Say it isn’t so, Scott!  Don’t abandon us!

At least you promise to come back occasionally, so I
can argue with you strenuously when I think you are
wrong.

But you cannot go wrong quoting Lukacs.

Mr. Richert,

Thank you for your insightful posts.

Richert:  “In the case of patria, that group, as the Holy Father goes on to show, is the nation, which etymologically descends from the Latin natio, meaning, most broadly, a group of people, but more specifically a tribe, a race, a nation--in other words, a people who are connected, both genetically and culturally, in a way that is a natural extension of the family. “

Thank you for repeating what cannot be repeated enough.  This historical truth needs to be reintroduced into the modern debate.

Richert:  “But the modern American experience is not normative--not only historically, but even today, among European-derived peoples.  Europeans in Europe are much more rooted, and that close association with the land of their fathers--the patria terra, to return to the Latin--has a cultural (and, indeed, even a genetic) significance that has largely been lost here in the United States.”

This is very true.  I knew a French girl whose family had ties to a town for around 500 years.  When her father said “This is my town and I don’t’ want Algerians here,” he truly had a claim.  Europeans (maybe with the exception of the Germans, who have been bombarded with political correctness), I’ve noticed, are much less squeamish than Americans when evoking patriotism or race.  They have a real sense of blood-and-soil patriotism, largely absent in the U.S. except perhaps in parts of the South and Midwest.

Ah, Bede, it is one thing for people who have lived in
one place for generations to resent newcomers with no
established family behind them.

It is another for a group of newcomers to resent another

We are becoming transients, newcomers, with no more clain
to a place than any other transient, and thus we are
forced to re-create our communities over and over.

By the way, Scott, do you realize that this explains why
the central government grows and grows? With a population
of transients, the local institutions that would normally
do the job are hollowed out and rendered useless. We
have no local community, so why would we expect it to
deliver those services that according to subsidiarity
theory it should?  Something has to fill that vacuum,
and that something is the central goverment, which,
like it or not, has grown roots and has a permanence
that local institutions lack.

My namesake was, more or less, a mercenary for Cromwell way back in the day, but was not considered trustworthy, so his payment was lands in Ireland; the family, nominal Prots, became rootless after that.  Like Yeats, eventually, the family that stayed behind, went native and became very sympathetic for the Irish people inventing a sort of nationalism (the “Anglo-Irish” designation is alleged to come from a later relation.)

The lines that crossed the ocean, due to wars and economic booms and busts, appear to have lived no more than one or two generations in any particular spot, fighting in Uncle Sam’s Wars, against the Red Coats, the Blue and the Grey, the Kaiser and Tojo, and transitioning from mining, to agrarians, to rootless service jobs.

Patria is difficult (though I am trying in the literal Scotch-Irish rural town I live in); in the grand scope of things, I’ll head North to Canada if Leviathan comes for my boys with some National Service project.

Although I disagree with Mr. Richert on numerous points, his contributions here are nevertheless enlightening and insightful. He is an articulate advocate of a point of view that is ... Catholic and European.

My ancestors were old stock Anglo-American Protestants. Race has played a central role in my culture for generations. We knew we were “white men” long before we started to care about “liberty” and “equality.” This tradition lives on still in isolated pockets of the American South. It has been with us since the mid-seventeenth century.

Mr Richert, thank you.

I suppose the problem is that there are indeed many Americans that either do not have or do not feel that they have a “tie” to the land on which they currently live.  Some of my ancestors came to the Mountains of Appalachia over 200 years ago, my grandparent’s house is still in the family, my great-uncle’s house is still lived in by his great grandson, the land of my great-great-grandparents is still owned by another family member, we still gather apples out of the apple trees planted by my great grandparents, only a handful of us still live up in the mountains, but no one is that far away, and we still visit several times a year, and we are still buried there.  A “rootless cosmopolitan” I am not, although I did not grow up in those Mountains.  That is how strong my “natio” has a bond with it’s “patria”.

Prozium, my cousin has adopted a boy from Guatemala.  I suppose since he is not “White” it means he is not part of the “natio”?  I’d like you to tell him, his father, and his grandfather (who, at the age of 72 and a couple of heart attacks could still whip your ass) that.

A very good post.  I value rootedness, which is why I have chosen to live in the city in which I was born.  But I would point out that Calvin Coolidge’s explanation for signing the Immigration Act of 1924--"America must remain American"--made as much sense to Americans who lived far away from the immigrants who were then pouring into America as it did to those living in the cities being transformed by those immigrants.

Thank you, Mr. Richert for your three part series. It was pretty thoughtful. I didn’t agree with you on race because I still don’t think you understand the importance of race in terms of how nationalism and patriotism evolve coterminously with it. But, I am glad you wrote these articles they connected three important concepts that made me think about these things more and gave me pleasure while reading them. Mr. Capp, there is no need for bad language. It does not make you any better argumentatively, when you are hinting at threats.

@Adriana:

“By the way, Scott, do you realize that this explains why
the central government grows and grows? With a population
of transients, the local institutions that would normally
do the job are hollowed out and rendered useless. We
have no local community, so why would we expect it to
deliver those services that according to subsidiarity
theory it should?”

Absolutely.  One article I’ve long wanted to write is an overview of the history of welfare services in the Midwest.  Sounds boring, I know, but it illustrates quite well that the central state is not necessarily the best or the most efficient provider.

