also be that mandatory service would help troubled young men get through a difficult period in their lives when anger and confusion sometimes causes violence against others or self.
2
What liberals should be reclaiming is an international worker consciousness. American workers need to start seeing the Mexican and Chinese workers as their "compatriots" in the fight for a living wage (and more) throughout the world. This includes traditional "white collar" workers such as teachers, programmers, even doctors. There should be world-wide resistance to "non-compete" clauses in worker contracts, for example.
And what better place to start than the U.S., where workers from Mexico, China, India, etc. occupy a significant part of the workforce?
The way forward is not to retreat into nationalism, it's to make globalism inclusive, and that starts with empowering workers to effectively compete against corporations.
45
Of course, in the meantime, US workers are forced into third world poverty while still being lectured to about their "privilege" by members of the "professional" class.
10
Inclusive globalism ... what a wonderful notion indeed!!
Inclusive globalism is what liberalism, as a philosophy, has always defended as its core value.
It means that no matter what your language, religion, color of skin etc. is, as a human being you have the inalienable right to be treated decently - to have access to a decent job, decent housing, decent healthcare and education, and decent wages.
It also means that those things will only become reality IF "we the people" build on that common ground in order to force the wealthiest elites who try to divide and exploit us to abandon their wild capitalist politics through voting new laws.
Nationalism has always been THE right-wing ideology used to distract ordinary citizens from the fact that the elites couldn't care less about "the nation" and only care about their own wealth, and use the government to pass laws that systematically distort local and global markets in their favor. "Regulations" is a notion invented by them to make people hate laws that reign in the wealth and power of the elites ... as if what binds us together is NOT the laws we managed to obtain in order to guarantee a decent life for everyone who works hard, but rather arbitrary things such as language or culture - things that certainly are part of what defines us as INDIVIDUALS, but that create artificial unity among wealthy elites exploiting the masses, and those same masses electing them, all while artificially opposing other "nations".
2
"Patriotism, some philosophers argue, should be understood as an innocent love of country that is inclusive at home and cooperative abroad. Nationalism, by contrast, excludes other ethnicities and stands in competition with the interests of other countries."
Succinct explanation of an important distinction. Not just "ethnicities," though. Deeply troubling to me, at least, is the schism in this country between Trump-backing so-called "Evangelical" Christians and everyone else--progressive, liberal Christians and just about everything else including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. So, besides ethnicities, let's add tribalism; in this example it's tribalism cloaked in religious vestments.
The Constitutional separation of church and state wasn't just a novel, noble goal at the time of our country's founding. These people understood that the only way to create a cohesive public body was to eliminate religious tribalism--in fact, that was obviously more important at the time than racism (slavery) or gender (women couldn't vote or even own property).
The hard-right fundamentalist, nationalist "Christian" movement in this country is every bit as dangerous as the Catholic Church's crusades all over Europe in Medieval times when they wiped out people of their own ethnicity (along with others, no doubt) who didn't toe the official Church's dogmatic line.
Vote in November, and get out the vote among women, minorities, and all who appreciate how important this is right now.
6
All the most dangerous forms of nationalism seem to revolve around the religious and moral pretentions of nations. The US took this path back in 1953, when the Red-scared Congress enacted the law that brainwashed three generations of Americans with the utterly inscrutable notion that the US is "under God", which negates the original founder's rationale for governmental legitimacy: limited delegated powers from the people.
3
I think of all the men and women of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds that have served in our armed forces to defend the United States of America. Many gave their lives and many suffered grievous wounds. Many are recent immigrants. They love this country as much, perhaps arguably more, than the lily white American that can trace his or her arrival back to the Pilgrims.
As another writer pointed out we should have mandatory national service for all men and women. Every American should have to serve their country in some capacity. It would also bring together people from different walks of life and of different ethnic and racial backgrounds so that we can start to see one another as fellow Americans and not just the "other".
1
Perhaps we can change the way we argue, and that can move us toward a common understanding.
The ancient Greeks invented the dialectic as a method of presenting ideas for discussion. A similar concept is propositional writing. Both involve presenting arguments in a dispassionate logical form for consideration. Separating facts and opinions, agreeing on facts, and differing on opinions, but showing logically how you arrived at your opinion.
Consider the 1960 televised Kennedy Nixon debate. Both candidates presented their ideas in a calm logical manner, careful to remain factual, and careful to support opinions.
5
And what is the reason we are experimenting with diversity? Because poor third world people have a right to come to America and experience a good life, and celebrate their culture and replace people who are here? There are dialectic forces in history. We are experiencing them now as a result of over-diversity, a resurgence of populism. That is a good thing, providing a necessary correction. Globalism, free trade, unfettered immigration from the third world will be stopped and will be reversed. American identity and exceptionalism calls for it.
2
What is so exceptional about America that demands preservation?
1
"I prefer the dreams of the future to the history of the past" said Thomas Jefferson. Why not ignore the barking of the beast altogether? A virus from Asia can kill us all, despair in Syria threatens Europe stability, poverty anywhere breeds terrorism. And I don't need to mention the business and financial ties already federating the planet. We are the same species, we long for the same opportunities we ARE interdependent and we love in similar manners (I speak from experience!). Technology is helping lifting the fog of nationalism over the global village. Luddites of the world, unite if you wish, the planet is moving on. In order to form a more perfect union, facilitate commerce and ensure global peace, the time has come to boldly endorse a planetary consciousness. E pluribus planetum!
2
How about if people disagree with you? Do French, Italian, Australian, German, Swedish, or even the hated Americans have a right to disagree with you and what if they want to continue living in their own sovereign country?
1
"There is nothing natural about the idea of the nation. Its modern form took shape as a result of deliberate political choices and the construction of elaborate myths." There is a deliberate lack of acknowledgement in this piece of how nations came to be in the first place: the desire for more land, natural resources, and cheap labor, the natural outgrowth of the Iron Law of Oligarchy. There will always be leaders of "tribes" (whatever form they take) and the power of the oligarchs is enhanced and solidified through delivering More for their people. That actually is VERY natural - this is how human beings function in society. Conflict begins when the More desired by one group infringes on the More had by other groups. Of course, death and destruction are to be avoided, by the oligarchs will choose when the perceived benefit of trying to get More for their people outweighs the perceived risk, thus "political" negotiation and compromise - diplomacy - is the first step, but when that fails, there is conflict. The incredible global swing - and the backlash - that we have experienced in the last decades is that the concepts of national boundaries and providing for the common defense within have morphed into something shameful - a denial of the nature of man, and a denial of its natural outgrowth - international law. Wholesale jettisoning of the liberal focus of identity politics - focusing on what unites us, rather than what divides us - would be a positive step forward.
4
A person with liberal sentiments (tolerant, generous) can hardly espouse nationalism (the idea that states should represent groups formed on the basis of the characteristics of common birth -- physical ethnicity, language, and religion): it's not tolerant.
On the other hand, the political sentiment that historically is associated with parties called "Liberal" (replacement of the ancien regime -- monarchical, military, clerical -- with republican forms of government) has in many cases drawn on nationalism as an alternative to multi-national imperial territorial aggrandizement.
The U.S. was exceptional, however, in that it inherited political liberalism from post-Glorious Revolution England and was republican from birth. Its unity was based on a geographic territory that it wanted to wrest from London's control, so no appeal to national distinction from England was needed (or possible). Instead, the U.S. was a contractual association via a written Constitution.
