collapsedsquid:
invertedporcupine:
Unsurprisingly, I’ve seen a uptick in complaints about nationalism lately. I’d like to take a bit to defend it here, which you might not expect given my liberal-to-liberaltarian leanings. (The following is mostly not original thought, but it’s not clear to me that many people have actually read Ernst Gellner, Benedict Anderson, Mill v. Acton, etc.)
I think people make a mistake when they conflate “nationalism” with “blood-and-soil ethnic chauvinism”. If you take a minimal functional definition of nationalism (in the way that a state can do many things, but the definition of what it is is just the monopoly on the legitimate use of force), nationalism is just the principle that “political boundaries should coincide with national ones,” whether the later be ethnic, cultural, or civic in nature. In this sense (putting aside anarchism), your only two choices are to be a nationalist or an imperialist, since not accepting the nationalist principle implies belief that a central state can have legitimate political authority over peripheral territories that don’t constitute the same nation as the center.
I don’t mean to say here that I think the choice of nationalism over imperialism is the obvious one; only that these should be the terms of the actual debate over what is at stake: is the freedom of the citizenry/the utility of the population inside and outside of one’s own national boundaries maximized by drawing the political lines in the same place as the national ones, or not?
What the defining characteristics of the nation should be is a separate, arguably subordinate debate. As a liberal, civic nationalist, it pains me to see my center-left fellows ceding the theoretical ground to the uglier elements of the right, allowing the latter to define nations in ethnic terms, and embracing imperialism, if only by default and by accident. This is how you end up with liberal internationalists who become difficult to distinguish from neoconservatives.
@deusvulture @argumate
The issue here applies within nations as well. Nations will do things that affect other nations, and as long as that’s the case, there’s going to be some way of settling disputes between them.
And, I mean, this sort of thing is meant to basically be federalism, and I’m not sure how your framework interprets, say, the role of California in the United States and then maybe the role of San Fransisco in California. Is it imperialist to have California governed by the United States? This seems to reduce to calling any government at all imperialist, which makes it not really distinguishable from nationalism apart from what arbitrary level you assume governance should happen in.
In this sense (putting aside anarchism), your only two choices are to be
a nationalist or an imperialist, since not accepting the nationalist
principle implies belief that a central state can have legitimate
political authority over peripheral territories that don’t constitute
the same nation as the center.
Is it imperialist to have California governed by the United States? This
seems to reduce to calling any government at all imperialist, which
makes it not really distinguishable from nationalism apart from what
arbitrary level you assume governance should happen in.
And then there are us who consider this a feature, not a bug; the most vulnerable minority being the individual and all that. It doesn’t stop being external imposition by aliens with a foreign culture and foreign values just because they are spatially and genetically closer than other aliens. Recognizing that all government is inherently imperialism in this sense goes a long way in the harm-reduction department. And thus nationalism is evil because it privileges a certain level of imperialism as pure and good and commendable.
6 days ago · tagged #the best heuristic for oppressed people since sharp stick time #this is a nationalism hateblog · 20 notes · source: invertedporcupine · .permalink
So you still believe you are ruling the World?
What if Brexit is the true end of the 20th century? What if instead of a resurgence of atavistic nationalism, this was the beginning of its final death throes?
Imagine Brexit tearing apart Britain as Scotland and Ireland separate into their own countries, London turns into a city-state like a (marginally less totalitarian) Singapore of Europe, hopefully also taking Oxford and Cambridge with it out of the rotten husk of an empire England has turned into.
It would suck horribly for innocent people in England, but it would have a certain spiteful sense of justice and vindication; the R tribe tried to impose its values on tribe U, but instead only managed to destroy its country in the name of making it great again. Nationalism dealing the killing blow to the empire which once ruled half the world. The R tribe relies on looting U regions with its “democracy” to fund the imposition of its reactionary worldview and there could be nothing better than for tribe U to turn R’s tricks against it by showing that exit is a two-way street.
Scotland becoming independent seems like almost a given; Irish unification is promising but London is the truly interesting one. If London were to secede, it would show that the nation-state is powerless in the face of global power. The old borders wouldn’t be safe anymore. If the City’s loyalty lies with the rest of the world instead of people sharing some superficial genetic and cultural characteristics, it might open the floodgates everywhere else as well and slay the 19-20th century leviathan for good.
A lot of people have expressed worry that this would be the resurgence of the nation-state and the end of the internationalist project.
I think this might just as well be the end of the nation-state instead.
The age of the nation-state began at the end of the medieval free cities, as cannons allowed kings of the countryside to enforce their rule on cities as well. The social-cultural construct of the nation-state happened in earnest when the nations began shedding their kings and unifying themselves, and it’s easy to see why people might then conclude that the nation-state is the natural endpoint of history to which things will always revert…
Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
There is no inherent reason why nation-states would be the natural division of people.
Sure, when one looks at the maps, one can clearly see how Scotland is a naturally different polity than England and trying to forcibly keep them together is just asking for trouble.
But London is naturally different too. What does Sadiq Khan’s city have in common with the English UKIP-voting hordes who were willing to ruin their country because they hate brown people? A language, but San Francisco speaks the same language as London. Geographical location, but Ulster managed to stay separate from Ireland for a long time, and Singapore hasn’t been annexed by Malaysia. Political entity, but brexit has shown that polities can be reshaped by the will of the people constituting them.