Throughout the Midwest, welfare was handled at the township and county levels.  It took two main forms: cash funds that could be handed out at the discretion of township officials to those in need, usually to pay rent or mortgage or to purchase food or medicine; and poor farms.

The latter is what got me interested in this history in the first place.  When I was in elementary school, my class visited the Ottawa County (MI) Community Haven, which the Ottawa County Park System website describes as follows:

“The 229 acre Community Haven property, located on the Grand River in Polkton Township, was acquired by Ottawa County in the early 1800s and established as a ‘poor farm’ to provide housing and services for indigent residents. This operation survived until the late 1990s.”

It’s not quite true that the operation of Community Haven as a poor farm continued until the late 1990’s; at some point in my lifetime (I believe in the 80’s), it was converted over to a county-run residential drug-treatment and mental-health facility.  But when my class visited in the 70’s, it was still used for its original purpose.

It’s interesting to note the use of the term “indigent residents.” Only residents of Ottawa County (not transients) could move onto Community Haven, where they were required to work on the farm (though they could also have jobs) as long as they stayed.  It provided a safety net that allowed people to get back on their feet by build up enough savings to afford housing.  Entire families lived there, as well as indigent singles.

While I’m not aware of any poor farms that remain in operation in the Midwest, some townships still set aside (very limited) funds to be used at the discretion of township officials to aid those residents in need in their townships.

@Tom Piatak:

“But I would point out that Calvin Coolidge’s explanation for signing the Immigration Act of 1924--"America must remain American"--made as much sense to Americans who lived far away from the immigrants who were then pouring into America as it did to those living in the cities being transformed by those immigrants.”

Absolutely.  And the three concepts that I’ve discussed obviously would form the basis for more in-depth discussions of current issues, from welfare (as my comment above indicates) to immigration to trade.

<<Mr. Capp, there is no need for bad language.>>

My “whip your ass” comment was to imply that my great-uncle, of “pure” Scottish and German blood, absolutely considered his adopted Guatemalan grandson to be part of his “tribe”, and would take GREAT offense at anyone suggesting otherwise.  That is what negates race from the discussion: it is not race that rules the family, but the patriarch (or matriarch in many cases).

<<nationalism and patriotism evolve coterminously with [race]>>

Not necessarily.  See the above example.  Also, if you have been accepted into the Land by it’s stewards, and attach yourself to that land, you become part of the “tribe” by extension.  For example, the Huns: a multi-ethnic “nation”; also take the Hapsburg Empire as an example.

Is it possible for you to see how two races, agreeing that “mixing” in marriage is wrong, could live side-by-side, and still consider each other compatriots?  Or do the physical difference of races prevent you from considering them “brothers”, sons of their patria, of the same “natio”?

1. Bede also needs to look up “Natio” in his Pauly.

2. How I wish all of Mr. Richert articles had been as good as this swan song!  By and large, I like what I read from him today.

To add:

The market is exclusively a world market; there isn’t any other—at least for people who wish economically to prosper.  The Libertarians know this.  That means that Gringos will have to figure out what people in other countries might like to buy, and gringos are likely to have, among a firm’s upper management, an Asian Indian, a Japanese, and a Jamaican—if the firm is to compete in the geo-market.

Our racialist nationalists and ethnic nationalists will not be able to do this, and by calling their boss “coolie, g**k, and n****r, they’ll be out of a job and living in the projects. They and their children are doomed.

Yet rootlessness (a better word, I guess, than déracinément) makes for people with the depth of a pizza pie pan.  I’ve know plenty of cosmopolitans who are five miles wide and one inch deep.

So the question Mr. Richert raises is quite complicated.  Tory conservatives need to find a way to be both cosmopolitan and local.  It’s been done before: the poleis of Amalfi, Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Ghent, Antwerp, and the Hansa in general were quite able to be both geo-marketers and local patriots.  We can too.

“1. Bede also needs to look up “Natio” in his Pauly.”

Meaning what, Mr. Cundiff?  You challenged me to do the same.  If you happen to know that this article in the Pauly says something pertinent, then please just report it here.  I cited Lewis and Short.  If the Pauly supports your case, then you should cite it.

Mr. Cundiff:

Any time I read one of your posts attacking America and denigrating Americans as “Gringos,” I look out of my office window and enjoy the view:  http://www.soldiersandsailors.com/

Mr. Cundiff: 

The American Heritage Dictionary lists the following as the 3rd definition of “nation”:  “A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality.” Clearly such a grouping is natural.  I don’t mind if you prefer to use a hellenism and call that group an “ethnos,” but it is simply wrongheaded to try to redefine the English word “nation” so that this non-ideological, perfectly neutral meaning is excluded.  We use the word “sovereignty” without having to subscribe to Hobbes’ view of what sovereignty was.

<<denigrating Americans as “Gringos”>>

Why do you feel “denigrated” for being called a “Gringo”?

Mr. Capp:

I am an American.  Americans typically refer to ourselves as “Americans,” not “Gringos.” The people who commonly refer to us as “Gringos” do not intend it as a compliment.  Its usage by someone living in the United States is thus both irritating and bizarre.

@Sid Cundiff:

Thanks for the compliment, though I wonder why you then had to try to find something completely extraneous in order to pick a fight.

To wit:

“The market is exclusively a world market; there isn’t any other—at least for people who wish economically to prosper.”