U.S. white nationalism rejects this tradition. As a minority movement, its best chance for success might be through a personality cult. The best response for people of tolerant, generous sentiments might be to exalt the U.S. political tradition of Constitutionalism and the rule of law.
1
How about pledging allegiance to the constitution not the flag? Why not unite around the fundamental principles of democracy, one person one vote, respect for minorities of all types, respect for the rule of law rather than the money of politics.
America had two revolutions, not one. The first enshrined the values of liberty. And the second erected its twin pillar, equality. Both are evolving principles, not static points.
Liberty, equality and due process of law. These are the values that make the country great and touch the lives of each of us every day. Let this be our 'new nationalism' because this is what it really means to be an American.
73
Here's the problem though.
Democracy wasn't invented by the US, but in the West by Athens 2,500 years ago, and in Africa much earlier than that already, for instance.
Today, the entire West has become a democracy for centuries already. So there's actually nothing specifically "American" about what you're writing here, whereas "nation" is a notion that refers to what is supposed to be the very "soul" of a specific group of people, a soul that is supposed to be unique.
And of course, each democracy's Constitution differs in certain regards from others. Would you really propose to use those differences as what should define the difference between let's say an American Latino and a Mexican Latino living just across the border?
Or does it make more sense to accept those differences and focus on our common economical condition in a globalized economy that isn't inclusive at all yet, when it comes to dividing wealth produced by workers equally/fairly, IF we want to try to define what should bind us politically?
Conclusion: the problem with nationalism is that it refers to culture as what should be the basis of political unity, whereas what unites people politically, in real life, is indeed the Constitution they're living under, but also a lot of economical factors that are decided upon by global elites and that transcend cultures and borders.
"To effect this transformation [to one in which all citizens are treated with equal respect] is one of the great political challenges of our age.” Rather, it is primarily a challenge not of politics but of humanistic will, or even of enlightened self-interest. References to Obama and Macron are apt in pointing to nationalistic democracy as an interim goal. As one whose education began in Ireland and now continues three quarters of a century later in America, I have a special feeling for uncompleted nationalism, but it is one that stretches hands across borders. Charity begins at home, but it must not end there. We cannot help others if we cannot help ourselves. We cannot offer an example of a superior society if we are roiled with hatred and nastiness. We cannot shine to the world while a large number of us embrace Trump's negativity.
1
Yes we are a salad bowl made up of many ingredients and the bowl is what holds everything. Our power (read flavors) is the mixing and the symbiosis of the ingredients. If we exclude ingredients we loose the strength and beauty.
2
A technological elite is busy at making human beings obsolete and even forecast a "singularity" within a couple decades when $1000 machines will outthink people. Tens of billions are being invested in AI by every major state whose result will be to achieve the "singularity", when individuals, not nations, will have to confront the fact that they have been made obsolete.
Nations, groups of people that share an idea that people of their nation matter, need to confront the obsolescence over the horizon and reaffirm the value of people. Our humanity devolves from our language, culture and traditions that are part of family and community life.
As much investment is needed in the relevance of people and not their obsolescence. A nation with its literature, art, laws and principles of governance can be a powerful instrument for making people relevant. As investments in intelligent machines continues to accelerate, the nation needs to be reconceived and energies redirected to the task of giving people relevance and infusing their lives with meaning.
Extreme nationalism gave the German people a sense of relevance after the insane destruction of the killing fields of WWI followed by the demeaning terms of the Versailles peace. Relevance based on demonizing others is self-destructive.
The European Union is an attempt to realize the vision that nations that make their people relevant in the modern world can join together in diversity. Liberals can support such a vision of Europe.
1
It may be too tempting to misuse the nationalism label. As a member of the august group of patriots called liberals, I appreciate the need for a unifying identity. The young people of Parkland are pretty darn good with their "Never Again," and visionaries like Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy could give a phrase their blessing with the greatest of ease. Let the know-nothing Republicans sail away with their Tea Parties. Give me a woman or man running for high office who is blessed with a fresh voice propelled by a trained intellect free from the smothering bureaucracy of the National Democratic Party. There are countless mainstream issues they can run on: Placing all Veterans under Medicare for one. Universal, single-payer health care, rebuilding America's infrastructure, ending our permanent wars plus many more. A name: America Leads.
26
Yah, it's called Canada. The vision the author speaks about was offered by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau in the 1970s, and all in all, it has been a resounding success. PET's vision of multi ethnic nationalism, was captured by his express rejection of the language of "All-Canadian". He rejected this because he argued it is impossoible to define what the "ideal" Canadian looks like. The author needs to pay closer attention to the history of Canada before casually rejecting its remarkable experience with liberal nationalism.
18
But according to the author and many commenting here, Canada does not have a right to exist as a sovereign nation. Also, you don't seem to be acquainted with Canada's immigration "point system". Please compare the number of immigrants admitted to Canada each year to the number admitted in the US, and realize that Canada admits ONLY wealthy, highly educated, and HEALTHY applicants. It is easy for Canada to flaunt its open tolerant and accepting society, because the fact is that they are a large, sparsely populated and rich country with a mostly comfortable, well educated population.
2
Maybe. But they also took a lot of Syrians while we stood pretty idly by. Oh yeah, and go to Toronto if you want to see an ethnically and economically very diverse (52% visible minority) city. Oh yeah, safe too.
3
Does anyone else see the forces of the early 20th century re-emerging? A downturn in prosperity leading people to find scapegoats, demand nations protect one type of citizen's rights over another, on the basis of those people being the "right" kind of citizen?
Do we see the crushing of individual and labor rights under corporate rights driving resentment and anger, driving some leftward, radicalizing people?
Folks, it did not end well.
Nationalism, in the form we see it, is "Me first" and results from a loss of opportunity. loss of voice, loss of respect, loss of security. It results from the belief that all of that was given to someone else unfairly.
If we want to eliminate toxic nationalism, we need to focus overall on increasing opportunity and security. We will never reach an ideal in which we see ourselves as a nation of people unified by ideals if we are seeing ourselves as a nation in decline.
And divisiveness? Toxic divisions that pit us against them? Well, to get rid of that we will need campaign reform which reduces candidate donations, taxes all forms of issue campaigning and demands equal time on all media, free, to offset messages paid for to sway a campaign. Otherwise, wedge issues and pitting each other against each other will remain the most cost effective way to win an election.
Personally, I see unrest in our future, and not too far in it either. I hope I am wrong, but history indicates I am not.
1
In the 1960s the left committed a major strategic error when its members allowed conservatives to appropriate the American flag, the most recognizable symbol of the nation, as the embodiment of their own values. Deeply embittered over the Vietnam war, some members of the so-called new left burned the flag and spurned it as an icon of the fascism they believed had triumphed in the US.
This blunder empowered the right wing to equate patriotism with conservatism, paving the way for the electoral victories of Nixon and Reagan. Liberalism, meanwhile, became a toxic political label, and its advocates had to moderate their views, in order to remain competitive in political contests.
Liberals, more than conservatives, had championed a vision of the nation as united by a commitment to the ideals embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. While conservatives did not reject these principles, they also emphasized the importance of WASP culture and Protestant Christianity, a conception of community that left religious and ethnic minorities in limbo.