Nation-states haven’t been a constant in history, but cities have. Every time it has been technologically and societally possible, humans have flocked together and increased each other’s prosperity with trade and cooperation. Democratic nation-states are economically artificial, kept together by barely disguised force; the Paris Commune was brought down by the king’s cannons, not by its own economic infeasibility. The history of the nation-state can be seen as the countryside gaining a capability to loot the cities, and constructing fictions to support this; now what happens if that capability is gone?
When one looks at the data, cities are clearly a different animal from the countryside. Wealthy, liberal, cosmopolitan, globalist. London has far more things in common with Amsterdam and New York than with the English countryside, and in a sense the relationship between the city and the countryside leeching off it via the nation-state is always inherently under a certain tension; now what happens if this is the last straw?
Why should London be loyal to England, when England has shown itself able and willing to only ever take and take? When Scotland tears apart from the union, London’s northern ally in internationalism will be gone and it will be ever more isolated, surrounded by people who are all too willing to enjoy the fruits of London’s prosperity yet completely unwilling to contribute to it, even the bare minimum amount of not actively sabotaging the things that make such prosperity possible in the first place. The story of Atlas Shrugged is naive in its individualistic hero-worship, but replace the few greater-than-life personalities with millions of people, and Galt’s Gulch with London and it starts making a strange amount of sense.
If London were to leave England to the mess of its own making, it would deal a humiliating blow to the countryside, itself grown fat off the loot from the cities and fearful of immigrants and foreigners, the exact people who created the riches the countryside has for so long been stealing through the ballot box. And it’s not like the cities are even unwilling to share their riches; and it certainly might be different if all the countryside asked for was some money so it doesn’t starve, but the countryside is not satisfied with material sharing; what it truly wants is submission.
Like a classical abusive partner, the countryside has always been telling the city it cannot survive alone, yet in reality only the threat of violence is the only thing maintaining the relationship. The countryside stays at home, growing ever more unemployed and useless, while the city is working hard to feed them both. The countryside continuously stalks the city whenever it leaves the house, suspicious of everything the city is doing with foreigners, prone to jealous fits of anger whenever the city doesn’t submit sufficiently to its will. “What are you doing with those foreigners and immigrants? Do you not love me? I am your only one, nobody else may have you!”
Why doesn’t the city just leave?
As usual, the immediate reason is that the dangers of leaving are greater than the dangers of staying. “Sure, the countryside is under a lot of stress but deep down it loves me and after all, it’s not that bad, at least compared to what it would do to me if I tried to dump it; remember what happened to poor Paris?” But if the countryside grows abusive enough, its threats empty enough, the city’s allies strong enough to protect it from its ex, would the city still stay?
I hope the answer is no, and I hope the last straw will be here and now.
If the countryside is so blatantly willing to impose its rottenness on the cities, let it rot away. If democracy creates reactionary atavistic nation-states, to hell with democratic states then. Tribe R doesn’t create the wealth, yet it will always demand its share. “Buy American!” “Britain first!” “Auslander raus!” “Rajat kiinni!” Tribe R will happily take tribe U’s money, but it will reject its values and seek to impose its own. Via the democratic majority rule of the nation-state this strategy has always seen a degree of success; the amount of liberty that’s legal in cities has always been constrained by the conservative countryside. This is clearly an abusive relationship, now what if the cannon marriage of city and country were finally broken?
If London said “no”, would 2016 idly watch by like 1871? What rhetorical pretzels would the nationalists tie themselves into as “fellow brits” rejected their nightmarish utopia? “But you were supposed to be one of us” they would say, and London would whisper “no”. What if the reactionary populism was shown to be the blatant robbery it is? What if England was left to its own devices, without London’s money and influence? The populists could not make Britain great again; they would trash their own country and come begging for foreign aid at London’s doorstep. Without tribe U, tribe R is nothing but a raving bunch of barbarians. A country made solely of Clinton’s voters would still be a global power; a country made solely of Trump’s voters would be a backwards hellhole.
And if tribe R is willing to tear apart political structures at its whims, I say let them have a taste of their own medicine. If they would split the “artificial fiction” of the EU, let us split the artificial fiction of Britain! Let us leave them to their own devices, wallowing in a misery of their own creation. They had a choice, all of them. They could have followed in the footsteps of the IWW or Adam Smith. Decent people who believed in the common good of international cooperation without borders. Instead they followed the droppings of demagogues and populists and didn’t realize that the trail led over a precipice until it was too late. Don’t tell me they didn’t have a choice. Now the whole Europe stands on the brink, staring down into bloody Hell, all those reactionaries and nationalists and rabble-rousers… and all of a sudden nobody can think of anything to say.
Call their bluff. Show them what they are made of. Show them that the world has new rules now, and new rulers. That the mob of the nation-state cannot impose its terms upon the cities any longer. That we would’ve been willing to share our riches if that had been the only thing they asked for, but of course it never truly was about the riches in the first place; no, it was jealousy and fear over our way of life, something they wanted to extinguish just as much as to simply loot.
Let this be the end of the EU, but not the new dawn of the nation-state. Instead…
The end of the nation-state and the new dawn of the free city.
London, be our Lucifer, our morningstar, to bear the light to a brighter future free from the oppression of democratic nationalism, nationalistic democracy!
So you still believe you are superior?
1 week ago · tagged #in which promethea turns into an edgelord #domestic abuse cw #this is a nationalism hateblog #kill the leviathan · 59 notes · .permalink