That’s silliness, of course, as any Austrian economist or even Austrian national could tell you.  There are markets that, by their very nature, are obviously local--perishable goods, for instance.  In fact, both time preference and subjective valuation--two of the most important contributions of the Austrian school to economics--are quite useful in studying the microeconomics of local economies, including local markets.

<<The people who commonly refer to us as “Gringos” do not intend it as a compliment.>>

The best theory on the etymology of the word is that it comes from the Iberian “griego”, meaning “Greek”; that is, meaning someone who speaks a foreign language, or even someone who has a foreign culture that speaks Spanish.  Spanish soldiers sent to Mexico were called “gringos” by the Mexicans.

In some places (Brazil, in particular) simply being from a different place will get you the label of “gringo”; in Brazil, even Mexicans are called “gringos”.

So, Mr Cundiff is simply using the word appropriately; you are of a different culture from his own, you are a “gringo” to him, whether or not you consider him a “fellow American”.

If it makes you feel any better (this is what this is about, right?  your feelings?) you are welcome to call either myself, Mr Cundiff or any Mexican you see a “gringo” and, technically, not be using the word inappropriately or in a bizarre manner.

One illustration, Sid, that can perhaps better help you to understand what I’m talking about.  I know that you attended The Rockford Institute’s Winter School in Rome last January.  Think of how much of the local Roman economy--the local markets--have little or nothing to do with the “world market.”

And then remember the meats and cheeses and fruits and vegetables and wine and beer that you enjoyed over there, and thank your lucky stars that the market is not exclusively a world market.

Mr. Capp:

Here is the Merriam-Webster definition of “Gringo:” “often disparaging : a foreigner in Spain or Latin America especially when of English or American origin; broadly : a non-Hispanic person.”

If you and Mr. Cundiff want to claim this is a reasonable way for Americans to refer to each other, go right ahead, but you will be a minority of two.

Mr. Capp,

It doesn’t matter what “gringo” means in other countries and other languages, but what it means in this country, in English.  As used in English, “gringo” often tends to be used to express resentment against Anglo-American whites.  I wouldn’t take kindly to someone who repeatedly called me a “honky,” only to say that it is “general, non-pejorative” word for whites. 

Is it about feelings?  Yes, to the extent we are not to offend others needlessly.  You are Appalachian.  Well, I know some words that frequently are used to deride people of that ancestry.  I don’t use them because they offend. 

I will give an example of bizarre use of language.  I am from Illinois.  If someone from Latin America or from the South called me a “Yankee,” I would understand their usage of the word.  If someone from New England casually referred to me as a fellow “Yankee,” I’d tell him, “I am not a Yankee, I am a Midwesterner.” “Yankee” to a Mexican means “from the U.S.A.” to a Southerner it means “someone from a state that didn’t secede,” but to someone in the Midwest it means someone from New England.  My ancestors came from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Carolinas, and my Marylander ancestors owned a tobacco plantation and slaves once upon a time.  Hrdly “Yankee.” Likewise, whatever foreigners mean when they use the word, “gringo” has negative connotations in American English. 

Why the long dissertation on this?  There have been some serious vocabulary problems on these threads over the past few days.

That means that Gringos will have to figure out what people in other countries might like to buy, and gringos are likely to have, among a firm’s upper management, an Asian Indian, a Japanese, and a Jamaican—if the firm is to compete in the geo-market.

Yes, the Japanese are known for their multicultural workspaces and boardrooms. That’s how they have achieved the success they have.

<<There have been some serious vocabulary problems on these threads over the past few days.>>

You got that right.

Truce.

Back to the topic at hand: reclaiming American patriotism - can it be done?

My opinion: NO.  Americans are a lost cause.  Their patriotism is 100% informed by the modern notions of Masonic/Jacobin/Lincolnian nationalism.  The only other real option are the Stormfronter “racialist” types that anti-American in the sense that they fight for “White pride” with no real pride in their local, ancient customs and ways (for example, many of them practice an invented form of paganism, or various heretical sects derived from Protestantism).

@ Sid Cundiff:

You said “...gringos are likely to have, among a firm’s upper management, an Asian Indian, a Japanese, and a Jamaican—if the firm is to compete in the geo-market.”

Have you ever been to Jamaica?  I have, on business.  If you think your company or my company is likely to have a Jamaican in upper management in order to compete in a geo (global?) market, I have a bridge to sell you.

Caper and Bede:  Lewis and Short covers Medieval Latin. Pauly goes, so to speak, to the root. Webster—besides being a piece of New England cultural imperialism—isn’t authoritative. So check your handy OED and OEED for when the word made it into English, and then when it came to mean what Robespierre, Cavour, Bismarck, and y’alls own hero, Georg Schönerer, meant.

By the way, when asked my “ethnic identity”, I always check “Native American”, because I looked up native in the OEED.

Piatak: “Gringo” is shorter than “Lincolnidolaterlandsmann”. 

Miz Stari still thinks it’s 1980.  Remember back then, when we were told that the 21 C was going to be the “Japanese Century”?  It didn’t turn out that way, did it?  Japan has been in economic crisis, and partly for the reason Stari mentions: a tradition of xenophobia (Remember Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan?).  The Chinese, and especially the Singaporese, have always been more cosmopolitan.  India’s and Pakistan’s ace in the hole, in the information age, is their English skills. Some Japanese have figured this out; they’re the ones who speak good English. So theres hope for the Japanese.  Meanwhile our own racialists and tribalists haven’t figured this out.  And they never will, even when they will have to share the projects.