Trump seeks to reinforce that definition of nationality in terms of citizens' religion, culture and ethnicity. This approach converts the nation into a privileged club, pitted against outsiders whose inclusion would corrupt the chosen people. In their fight against this aggressive form of nationalism, liberals must embrace the symbols, including the flag, that represent the vision of the founders.
1
The United States has been unique in that while it has a territory, that territory changed and greatly expanded during our time as a nation.
What hasn't changed are the ideals, and they are what we should re-unite around.
To paraphrase "A Charlie Brown Christmas":
"Isn't there anyone who understands what America is all about?"
"Sure, I can tell you what America is all about"
E pluribus unum
"all men are created equal"
"unalienable rights ... life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"
"Government of the people, by the people, and for the people"
"With malice toward none, with charity for all"
and most powerfully, the idea of voluntarily coming together to work together on high goals:
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America"
"That's what America is all about, Charlie Brown."
Folks, this is neither liberal or conservative, Republican or Democratic. We need to stop labeling ourselves or others except as Americans, in constant pursuit of the ideas above. We WILL disagree as to what best moves us toward those goals, but we can disagree respectfully and civilly. We will never be perfect, but we should never stop trying to form that "more perfect Union"!
There are so many competing identities, some smaller and narrower, some larger, and some just different. Smaller: political party, region (Southerner, New Englander), profession--doctor, coal miner, tech worker, scientist; corporate (ExxonMobile, Google), family. Bigger: the human family, Different: a particular religion, an entire Race or ethnicity, a nation. My guess is that liberals may know people from many countries and thus are reluctant to emphasize pure nationalism. Because of exposure to multiple sources of identity liberals find fewer of them compelling. A Polish Catholic immigrant living in an ethnic neighborhood a hundred years ago would think of himself differently from his great granddaughter who went to college among all kinds of people, spent her junior year abroad where she met a man who was neither American nor Catholic, married him and produced children with dual citizenship who are bilingual. People with narrower identities will accuse people with broader identities of not being true Americans or real Christians or whatever. People with broader identities will accuse those with narrower identities of being provincial and less open. Some people are able to fully embrace both narrower identities like nation, ethnicity, religion and family while being welcoming and open to people who do not share those identities, but unfortunately it is not nearly as common as I would hope.
16
Learn from Lincoln ie re nationalism and getting along with each other.
1-Be tolerant, treat people you disagree with, do not have a preference for with respect as long as they are law abiding. You don't have to love them, live near them or even associate with them, just respect them.
2-Go slow on progress, Lincoln taught us sometimes you have to put up with an evil to end it. He fought the Civil War and then ended slavery. Without the former he could not get the latter.
3-Unite around basic principles like all men are created equal, govt of, by and for the people shall not perish etc.
4-Although compromising in the beginning, do not give in on certain sacred things like saving the union or ending slavery.
21
Let’s be clear, the GOP has co-opted language and distorted it to great effect. The average American doesn’t have a historical understanding of nationalism. They equate nationalism with patriotism and pride. Somehow, a party of draft dodgers with American flags pinned to their lapels, are the party of patriots — the party that puts “America first” (at least the billionaires).This has to change. Maybe it’s worth taking a look at Bernie Sander’s campaign to consider how the left can reclaim patriotism while not abandoning internationalism.
You can't have nationalism without bigotry.
The two are intrinsically entwined subtexts of each other, they are virtually synonyms, if not symbiotic, interchangeable terms, certainly they exist in the same sentence on the same page of the same old, obsolete book of failed belief systems.
Humanity began as a single tribe. When territory seemed vast & clans could specialize geographically & territorially, nationalist tendencies could assert themselves & over time pretend to validate some mythological separations.
But humanity has spread across the globe like a slime-mold, a solid intermingled fungus. Territorial, ideological & economic divisions can no longer be postured or sustained. Survival of the species can no longer withstand the myth of nationalist separatism of any kind.
Nationalism was always a false abstraction & lead only to wars & mass destruction. You'd need a 'dernier combat', some global catastrophe, a vast reduction in population to bring back nationalism.
But in this scenario we live, with 8 billion of us spreading like a pathogen, infesting every survivable spot, nationalism can't exist & must be systematically dismantled & no longer indulged.
The only use for national identities is food: Lasagna vs. lo mein, tempeh vs. Tellegio, curry vs. kishka.
Beyond that, nationalism needs to be relegated to a realm of relics, architectural treasures, the terrible stories of trenches & Trails of Tears, disasters forever remembered, but never again indulged.
21
I would support everything you write and add one more thing. Nationalism in its purest form is just selfishness. Much like Libertarianism is Independent selfishness. When one listens carefully to every Trump voter explaining the reason for his/her vote despite Trump's enormous moral turpitude, what becomes very apparent is a sense of "me first." It is that sense of "me first, me only, me now" which is destroying this country and leading, not only in this country but around the world, to this nationalism beast.
2
You're talking identity politics and cultural nationalism. Which i couldn't care less about. I've only lived in coastal blue states, the more ethnic and cultural diversity, the merrier.
Economic nationalism is a different animal here, and now i care a bit more. I'm not so interested in preserving the cultural aspects of a nation, whatever those are anyway. But i figure the point of a nation is to protect, defend, and provide the conditions for prosperity for its citizens, and work towards a common good. We pay taxes, we pay for services and infrastructure and programs that serve to common good. In theory. When our government (save your breath, it's not just one party) has instead facilitated the conditions that lead to such hideous inequality, you can only cut so many people into a slice of pie that's continuing to shrink at the bottom.
Fix the economics first. Then we can talk about the kumbaya.
2
How an intelligent, correct nationalism can thrive in the U.S. today with multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural challenges, and how an incorrect, dangerous (White/Christian) nationalism can be prevented, and far left socialistic swings as well which for all socialism appear to be leading to multicultural fragmentation of the U.S.?
The answer to me is obvious: Religion of all types must be played down and interbreeding between races and ethnic groups must be accelerated. One of the challenges of technological/communications advance over past three centuries is that it has been challenging, forcing acceleration of the process in which nations were traditionally formed, the slow stitching of various tribes, religious leanings, into wholes. But the modern political/economic process has been lagging behind technological/scientific advance, causing far right and far left swings in attempt to be the solution.
Therefore an intelligent and honest grasp of the historical process of nation, culture, civilization formation must exist first, then this process must be accelerated to match the technological/scientific advance. And this of course will not be pleasant. Again, I believe religion must decline and rapid interbreeding between races and ethnic groups must occur, so that a middle ground "new people" between far right insular and too broad socialistic leanings exists. This "new people" of course, nucleus and template for future world citizen, united world of the future.
So, people don't have the right to choose their own romantic partners? That seems to be a favorite theme in your comment, which uses the word "must" a lot.
Let's all focus on the most corrosive aspect of our current democracy: Institutionalized Corruption. Instead of fighting this menace our Congress, largely under Republicans but also some Democrats, has sought to increase the power of special interests and the very rich. Corruption destroys democracy, it's that simple.
5
The lesson of history, most prominently of German history but visible elsewhere, is that when the choice is nationalism or freedom, freedom loses every time with the masses. But trying to combine the the two, even in the most benign ways, like Obama, is ultimately unconvincing - the masses can figure out when the elites are just pretending, whether it is about religion or the flag. We're still looking for a solution.
15
Economic globalism, has been used by the wealthy and powerful of the world (definitely a "tribe"), to co-opt and weaken any means of democracy which might challenge the ascendancy of their tribe. The wealthy of all nations, have much more in common with each other (their tribe) than the citizens of their own nations.