I told the parents of my students:  Your children have only two choices: to learn to work with German, Japanese, and Asian Indian colleagues, or under German, Japanese, and Asian Indian bosses.  Tertia via non est.

Mr. R has a point about Rome. While there’s a whole lot of pineapple in Rome and German beer and Argentine beef, still as with all food in Euroland, there’s a EU tariff, EU farm subsidies, and EU farm supports—all done to keep French and German farmers happy.  Some of you Europeans out there:  Does the “Butterberg” still exists? Mr. Z, in the Holy City and The Center of the World, can tell you what that tariff costs. When I lived in Germany, I saw a lot of grapefruit from Israel, since it’s kind of hard to grow that in Sweden. Maybe that’s changed. Some mighty fine Chinese restaurants in London, Vietnamese in France, and Indonesian in Amsterdam, by the way. 

As for the local economies.  Let me think.  Shoeshiners? nope, their product is petroleum based.  Restaurants? not if they serve bananas or coffee.  Barbers?  Nope, too many tools and machines from other countries or with foreign parts.  Hotels? Nope, too many Europeans over here to take advantage of the bad dollar. So, pray tell, what’s left for local economy?  I’ve got it! bureaucrats and politicians and moonshiners!!!

Vissarion Dzhugashvili doesn’t know we’ve already had a Jamaican Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State.

Some mighty fine cigars from Jamaica, by the way.

Sid:  “Caper Lewis and Short covers Medieval Latin. Pauly goes, so to speak, to the root.”

The Oxford Lewis and Short (based on Andrews’ edition of Freund’s Latin dictionary) covers Classical and Medieval Latin, and the Der Neue Pauly is primarily an encyclopedia, not a dictionary.

Sid:  “ “...gringos are likely to have, among a firm’s upper management, an Asian Indian, a Japanese, and a Jamaican—if the firm is to compete in the geo-market.””

This is more a product of Sid’s cheerleading a multicultural utopian vision of a globalist order than an inevitable reality.

Mr. Cundiff:

Since you eschew Webster’s Dictionary as a product of Yankeeland, I hope you also live without air conditioning (invented by Willis Carrier, of Angola, New York), electric light (invented by Thomas Edison, of Milan, Ohio), and driving (made possible on a large scale by Henry Ford of Greenfield Township, Michigan).

“Lewis and Short covers Medieval Latin.”

Lewis and Short covers Latin from the time of Plautus (200 B.C.) up to and including the Middle Ages.  Among the *classical and pre-classical* authors who use “natio” in the sense of “a race of people, nation, people” are Cicero, Quintilian, Caesar, Tacitus, and Plautus.  So you if you are saying that this dictionary covers *only* Medieval Latin, then you don’t know what you are talking about.  Even if it did, then the use of “natio” in the sense of “nation” at that time, before the era of modern nationalism, still would disprove your point. 

Pauly, by the way, is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary.  Once again, are you actually claiming that Pauly supports you, or that it contradicts what Lewis and Short say?  I am a trained Latinist—“natio” and “patria” means what Lewis and Short say.  “Gens” can also mean “a race, ntiaon, people (sometimes more restricted than and populus, and sometimes put for them” (Definition F).  IF I actually cart myself to campus to look up the Pauly article, and IF the book says that in the ancient world there were bodies of people we might legitimately call “nations, nationalities, ethnicities,” then will you simply say that the Pauly was written by German nationalists?  Before I make a wasted trip, would you please confirm that you place weight on the Pauly-Wissowa?  Otherwise I won’t bother.  Thanks.

“and then when it came to mean what Robespierre, Cavour, Bismarck, and y’alls own hero, Georg Schönerer, meant.”

This has gone too far.  Mr. Richert has already told you that this is a straw man.  I am defending *this* definition, and for the time being this definition *only*:  “A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality.” Does such an entity as described here actually exist, and is it natural?  Are there peoples who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language?  If so, then there are nations, for that is one perfectly acceptable meaning of that word in the English language.  Other definitions of the word do not make *this* definition incorrect, no more than Hitler’s own use of the word Vaterland (=patria!) makes your definition false.

Phew.  I made some typographical errors: 

“Gens” can also mean “a race, nation, people (sometimes more restricted than natio and populus, and sometimes put for them” (Definition F).  Race and nation *not* in the precise sense that racialists and nationalists use those terms, but in a sense permissible by the English language nonetheless.

In other words, *I* am interested in when the word acquired that meaning which John Paul II employed.  The answer amounts to:  since forever.

“So check your handy OED and OEED for when the word made it into English, and then when it came to mean what Robespierre, Cavour, Bismarck, and y’alls own hero, Georg Schönerer, meant.”

Furthermore, why is the burden of proof on us to demonstrate that “nation” can be used in a sense that is independent of nationalism?  Why don’t you shoulder some of the burden and substantiate your claims with citations from the dictionary.  You have told us that the OED is better than Webster’s, but that doesn’t mean that it necessarily supports you.  Please, if you have some evidence to support your claim, advance it.  As I understand your claim, the definition I provided above:  “A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality” either describes an artificial construct emanating from the racialist/nationalists’ fevered brains during and after the Enlightenment, or else that definition simply does not belong to the word “nation” and has mysteriously been misplaced there by the lexicographers and common usage.  Is my understanding of your claim correct?  What evidence do you have of this?

Scott:

Sidney makes a good point. I advice you to read “The
Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” on the strategies
that Indian companies use to capture and hold the market
of people living little above the subsistence level. This
means that Indian companies are in very good position to
capture markets that American companies do not, because
their typical customer is affluent. But you can make a
nice profit with 5c packages iodized salt, because you
sell a lot of them. They have thus developed their
technology for things like preserving ice cream with
minimal refrigeration, microencapsulating iodine in
salt so that it resists heat and humidity, and coming
up with a cheap, relieable automovile that is what
people there want and need (they might capture the
market held by the Citroen 2CV which in its time was
the car of choice in poorer countries - I know, my
family owned one, and I have very fond memories of it)

American companies need Third World talent if they
want to expand on certain countries, so that they do
not make assumptions based on the American market, which
may not hold.

By the way, Scott, I want to pass on the the definition
of a Nation made by one of my heroes Jose Antonio Primo
de Rivera,

“A nation is a unity of destiny in the universal”

Which means that it is independent of ethnic, linguistic,
or religious elements, the only one that matter being
the willingness to work together for a common end.

(Didn’t you know that there were anti-racialist fascists?)

If a nation is a “people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language”, then it is quite obvious that the USofA can not be defined as a “nation”, as there are not common customs, origins, or histories.  There currently is a common language, but it is also one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, so it’s use is almost meaningless.

Now, the people whose great-great-great and beyond grandparents moved into MY Land, [Southern] Appalachia DO share common customs, origins, and histories, as well as dialect.  We ARE a “nation”, whether they admit it or not (hopefully, one day, they will wake up out of their Wal-Mart induced slumber and see it).

My point is that “American nationalism” means destroying local shared customs, origins, histories, and languages/dialects.  No one will readily admit to doing that, but claiming to be a “uniter, not a divider” is as close as one can get without offending too much.

If American patriotism were to strengthen, it would naturally be in opposition to American nationalism.  This is not the case in other places where there is no real difference between patriotism and nationalism, where nationalism is not informed by The Revolutionary philosophies of Modernism.

A conservative CAN be both a patriotic and nationalistic Polak - the two go hand-in-hand, whereas it is impossible to be either a nationalistic and patriotic Frenchman or American, as their “nations” are currently defined (that is, informed by Revolutionary Modernist thought).

@Adriana:

“American companies need Third World talent if they
want to expand on certain countries, so that they do not make assumptions based on the American market, which may not hold.”

Then American companies do not need Third World talent, because there is no such thing as the American market (this I know, because my Sidney tells me so!), so they obviously can’t make assumptions based on something that does not exist.

Sarcasm aside, I’ll check out “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.” I would note, though, that the fact that Indian companies have figured out how to manufacture for India does not prove that Sid’s “there is only a world market” is correct, but just the opposite: It proves that local markets can and do survive.

This is another form of niche marketing, which I think is a fascinating area of economic study.  We’ve run articles in Chronicles on community-supported agriculture, very much a local market phenomenon.

But the principle can be applied at less local levels as well.  In one of my Chronicles columns, I discussed a Rockford manufacturer who developed a process to manufacture a certain after-market auto part that had previously been imported exclusively from China.  The item is made of a very light rubber, and therefore is rather large in relation to its weight.  Thus, shipping from China made up most of the cost of the item when it was sold in the United States.  The manufacturer was able to take advantage of that fact to create a process that allowed him to manufacture the part here for less than it cost to ship it from China.

Or take the example of Apple, which, under the second coming of Steve Jobs, has concerned itself primarily with profitability rather than market share.  The result is that Apple’s market cap has grown dramatically.

These are just a few examples, like the Indian ones you listed, that show that those who are willing to break out of the accepted Economic Laws can do quite well.

@Adriana:

“‘A nation is a unity of destiny in the universal’

Which means that it is independent of ethnic, linguistic,
or religious elements, the only one that matter being
the willingness to work together for a common end.”

I know a bit about Primo de Rivera (and, not incidentally, own a very nice first English edition boxed set of Jose Maria Gironella’s The Cypresses Believe in God), and I think you’re reading a bit too much into his definition of the nation--or, rather, you’re leaving his unspoken assumptions about the Spanish nation out of it.

In any case, you’d better watch yourself, because Primo de Rivera’s Germanophile and populist (or at least anti-monarchial) tendencies are likely to make you suspect in Sid’s eyes.

Mr. Piatik, with his bad analogy of dictionaries compared with airconditioning, and himself ever the materialist, confuses technology with culture. What is more, my posts show that I am the man for the world market, not Mr. Piatik, the Lincolnian nationalist.

Go to the library.  Der Kleine Pauly, Band IV, s. 3, nur [!!!] von Cic. nat. 3.1847 bezeugte alt. Geburtsgöttin.
Otherwise, no comment in the Pauly. Yet there is a long write up about “Patria”.  If the Pauly doesn’t say a concept was important to the Romans, it wasn’t important to the Romans. That’s way the Pauly is better than a dictionary; it tells how words were actually used. QED

I’ll grant that the word otherwise may have been used.  It certainly didn’t mean what racialists and nationalist mean by the word, since racialism and nationalism are 19th C inventions. Ditto “gens” (and the Pauly has a long write up about that word too.) And that particular 19th and 20th C racialist and nationalist meaning is what we’re concerned about.

Sorry to see Mr. Richert shopping only at cottage industries of local farmers and artisans.  Thus his version of Sam-franciscan Paleoconservatism now becomes Neo-Luddite. And a niche is most definitely also a world market category.  I’m proud to say that North Carolina’s own Pepsi Cola found a niche in the Japanese market.