Since their exists no global government, "globalism" has been used as an excuse to dismantle *National* economic policies (such as FDR's New Deal) - policies which are necessary to best harness capitalism, and prevent it from destroying itself, politically, and economically. This leaves a power vacuum filled by the wealthy.
Nationalism has been vilified as the sole cause of horrific examples of totalitarian governments. However, Nationalism has often been merely one factor - one tactic - used by totalitarian leaders to consolidate power, once existing governmental and economic systems have been destroyed. Would extremist leaders have been able to seize power in the 1930's without massive economic catastrophe? Doubtful.
Economics and democracy are what we should be focused on. FDR's New Deal, took into account political and economic realities, promoted National economic projects, and instilled National pride - not a bad thing. Promotion of National economic policy should be a given. Other nations have National industrial policy, look to keep wages at a livable level, and try to avoid trade deficits. So should the United States.
6
The melting pot model has worked perfectly and is the very reason that the descendants of Irish Catholics, Lithuanian Jews, German Protestants, Japanese Buddhists, etc., can speak with one another in a common tongue, share common fundamental values, and enjoy the same art, literature, music, sports, and so forth.
Asking people to conform to a diverse, yet unified culture is in no way too high a price of admission to our country. Our ancestors all paid that price willingly, and that is why we are who we are today. Each of us likely bears little resemblance to our ancestors who were fresh off the boat. Implicit pressure to melt into the American pot, while still contributing a dash of your individual ethnic flavor, is precisely what made this country great. The idea that the pressure to conform has suddenly become too high a price to pay for admission to our great civilization is absurd. To destroy the melting pot would be to create Balkanization and destroy the very foundation of the country.
100
Companies and the rich hardly pay any taxes thanks to cross border schemes that allow them to evade taxes.
Instead of opening our borders for goods from poorer countries, our leaders seem much more eager to open them for immigrants from those countries. And such policies are clearly dominated by the rich who want cheap employees as there is hardly any attention to how those people should fit in.
Special interest groups have become very influential and set many policies.
Spending on infrastructure, education, industrial policy or other items that could promote the national welfare has become demonized both by the right and the left.
This is the context where voters are looking for politicians who put the nation first and who are prepared to attack any special interest that stands in the way.
Unfortunately it seems that only "populists" and phony mavericks like Trump get this. It is there that we see the real threat to democracy.
4
There is no hiding we are a work in progress, especially when a segment in power considers itself superior to others, and with the right to implement discriminatory practices on the basis of tribal attitudes (economic, 'racial', religious, ideological), an undeserving excessive patriotism akin to chauvinism, masked as healthy nationalism...as defined by unnatural borders, divorced from a global community, with basic values of solidarity we ignore at our peril. Just look at our economic system, capitalistic, naturally creating an odious inequality (and it's inequities). How can you harness a have-wild beast while having a complete beast in the White House? Domesticity seems our station for now...unless and until we rebel and try to apply such a 'simple' law as the Golden Rule.
"E Pluribus Unum"
Our elegantly simple national motto says it all, "From the many, one". It's a sin and a shame that our current governance so loudly repudiates this, our founding principle.
We speak of Nationalism and Patriotism as viewed through the lense of our political glasses of choice. If we as a nation is to strive for that more perfect union, liberals must be the ones who reclaim “law and order”.
5
Well, a good start is to be honest with ourselves. People are created unequally. In order to make a perfect society, opportunities should be equal. Therefore, affirmative action and legacy are both bad to the cause. Personal responsibility should be the foundation of the fair society. However, social safety net should be there to support unfortunate fellow citizens. Certain industries should be centralized and controlled by government. At the same time, private industries should be allowed to compete to make the system more efficient. US postal service vs. FedEx, UPS and DHL is a good example.
The real problem is liberals are not walking the walk. Their neighborhoods are "separate but equal". Their jobs are relative safe from foreign competitions and protected by glass ceilings. Their kids go to elite schools through legacy. They are addicted to identify politics for the selfish reason to keep their social status. Immigrants are merely underclass people who are serving the needs of ruling elites.
Let's be honest. Unless liberals change their tactics, there is no hope. They can look down upon normal people because they live a privilege life. Sad!
2
Nationalism pre-dates the nation-state. It is a two-edged sword with nothing inherently good or evil about it. But the power to frighten rational people into sticking flag pins in their lapels is a really dangerous one, often wielded by people who are insane.
At this point in the chaos we are forced to live in, I don't' give a rip what you call yourself. The truth be told, very few of us are a pure breed of the label we choose.
We, all of "us" have got to reclaim the 2 seats of power that continue to hold us hostage. In November, when we win back the majority of these 2 houses, the transition will not be easy nor very pretty. It is all too apparent that we have a lot of work to do to bring our democracy back the middle.
A historical midterm voter turnout is our only hope. Vote, yell it from the hood of your car, the roof of your dwelling, make phone calls, cast your vote.
"Domesticating" nationalism is a sensible and worthy goal, but of little value if we fail to stop denying the myopia, historical ignorance, and political incompetence which are ravaging the United States.
Trump is not a nationalist, he is a kind of pseudo populist. A nationalist would not side with brutal foreign dictators and against American institutions and traditions. Nor does nationalism equal denial. Trump was not elected because he had a huge following, he was elected because Republicans willfully threw away every chance to stop him being nominated, and Democrats threw away every chance to avoid nominating the easiest opponent for him.
Fiscally irresponsible tax cuts for the rich are not patriotic or nationalistic, they are risky gambles on pandering to greed. Multiculturalism can be pro-nationalist, but not if it is based on blind political correctness, tokenism and tepidness.
Nationalism for America would mean reining in any military industrial complexes, and not turning the other cheek for decades towards the murderous imbecility of the NRA. It would include restoring basic factual American history and civics to public education, and combating mass ignorance of the nation's founding principles. It would include an understanding of the Constitution framers' structure of checks and balances, and their stern warnings about the sort of decrepit and dysfunctional two-party system cancer which has been rotting American politics and civil society for too many years.
1
Walt Whitman spoke for America. As did Carl Sandburg. And Robert Frost. Look to the poets.
2
A handsome sermon, but there’s a problem.
Hatred and tribal wars are a lot more effective in uniting audiences than are calls to be kind, to welcome newcomers and aliens with open arms.
You are asking voters in our nation to get all excited about multiculturalism, diversity, equal opportunity, America’s most generous traditions, and to cheer for immigrants. But that’s called “identity politics” and has been derided as girly stuff, as PC chatter: the key cause of the Democrats’ recent awful defeats and Trump’s victory.
The only way Democrats can regain power is by maintaining their commitment to diversity AND convincing a lot of white folk who live outside big cities, in states like Oklahoma and Kansas, that their federal and state taxes will be returned to them, as reliable services, when they need them. And that the central government isn’t out to rob and cheat them. And they don’t require semi-automatic weapons to defend themselves against dark intruders and BATF agents, and preserve their Freedom.
It’s about the money. And it’s about national machismo. And Democrats can’t just be Sunday Schoolish and altruistic. We have to learn to be mean as Mitch McConnell.
And yet a lot smarter ... while more kind.
It’s not going to be easy.