You heard it first here:  Trade on the world market, or eat beans from food stamps.  I have above clearly said that their are decided problems with living solely in the geopolis.  And that Tory Conservatism might be the best ideology to address this issue and still be competitive.

“And that particular 19th and 20th C racialist and nationalist meaning is what we’re concerned about.”

Actually, no it isn’t!  Mr. Richert provided the definition that would be used in this discussion, and you denied that it was valid:  you claimed that nation is only and ever what nationalists claim it means.  And you are manifestly incorrect.

@Sid Cundiff:

“I’ll grant that the word otherwise may have been used.  It certainly didn’t mean what racialists and nationalist mean by the word, since racialism and nationalism are 19th C inventions. Ditto “gens” (and the Pauly has a long write up about that word too.) And that particular 19th and 20th C racialist and nationalist meaning is what we’re concerned about.”

No, it isn’t.  We’re concerned with the traditional meaning of the word.  That’s the whole point, Sid.

@Sid Cundiff:

“You heard it first here:  Trade on the world market, or eat beans from food stamps. ”

Or grow your own beans, as I do, and eat well.

“Der Kleine Pauly, Band IV, s. 3, nur [!!!] von Cic. nat. 3.1847 bezeugte alt. Geburtsgöttin.”

That is only the personified “Natio,” meaning I. in the Lewis and Short.  You are ignoring meaning II, which has copious citations.  Those copious references are more important than the fact that the word does not merit a separate entry in the Pauly.  I rather doubt that “ego” has a separate entry in an *encyclopedia,* but that would not mean that the Romans did not regard the first person as grammatically significant. 

As Lewis and Short point out, the meaning of “natio” overlaps with that of “gens” and “populus.” They provide “nation” as one of the meanings of gens.  Now, the question is, does the Pauly use German words for nation/nationality/national group to translate one of the meanings of “gens,” or of “ethnos,” or of “populus.” If such words are rendered into German (or into English in the English translation) with the appropriate words for “nation” or “nationality,” then your case is blown.  I conceded a long time ago that “natio” was not the only word for what we call a nation.

Furthermore, you persist in ignoring the definition of “nation” as “a people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality.” Do such groups exist?  Are they natural?  Can we agree that this definition is not inherently nationalistic or racialistic?

Mr. Cundiff:

If you reject a dictionary because a Yankee wrote it, you should reject air conditioning, electicity, and automobiles because of the Yankee role in their creation.  I was just hoping that you were living like a true Southron, and scorning the Yankee and all his works and all his empty promises.  I will be very disappointed to find out that you actually use such tools of the Gringo.

@Scott

I do not fully agree with everything that Primo de
Rivera wrote - and I take into consideration that
he was only thirty years old and no thirty-year old
knows as much as he thinks he does.

But still, I find it a nice definition, which can
get a lot of mileage out of it.

But I am glad that you know of him.

(By the way, he is the protagonist in my AH novel
that takes place in Spain in the sixties, in a timeline
where Eamon de Valera is Spanish instead of Irish, and
has been running Spain the way he ran Ireland - as an
oasis of peace and civility in war-torn Europe - no
Spanish Civil war, for one thing).

@Tom Piatak:

“I think the distinction between patriotism and nationalism that John Paul II and Lukacs make is much clearer in the Central European context they were formed by.”

That’s very true, and I thank you for this observation and for the very interesting and quite relevant remarks that followed it.  And I thank you, too, for the gift of John Paul II’s Memory and Identity, which I hope I have put to good use in this series of posts.

Two very minor points:

“This distinction is much less clear in modern Poland and Hungary, which are more ethnically homogeneous than they ever were in the past.  In fact, at this point, I think ‘patriotism’ and ‘nationalism’ are largely synonymous in those countries.”

As a half-Pole myself, I understand the phenomenon that you are alluding to, and I even sympathize with the point that you’re making.  And I understand that, when you and Pat Buchanan use the term “nationalism,” you do not mean something expansionist, chauvinist, imperialistic, etc, but rather something closer to what I’ve discussed as “patriotism.” But let’s look again at JPII’s understanding of “nationalism”:

“[N]ationalism involves recognizing and pursuing the good of one’s own nation alone, without regard for the rights of others.”

That’s certainly not true of modern Polish patriotism, and therefore, I don’t think it’s quite right to say that nationalism and patriotism are largely synonymous in the Polish context today.

The second point concerns this remark:

“And I think the distinction between patriotism and nationalism becomes nebulous at best in contexts other than the Central European milieu that formed Lukacs and John Paul II.”

I discussed this myself in the post, when I mentioned that “It is possible, for instance, that the road to a revival of patriotism in America runs through American nationalism.” And, in the comments and in “Part III: Patriotism,” I’ve discussed the role that American mobility has played in destroying the conditions that make patriotism possible (since true patriotism is always connected to a particular place as well as a particular people).  But your remark that the distinction is “nebulous at best” raises two questions for me:

1) If you are correct, is this simply an historical aberration, or will this be true from here on out, with the two words converging in such a way that they will no longer signify different phenomena?  (My own suspicion is that it is an historical aberration, which will likely disappear once the supply of relatively cheap fossil fuel runs out and Americans, by necessity, will be forced to abandon their mobile lifestyle.)

2) Why is it that those who think that the distinction between nationalism and patriotism is narrowing or nonexistent always call themselves nationalists rather than patriots?  If the distinction between the two phenomena is nebulous at best, why prefer one term over the other?  Doesn’t the very fact that they prefer to use the term nationalism indicate that, on some level, they still sense a distinction?

Patriotism is when you do it.
Nationalism is when they whom you dislike do it.

A question to the author. What does this citation below mean, and is it JPII who claimed this or is it your own deduction?

>But a patria, by itself, has no human
>meaning, any more than, say, environment does. 
>From a human standpoint, both terms
>imply some relationship to some group
>of men

One’s fatherland and one’s environment has no human meaning? I think you’re very wrong here. The green grass of home is what is stuck in our childhood memories of the place we grew up in. Same with the taste of the water, the smells of the flowers and the colors of the rocks. The individuals we grew up with leave seldom a trace. Most of us can only refer to very few persons in our childhood with warm memories, maybe even only one.

@Craig Senna:

“But a patria, by itself, has no human meaning, any more than, say, environment does.”

I apologize for the confusion; I probably condensed this thought a bit too much.  We’re actually saying the same thing.  The point I was making is that there is no such thing as a patria without reference to some particular group of men.  For instance, there can obviously be no patria in Antarctica</i>.  Or, to look at it another way, when we speak of some particular place as a patria, we’re speaking in reference to a particular group of men.  That’s why you’re absolutely right: Our memories are tied up with our patria, but that patria is a patria precisely because it is ours.

On this, though, I have to say that we have very different experiences:

“The individuals we grew up with leave seldom a trace. Most of us can only refer to very few persons in our childhood with warm memories, maybe even only one.”

The people I grew up with have left far more than a trace; in fact, they have made me who I am today, for good and ill.  And there are scores of people from my childhood of whom I have very warm memories.

Scott,

Yes, I think you made good use of “Memory and Identity.” These last three blogposts of yours have been been thoughtful and thought provoking. 

I do think that people who deny there is a distinction between patriotism and nationalism tend to call themselves nationalists.  One reason for it may be, in the American context, the way the left has demonized almost all displays of national sentiment as “nationalism,” and a natural reaction to that.  But some of it may suggest a continuing distinction between the two terms.

By the way, Scott, do you realize that this explains why
the central government grows and grows? With a population
of transients, the local institutions that would normally
do the job are hollowed out and rendered useless. We
have no local community, so why would we expect it to
deliver those services that according to subsidiarity
theory it should? 

It seems more likely that the destruction of local communities began as a result of economic centralization and the loss of economic freedom, which probably went hand in hand with political centralization.

Der Neue Pauly (2000s) has no entry for Natio (it says
“see Personification,” so clearly the goddess is in
mind).  Nor does it have an article on “Patria” for
that matter.  The entry on “gens” deals only with *one*
definition of the word, namely the Roman clans.  So
much for the purported comprehensiveness of this
encyclopedia. *That* is why you need a dictionary—
for a comprehensive treatment of all a word’s meanings,
not a detailed examinination of this or that one.  I
have yet to consult an older Pauly.

Thanks be to the gods that Algore invented the internets:

Ancient Rome and Its Connection with the Christian Religion By Henry Formby

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06139a.htm

To quote:

<<The manner in which the Romans invariably speak of themselves is “the Roman people,” or in later times as “the Senate and the Roman people.” The Roman nation, in our existing ordinary sense of the word “nation”, is a thing that has no existence whatever in history.>>

Keep reading: http://books.google.com/books?id=ywDjKAxqVEEC&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq;=&#x22;the+roman+nation&#x22;&source=web&ots=ymiNGkGgns&sig=a1spZi_7TYlmC7-tdMRdV5v-7GQ#PPA42,M1

Page 42, halfway down.

@ Sid Cundiff:

Yes, I do know that Colin Powell is of Jamaican heritage.  So what?  You found one pale Jamaican in a high position and that is a basis of your claim that a country with 2.8M inhabitants and a per capita GDP of $4,800 (CIA world factbook) is going to export upper management to American companies so that they can compete in a global market?  How can you even say that with a straight face?  Try that argument with the Chinese.

Based on your non-answer I am concluding that you’ve never been to Jamaica.  Which explains why you also don’t know that techie multinationals in Jamaica import qualified workers from Europe, Mexico, even China (I’ve met all of the above).  Must be due to the abundance of local talent.

Mr. Capp,

I never said that Rome was a nation.  I said that the Latins were a nation, one city-state of which was Rome.  The Etruscans were a nation.  The Gauls were a nation, or rather a constellation of them.  Of the Latins, the Etruscans, Gauls, etc., one could truly say that they were “a people with common customs, history, origins, and language.” Enough said.  Were they nations in the sense of “nation-state”—no.  But that just goes to show that the word “nation” has a broader meaning than “nation-state” does. 

In the old Pauly, the Etruscans and the Volsci are both designated with the word “Volk,” meaning “a nation, a people” in the sense defined above.  Livy describes several nationalities, several “gentes,” coming together to form Rome.  There he is not referring to two clans or families but to two ethnically different sorts of people.  One may say, “nationalities, nations, ethnicities,” etc.

Andrew Capp:

See line six of the Aeneid, Book I:  genus unde Latinum.  “Genus” here refers to a group of people such as I have defined above.  Or see line 33 of the same, “Romanam condere gentem.” There, “gens” clearly means a national grouping, not in the “ordinary” sence of a “nation-state” as we today might be prone to define it, but in the still perfectly acceptable sense above.  So the Romans may be seen as a smaller nation within a nation, or a smaller racial grouping within a larger one.  The Roman people were part of the Latin people, with some accretions from the Sabines and Etruscans, too, to be sure.  But identifiable peoples with a common history, etc., they were. 