As long as the author and others liberals think the "price of admission for a melting pot culture is too high" they have zero chance of reclaiming nationalism or even getting out of the identity politics trap. It is dead end vision of a world broken into victims and oppressors. Liberals like Mark Lilla who question it are attacked. The left doesn't need to reclaim nationalism, it just needs to stop the destructive identity politics that drive it.
77
No, let THEM claim Nationalism. We can, and should, claim simple decency. They eventually ruin everything they touch, given enough time.
44
Not interested in the liberals reclaiming nationalism for me. Until we all learn to treat one another as our self we will just be repeating the same old thought system of separation.
2
Nationalism, unless used judiciously, has always been an evil and led to evil results.
2
At this point of extreme dissension, there seems to be little reference in our national conversation to our storied history as a country. Our founding fathers excelled at bringing one nation out of many disparate states, even if some of their efforts were flawed. Then we explored our continent and expanded our boundaries over the next decades, with people of vision leading the way. Yes the Civil War was a tragedy, but we managed to hold it together. I could go on.
The point is, America as a nation has a compelling narrative, one that is being ignored in the current divisive national conversation. Ethno-nationalists seem to be dominating references to the past - the imaginary, all-white patriarchal past of their fantasies. But that is not who we are: we are a nation forged of immigrants, strivers, illustrious statesmen, brilliant scientists... It is truly time to once again celebrate THAT history.
2
" Nationalism is like a half wild beast ."
History has shown that in the end the beast remains wild and kills the one who thinks it controls it.
1
There would be no wars without nationalism. American children are taught as soon as they start school that they are privileged to live in the best country in world history. That is why they are willing to risk their lives to kill Vietnamese peasants and Iraqi Muslims. If they had had a better education and studied foreign languages and cultures they would have been less likely to spread violence and warfare.
5
Though far from perfect, the Swiss have found a way to love a country that is not homogenous. Thry havecultivated a form of “being Swiss” while speaking your own language or practicing your own religion. At tomes, the Swiss seem to be xenophobic, I know first hand, having lived in Lausanne for 3 years. But in the end a hind of humanism prevails. It is a model to study.
3
Mounk’s suggests that in order to fight the globally remerging intensive Nationalism, the “Liberals” have to abandon their core idea of Universalism (and even forsake its more practically relevant derivation of cooperative Globalism) and instead try to make nice with the rabid forces (“State, Race and Power overall” – and truth is dead) which are threatening to devour all liberal convictions and social values – it’s not even funny, it’s expedient cowardly capitulation.
2
How silly and wrong-headed to think that “nationalism” can be redefined. The meaning of the word is baked-in, hardened by many decades of right wing politics. Not just by the Nazis, but also by such movements as LePen’s National Front, or the British National Party. There is a strong correlation between political parties with the word ”national” in their title, and far-right politics. When I hear the word “nationalism” I immediately recoil, it holds an abhorrent connotation. Forget trying to reclaim it, there are more important battles to fight. Like eliminating nationalism.
29
So, the Brits and the French are obligated to think the way you want them to, and to run their countries the way you want them to?
That's fine. Very intellectual.
But it's always going to be about the economy. If "liberals" want to regain traction with the folks they lost to Trump, they need return to their roots. They need to shed the Goldman Sachs Harvard act and rediscover grass roots organizing for average people who are being disenfranchised.
Here's a target right now: victims of the "Gig Economy". Uber drivers are the new slaves. Big Tech is now the Big Oil and Big Railroads of the past abusing workers while people marvel at the convenience.
Democrats need to rally workers in every field of the economy and establish a bill of rights for those who are being abused by business. And it is ABUSE when your wages are so low that you have to choose between food, rent and shelter. Health care insurance? What a joke. We're arguing over caviar while witholding bread and water.
The answer for liberals and for Democrats and anyone who is being subjugated by the new and old Oligarchs is UNIONS.
Look what Uber has brought us (and we worship it):
1. Poor wages and no benefits or job security
2. Cab and limo drivers unemployed after investing heavily.
3. Increased congestion on our roads - and a turn away from developing mass transit. Our city streets are choking with Uber and Lyft vehicles while our train system is disintegrating.
People are hurting while the rich get fatter. Identity politics just alienate.
"It's the economy, stupid".
145
You are very sensible, Bob.
You do realize that the very things you complain about are what aroused Karl Marx in the German and British economy? Republicans support business above all things — period. Say anything against business and the Establishment cuts you down as socialist because 19th and 20th century attempts to spread around the profit produced by working men and women were accompanied by the worst kinds of totalitarianism. Capitalism is a great system but unless it recirculates the profit so that everyone gets a decent share, the inevitable result is a small number of increasingly rich people and a lot of economic losers.
Most of the time in today’s world we are really arguing about where to draw the lines about economic and social justice vs injustice and, sadly, the average Joe seems incapable of that much intellectual abstraction.
2
No one is being disenfranchised. That means to lose the vote.
They may be losing economically, but that's something else.
I've lived in Canada for 51 years, and I have never heard the term "salad bowl" applied to the cultural mix. The most common appellation in my experience is the more accurate "mosaic." Sociologist John Porter's classic study in 1965 was titled "The Vertical Mosaic." The tiles have shifted since then and have arguably become more horizontal, but it's still a good metaphor. I gather "salad bowl" is sometimes applied to the U.S., but it's certainly not "often" used in Canada.
The author also omits Australia and New Zealand from his discussion of immigrant-dominated countries. Quebec and French-speaking Canada would provide another, quite distinct, test bed for his theories. The role of language should never be underestimated in these discussions.
1
For a long OpEd this is very light on substance. What exactly is Mounk proposing? He says we need 'a collective identity.' What would it look like? How would the state or the culture foster it? David Brooks writes of belonging to a nation as belonging to a particular story or narrative. How does Mounk's nationalism compare to that? Speak plainly and say what you mean! This is the Times, not an academic journal, Mr. Harvard.
2
Why is he never former President Obama? The dumpster fire in the whis is called president. Faux news won by disrespecting our former president and we now have a joke for president. The tribalism that exists brings out all the hateful and cruel beliefs that will destroy our democracy.
Perhaps this column might be more readily digestible were the author to refer to some genuine liberals rather than neoliberals like Messrs. Obama and Macron. The fact that the Times spell-checker (similarly to those of many other media organizations does not recognize the word "neoliberal" is revealing: there appears to be reluctance by our so-called liberal media to perceive the difference.
8
An astonishingly naive analysis of the slow-motion suicide of Europe, and a prescription for American disaster. If you want a preview, visit Malmo, Sweden, or the bluest, most segregated state in America, with the worst quality of life...California.
2
Nationalism? Like 1914 nationalism? Nationalism gets people killed!
1
Yes, believe we can redefine the word nationalism if we must. I find it too close to Nazi in my brain. However, I understand the need for pride to exist. It CAN exist on a broad plain to include all of us.
1
This is a nice kum ba yah piece, but it doesn't reflect reality. As long as liberals are tied to the democratic party, we will be bound by the globalist bankers on the top and the progressives on the fringes.
And Obama? His"inclusiveness" was completely reflected in his "clinging to their guns and religion" comment and subsequent actions tostrongman culture change into non-compliant rural cultures.
2
i have noticed in my travels that the countries most comfortable with collectivism, socialism (think strong social safety net, universal health care), are the more homogeneous ones. New Zealand, Western Europe and Much of Asia have populations defined by common identity and language. The more alike a population feels the more they think collectively. Americans will do that but mostly in their own small group, their town or church. Canada being a notable exception, perhaps due to their French/English dual heritage. The paradox for liberalism then is to reconcile our two cherished values diversity and collectivism. Perhaps we should look to Canada for ideas and inspiration. Somewhere between the melting pot and the salad bowl is the soup pot. The flavors mix but still retain their original flavors.
2
Harmonious coexistence of diversity doesn't endure where the law is discriminatory and unequally applied.
Your characterization of Canada as a homogenous country other than for the fact of its French/English heritage split gave me a chuckle and is charmingly out of date. The “French fact” in Canada represents about 20% of the population. But more importantly, visible minorities represent 22% of the population and “foreign-born” Canadians are 20% of the population. Let alone the 5% that are First Nation in origin. So, actually, not homogenous at all. And BTW, they don’t actually see themselves as “socialist” and get a kick out of it when we call them that.
2
I meant that Canada manages to have a robust social safety net and universal health care while being quite diverse . We could learn a lot from Canada
1
This essay contains beautiful language and lofty sentiments. Too beautiful and too lofty by half.
The sad truth is, nationalism has generally been tribalism writ somewhat larger, in those geographic areas in which it was possible to unite a group around shared ethnicity, religion, language. The original nation states, as compared to empires, were pretty small geographically; they had to be in order to cohere for any length of time. (And empires always fragmented eventually.)
The attempt to make large, modern nation states keeps running up against the very different ideas that the different groups subsumed within them have about what life is and how it should be pursued. The more diverse ethnically, religiously, or linguistically a nation tends to be, the more unstable it tends to be. And for those who argue the United States has done pretty well with all its diversity, be reminded the nation is only two hundred forty years old or so, almost split apart once, and seems on its way to doing that again.
It may be that we, as humans, have not evolved to the point yet at which our foremost allegiance is to each other, to our fellow humans and to the planet we all live on. When that happens, we won't need nation states; we may be able to organize on both larger and smaller levels based on which model's most efficient to accomplish particular tasks. But it'll be a while before we get to the United Federation of Planets, if we do before environmental disaster.
52
When the US cracks up, it will become largely economically irrelevant, like the other two countries that have yet to adopt the Metric System used by all other countries.
2
Excellent essay. Pitch perfect. All i would add to your spot on analysis is this. American was and is truly a "nation." But, it was founded on an idea. Unique in its time. Exceptional. Patriotism deserves to be replaced with "idealism." I am all in.
10
The American Revolution was unique because it severed the legitimacy of government from God, and replaced it with the principle of limited delegated powers from the people, to be administered for the benefit of all of the people.
1
The only way nationalism can be reclaimed by liberals as argued here is the elimination of racism, religious and ethnic persecution. That is what liberals have been trying to do since there have been liberals. The right has always used nationalism as an instrument of white Christian power. The left has always rejected nationalism because it has always been used that way.
Inclusiveness is nationalism for everyone. The essence of the position stated here is that we are all Americans. I think we have heard that before. It's about time we all practiced it. Liberals always have.
125
Liberals apply law independently of the identity of the person, and rule strictly on conduct. "Equal protection of the law" requires it.
1
Nation is simply an imagined community and nationalism its binding force that leads to the formation of nation state. This stage of political evolution comes only after 1648 with the signing of the Westphalia treaty that ended the European wars. As such nationalism in political sense and the nation state as its territorial expression do simply represent a particular stage in the long process of political evolution. But the force of nationalism has more often than not has always played a destructive role, and patriotism has worked as the last refuge for the scoundrels. Nor, nationalism has ever remained immune from the exclusionary pulls. There is no need for the liberals to change course or give up the spirit of internationalism. The history is replete with instances of the rise and fall of empires, kingdoms, fiefdoms, feudalities, and nation states. This is a passing phase when the populist demagogues have succeeded to grab power on nationalist wave, which might well consume them also if they fail to deliver. It's their tiger ride, easier to mount on the tiger than to get down unscathed.
17
So, what if French people, Canadians, Brits, Argentinians, Italians, Australians and even those hated Americans want to continue being a separate sovereign nation, even though you say nations don't have any basis to exist? Do people who disagree with you and don't want to wipe away their citizenship have any rights?
1
Citizenship is what would matter ultimately.
1
The phase of populist demagogues seems to recur far too often and wreak far too much havoc for my liking.
Over the last 30 years we have seen a weakening of both the practice and the belief in democratic self-government; the allure of the illusion of power and strength that comes from the populist demagogue's act has once again taken hold. It never seems to lose its attaction for long, no matter how destructive and oppressive demagogues are revealed to be, or how fundamentally weak and petty.
How does internationalism differ from nationalism? They can be more alike than neoliberals like to admit.
In our rush to profit from other countries' resources, we have done precious little thinking about the consequences of expanding the power of supernational corporations and how globalization affects the rights and economic opportunities of the citizens of individual nations.
It is time that we did, and made some changes.
1
My despondence over the current dire situation only increased upon reading your quotes from Obama. How far we have fallen, and how astonishingly fast.
Liberals, as you refer to those who think in a progressive manner, should redefine nationalism along the lines you describe - away from the exclusionary, divide-and-conquer approach being used to gain power around the world, to one of inclusion of all those who share a belief in fairness, respect for and support of science, true democracy, and a productive balance between growth and sustainability, both in economic and societal terms, and tolerance for and proper placement of religions in society. We have lost, with the cynical help of powerful forces, our sense of common interest and common purpose. Those who are disadvantaged in our society must be helped to recognize their common plight despite differences of race, religion, or cultural background. All who embrace long-standing values as expressed in our founding documents should and must somehow come together to defend those values against those who work tirelessly to destroy them. But we've traveled so far down the wrong road we will require brilliant and courageous leadership to help us once again see the light. Obama was one such leader, yet we failed miserably to live up to his high ideals. It may well, and likely will, require an existential threat to bring us together, one that we can only hope to survive.
29
The day I start trying to live up to a president's ideals, rather than being disappointed that (s)he is not living up to mine, is the day I will stop voting forever.
Nationalism is an obsolete idea for many reasons, but is also not worth pursuing because it does not provide a counterbalance to the power of multinational corporations. It’s this fracturing of the working class along ethnicities and borders that is suppressing wages and benefits for American workers.
To address these issues without donning an Uncle Sam costume, consider that most Americans spend more of their time with their fellow coworkers than they do with their families. These bonds are also strong. Is it any wonder that the Reagan Revolution began with attacks on Unions? Or that Right to Work laws are the cornerstone of every Conservative Governors administration?
Strong Trade Unions are what is needed. These would unite people across all ethnicities along common economic goals, like safe work conditions, better wages, and good health care.
147
I agree. If the the working class held the real power in this country, we'd be better off, and unions, despite their flaws, are a step in the right direction. Currently there is not much of a nation for us to rally behind - we just live here. If the middle class actually owned this country, things would be different.
14
Best point made in this forum, and one that continues to be an oversight by parochial populist movements world-wide. Of course, the usual conventional "wisdom" by both this piece's author, and this forum, presents this in the predictable and tired framework of liberal vs. conservative, which has nothing to do with the more cosmic phenomenon. With your observation, while nothing new, it at least it gets us somewhere in front of the mindless and ego-laden posturing by those who know better....or, at least, should. Eh hem....
2
What is a majority of Americans, French citizens, Italians, Norwegians, Swedes, or Russians don't agree with you and the globalists that "nationalism is obsolete"? What if they are patriotic and loyal to their country, and wish to put their own country first? And they have a right to their own opinion, even if it means that nationalism is not "obsolete".
The ambitions of this op-ed are excellent ones. Some of the analysis, however, leaves a lot to be desired.
For example, there is EVERYTHING “natural” about the idea of the “nation”. Its primary purpose always was to protect the strategic viability of a distinct set of folkways and convictions, by creating the “myths” required to acculturate its young. A less protected notion of “nation” is fine for those elites capable of defining for themselves internally-coherent and beneficial frameworks for interaction and general conduct that provide meaning and offer the possibility of contentment; but it fails abysmally when planting the fence posts required by the OTHER 95% of humanity required to achieve the same objectives.
Yet the idea that in order to transform malignant forms of nationalism to more benign ones requires that the left “abandon their hostility to other forms of nationalism [such as those that transcend religious and ethnic/racial exclusionism]” is … a valuable insight.
We will make a quantum evolutionary leap in species awareness when we no longer are impelled by the need for a collective identity that perpetuates tribalism at a national level. Elites can argue forever about the desirability of hastening that moment, but it will come when we’re empowered enough intellectually and emotionally AS A SPECIES to make that leap successfully; and not before then.
However, exhorting the left to be more open to clear realities can only benefit it and all of us generally.
23
Where to start...? A quantum is a very, very small entity. Species do not make evolutionary leaps--over time, evolution replaces species. Where now are the Neanderthals and troglodytes? Oops, I just got another tweet from youknowwho.
1
Luettgen and I are on the same page on the end result that will see humanity into a survivable future, i.e., the end of nationalism ("tribalism at the national level") and the emergence of a global "inter-national" order. And Luettgen is right in choosing the adverbs "intellectually" and "emotionally" to sum up the shift in mentality that will be required for this to happen. I remember Luettgen suggesting a year or so ago that this process may still take two or three more centuries to unfold. My response then remains the same now: like it or not, history is speeding up, and we humans had better figure out how to get there, or get firmly on the path, a lot sooner, I'd say no later than 2100, if we are to avoid self-destruction in new rounds of nationalism-inspired conflicts. This really has nothing to do with liberals vs. conservatives or Democrats vs. Republicans in our own country. It has to do with all of us worldwide.
1
Des,
"Where now are the Neanderthals..."
Their descendants live mostly in Europe and Near East and in places where people of that heritage abound.
I don't see how competing with Bannon and Putin in the arena of Nationalism is a genuine good thing for the liberal.
Remember some people considered Occupy Wall Street as the leftist version of Tea Party. Quite frankly, OWS may very well be a backhanded way that got Trump elected when a centrist candidate is simply not good enough.
Trying to compete with the right wingers - kinda ironic when you consider people like Xi and Putin right wingers but they are, they want to conserve the authoritarian style of governing - by promoting nationalistic rah-rah is to double down on identity politics.
Sure, it may work short term, but at what cost?
The real problem is people tend to buy into bipolar argument in general and politics in particular. The syllogism goes like this: if you are not this, you are that. If you cannot beat them, join them. So people are afraid to be labelled a globalist, so let's be a nationalist. On one hand, a label is just a label. Bush called himself a compassionate conservative. Trump likes to label himself with all sort of accolades. But are they? On the other hand, be careful of what you wish for. Sometimes a mask can become the face. When the label sticks, it may be difficult to rub out.
That is why President Obama was difficult to grasp, even though he has done a lot of good things for this country. He didn't try to label himself. Instead, he led by example. Complex and nuanced, it is difficult; but it is enlightened politics
168
Putin and Xi are as far right as you can get. The political center is found in the push and pull between keep-everything-the-same conservatives and try-something-new liberals. Far off to the left are radicals who want to force a change to some new system. Far off to the right are the reactionaries who want to force a return to an earlier system. Putin and Xi are reactionaries. They are dragging their societies back to hereditary dictatorship. This is certainly Trump's position as well. He would love to see Don Jr. on the throne when he leaves, and that is a horrible, utterly reactionary ideology.
If it walks like a reactionary, and quacks like a reactionary, we would be well served to call it a reactionary. Calling them conservatives places them near the center of the political spectrum, and we should not give them that honor. The more power they have, the more damage they will do.
2
Our definitions of center & left are distorted. Our center is to the right of most democracies because our GOP is far right. Both parties depend on corporate mega donors who get to call the shots and set norms.
Our worsening inequality had never been mentioned in the media until Occupy Wall St idea of the 1 vs 99 %. That's over, and now inequality is hardly mentioned again vs the political drama of the Trump administration mess and the Mueller probe. That's on the news 24/7.
The US ranks lower than many advanced nations in the GINI Index of economic equality and mobility. Where is that in our news? Our economic inequalty worsens the competition between racial/ethnic groups.
The media doesn't even report or discuss that millions favor campaign finance reform. Other countries ban the privately paid campaign ads that flood our media.
The admirable Obama is complex and nuanced. Examples: He passed ACA, but it's a GOP plan preserving insurance profits with our taxes. That's socialism for business, and the US has the world's most costly and profitable health care system.
Obama's financial advisors were the heads of the big banks that had caused the crash. Banks are still big and nobody was prosecuted.
Obama than pushed TPP free trade deal, opposed by many who say it hurts American workers and helps corporate profits.
Complex, confused politics. Then in steps Trump
My father, born poor, went to the Air Force on graduating high school in 1948. He served through the Korean War, then went to college with the aid of the G.I. Bill. He became a school superintendent, my mother a teacher.
Though in the service along with most young men his age because of the “draft”, my father and his contemporaries came to realize there was something bigger than themselves and see the value in the sacrifice they were involuntarily compelled to make—and they respected one another for it. One of the first questions men of my father’s generation would ask was “where did you do your service?” It didn’t matter whether you were a bus driver or a C.E.O., it was assumed you had served. And because of that universal experience they respected each other regardless of their politics. My dad, who sported a crew cut, would pick up hitchhiking, long-haired Vietnam vets in fatigue coats and dirty jeans (when mom wasn’t along).
I am the oldest of four boys and missed the Vietnam War by a few years. The “draft” was over when I graduated high school in 1974. I gave no thought to military service. I was never made to sacrifice. My wife and I are both attorneys and have done well. I paid my taxes, but as far as my “country” is concerned I have done the bare minimum. My attitude has been, look, I was just born here, what do you want?
Until we require universal, involuntary, uncomfortable, multi-year service we will be fractured alienated from one another.
313
Yes! The best way to bring people together is by common experience. Youth Service would train those without education; give educated and uneducated the time to admire each other’s skills; and provide local governments and nonprofits with youthful idea and skills to elevate this nation. Such service could be long weekends rather than the CCC that my father experienced immediately after graduating from college.
36
Completely agree. When the person next to you during tough training or actual conflict saves your butt, you have a strong loyalty to him. And if she happens to be of an ethnic origin that your family and neighbors berated as you grew up - your thinking can reverse quickly.
Exposure to people of different beliefs, skin color, accents (yes, this is big) can lead to a greater tolerance of diversity. It can literally redefine what a person feels about inclusion.
Universal service would not only teach tolerance and inclusiveness. It would teach self sacrifice for the group. It would teach an appreciation for the ways and challenges of others. It would be a last shot at learning empathy for a lot of young people who have never heard the word spoken.
And it does not need to be all military. It could involve repairing bridges, building out internet and energy infrastructure. It involve caring for the elderly. It could be child care services for the poor - enabling them to hold down better jobs.
The list of needs is aa large as the benefits. And this could be a powerful unifying force for all "nationalists". Or "globalists"....
2
See William James' "The Moral Equivalent of War".
2
"So long as nationalism is associated with one particular ethnic or religious group, it will serve to exclude and disadvantage others. The only way to keep the destructive potential of nationalism in check is to fight for a society in which collective identity transcends ethnic and religious boundaries — one in which citizens from all religious or ethnic backgrounds are treated with the same respect as citizens from the majority group."
Why not then do away with individuals nations and have one world government? Isn't that the end point of his logic? Most viable nations do have an ethnic or religious basis -- or would the author do away with Israel, for example? Just askin'.
10
This column is part of a series. Last week NYT published an obnoxious, condescending slide show explaining to us uneducated bumpkins why the concept of the sovereign nation is a delusion, and this column is probably just a pitch to liberals to change their tactics, but not their goal.
4
There is a united planet in the future of Star Trek. When the aliens (the ones from outer space, not Mexico) arrive, the world will unite. Or maybe the implosion of our environment from climate change will unite us. Or maybe getting rid of money will unite us. But until then, greed is what drives the human race.
1
"It is a state in which all members have the same rights and opportunities irrespective of the group into which they are born or the culture to which they belong. "
We have that here, sort of. One could even argue that minorities in US, such as Jews or Hindus have better opportunities, due to cultural and educational reasons, as well as ethnic solidarity, than the White Christians you speak of. What we do lack is the governmental effort to expand the opportunities of the lower classes though free, yet good education and support system. Of course that would require money, and we are willing to spend money on wars but not fixing our nation.
Anyhow, this piece reads like an attempt to create a utopia, the way the author sees it. I read a review of his previous book and realized he grew up in Germany and never felt German, so he wants to try his vision in US. Why not test it on a smaller nation, like say Israel? And if it works there, we'll have good reason to listen.
18
This scenario reminds of the process that created WW1. The roots this time are in the Middle East.
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people across the left spectrum look at bible-thumping red-blooded American patriotism as ridiculous and unhelpful. Not wrongly. Unfortunately looking through the other side of the lens, conservatives across that spectrum feel similarly about, say, the "U.S. out of North America" wing of the left. And in a way, not wrongly. To back up this argument would take up more space than available here. The center-left liberal shares the further left beliefs with some discomfort, vague confusion, and convenience. The hard woke left calls out the privileged center liberal as part of the problem. The hard left asks the right questions but its offered answers are profoundly unhelpful or worse. They offer no real way forward in the real world we live in. Injustice and worse have been part of human history since the get go. There have been good and even great attributes to the checkered history of this country. But Americans should not walk in hunched shame, and frankly that is what the woke left wants white Americans to do. There's no way forward there. Let's embrace the complexity and reach for better without whitewashing any truth or fear of a tough climb.
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Nationalism, which is just tribalism by another name, is an expression of competitiveness. And most of the time, "Competitiveness is the root of all moral evil." So liberals and Democrats should know better than to have anything to do with it. Or, if they pretend to cultivate nationalism just in order to win elections, they are surrendering the right to be considered truly liberal.
There is, however, a good kind of competitiveness, which is all about the desire to do ever better in the service of living creatures, with no expectation of a reward. That would be truly noble and praiseworthy, if we were to erect a sincere standard of nationalism on a foundation of humble service.
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We now have the one tool to defeat divisive nationalism and racism that never before existed in human history which is the scientific understanding developed quite recently that all humanity has one common genetic heritage making us all truly one family and very closely related to all life on earth. This science should be taught to all people in every forum possible to dispel all of the myths of separatism that have been promoted. We should also keep in mind that for many centuries the ideal form of government was not the nation state but that of the Roman Empire where for a period of its existence to be a Roman citizen or even a Roman emperor did not depend on being born in Rome or Italy but rather being subject to Roman law. This concept was considerably weakened once the concept of religious and then ethnic and racial identity began to prevail as governing forces and humanity lacked the scientific understanding to dispel all these myths of separatism.
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Liberals can co-opt Nationalism only when and if the Democratic Party will dare to boldly proclaim its creed as forcefully as Trump proclaimed his: that the much vaunted power of the free market is simply unable to solve the problems of today. That the only possible solution to the world environmental crisis is a national mobilization by the federal government on the scale of World War II. That the age self-fulfillment must end now and must be replaced by a new age of self-denial and sacrifice if there is to be any possibility for the survival of western civilization as we have known it.
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Self denial . . . In the era and nation that is home to the brave , the free and the get ahead of the next guy . . . You are joking, right?
Don’t we already have this sort of “liberal nationalism” in the Olympic Games? “Hooray for our side!” and all that?
China just cancelled any idea of liberalism with its move toward Strongman Politics. There are plenty of other theories of government, but the ones that work are complex and practical. We are, after all, a complex and anxious species.
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Nationalism has become a misnomer for factionalism or tribalism which has deep evolutionary roots and isn't going away any time soon.
Tribalism has often been used to create a sense of national purpose, most strikingly in Nazi Germany. Resentment was nurtured against Jews and other ethnic groups, Communists and eventually anyone who disagreed with the Nazi Party, facilitating exclusion, imprisonment and mass murder. Knowledge was destroyed in order to create a false Aryan mythology and the worst crimes were committed out of public sight.
We can see similar impulses in the US today, though not yet as apparently extreme. But the efforts to destroy knowledge by self admitted science disbelievers like Scott Pruitt could do more damage in the long run than all of the wars of the 20th century.
Nationalism or national pride in our universities, in institutional protections of freedoms, rights and values like transparency and individual and community self determination all move the nation forward to meet future challenges.
The Nazis were dismissed as a clownish movement in Germany by moderates and business leaders, who thought they could control this passing movement.
We need to avoid a tendency toward the same error. Business leaders need to more forcefully oppose the Trump agenda or risk wrecking their investments as in 1945 Germany. And individuals need to vote, especially the younger ones who stand to lose the most.
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The most tribal people in the US today happen to be minorities, not white Christians. And they happen to be the most tribal globally as well. But I'm sure that doesn't bother you.
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The author makes excellent points. Nationalism can and must be reclaimed by liberals.
The nation state is the largest collective that an individual can realistically impact. Beyond it, collaborations must happen on the nation-to-nation level - as in those necessary to combat climate change or the spread of nuclear weapons.
The key to liberals successfully reclaiming nationalism is to emphasize a style in which citizens are ceaselessly encouraged to care about each other, regardless of race, color, creed, or ancestral origin, and which proposes to leverage the awesome power of a people's Union to solve real world problems in a sustainable, cooperative way.
The word Union encapsulates the archetypal impulses implicit in this luminous ideal of enduring and profitable collective cooperation, and has been with us since the earliest days of the American experiment. While every American is an individual, they also participate in a larger collective. One only needs to travel aboard to recognize the varied ways in which we each have been shaped through participation in this larger collective.
The challenge Liberals face is to make this collective ever more conscious and adaptable - via an emphasis on education and openness to the outside world - so that we do not become its prisoner, as has been the case at various times in human history. IMHO, if liberals fail to claim the mantle of nationalism, then the forces of exploitation, chaos, and disorder will surely seize it instead.
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