Once again, please, Andrew Capp and Mr. Cundiff, concede the obvious, that the word nation may legitimately be used in the sense Mr. Lukacs, Mr. Richert, and Pope John Paul II have all used it. 

I shan’t be returning to this site for some time, for I have devoted far too much time and energy to it.  My thanks to Mr. Richert for his article and defense of the truth and the English language.

P.S. Lest I be accused of self-contradiction, I have indeed modified my position on whether Rome was a “nation” or not.  Not in the sense that France or Italy or America today is a nation, which I take it to be Formby’s point.  But in the sense that Pope John Paul II and Lukacs used it, yes.  The word has several related yet distinct meanings.

http://globalparadigms.blogspot.com/2006_06_23_archive.html

Jonah Goldberg:

<<The difference, to me and I believe to him (Lukacs), is that nationalism is rooted in the mystic concept of a nation—most famously in blood and soil—while patriotism is rooted in adherence to a creed or doctrine.  A patriot in the Weimar Republic was considered a traitor by most nationalists, for example.>>

Mr Richert(?):

<<Goldberg could not be more mistaken, both about Lukacs’s understanding of patriotism and his understanding of nationalism...By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one . . . has no wish to force upon other people.
In other words, patriotism is rooted in a particular place, and the people who live there, not in “adherence to a creed or doctrine.” By “a particular way of life,” Orwell (and Lukacs) mean just that: not abstract credal principles but the real life of real people in a real place—their language, their food, their religion, their manners, etc....>>

Lukacs:

<<[I]deological nationalism is a secular religion. And in Europe at least, the era of ideological nationalism may have come to an end: its attractions declined steeply after the last world war. Still, the factor of nationality . . . continues to prevail, in Europe as well as all over the world. And this is the reason why I found it necessary to distinguish between patriotism and nationalism . . . My argument is that nations are one thing and nationalism another. The former not only preceded but they survive the latter. Nations and national consciousness are enormously important historical factors even now . . . Thus, nationality is still the most formative historical factor in our democratic times, despite powerful influences and technological institutions working against it.>>

http://books.google.com/books?id=Y8crPCvAaNkC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=lukacs+nationalism&source=web&ots=3S5CjYIOzY&sig=_Yvs9rdVMuEyZJj-UFn3IydV5K8#PPA3,M1

http://www.raintreecounty.com/Rehberger.html

<<France or Italy or America today is a nation.>>

Not according to the classical definition of the word.  You can’t tell me that the Bretons share a “blood and history” with all the other various people cobbled together to make “France” (the Basque, Germans, Walloons, Belgiques, not to mention the Algerians, Congolese, etc. that make up France today).  Also, you can’t tell me the Tirolers, the Venetians, the Sardinians, etc. all share the same “blood and history”.  In America, just look around you; Scots, Irish, Germans, Italians, Poles, English, the list goes on and on.

To define France, Italy, and the USofA as “nations” is to accept the modernist definition of the word, which plays right into the definition given by Mr Richert in the beginning, quoting Pope John Paul II.

Here’s just a reminder that although Lukacs takes authenticity of expression very seriously (authenticity and precision are not at all the same), and cares about the history of words, he constantly admonishes against “substituting definitions for thought.”

In other words, the history of words is prior to their definitions; definitions are
the “afterthoughts” of the history of words.  And as there are different kinds of nationalisms, and as history never quite repeats itself, the future kinds of nationalisms will not quite be what anyone expects and will not quite conform to any definitions - although history will give some clues as to what they’ll be like.

@Andrew Capp:

Thanks for the link to the post on Leon Hadar’s blog; I’d forgotten about that exchange, and with the redesign of the Chronicles website some months back, my remarks (which Hadar quoted) have yet to be restored.

Because of the formatting in Hadar’s blog post, however, you’ve inadvertently conflated words of mine, words of Lukacs’s, words of George Orwell.  I’d encourage readers to read Hadar’s original, where I think they can figure out who’s speaking each line, but I’ll reformat and post the relevant section in the next comment here as well.

Andrew Capp,

The United States is not a nation in any sense of the word. Americans no longer share the same language, religion, ancestry, history, or political beliefs. The USA is a “dollar country.” Various tribes and rootless individuals from around the world have decamped here to pursue economic opportunity. The only common threads that hold America together are militarism and materialism. The sooner this farce is tossed in the dustbin of history the better. You can join Adrianna in Aztlan.

THE FOLLOWING IS A REFORMATTED (AND COMPLETE) VERSION OF MY REMARKS THAT ANDY CAPP POSTED ABOVE.

_______

It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that Goldberg could not be more mistaken, both about Lukacs’s understanding of patriotism and his understanding of nationalism. Considering that this has been one of Lukacs’s chief preoccupations (if not the chief preoccupation) of his 60-plus years of professional historianship, there is simply no excuse for Goldberg’s ignorance. It is, after all, the chief theme of Lukacs’s 2005 book, Democracy and Populism.

Let’s assume for the moment, though, that Goldberg is behind in his reading. Surely, as an admirer of Lukacs, he’s familiar with “About Historical Factors,” the fifth chapter of Lukacs’s magnum opus, Historical Consciousness (first published in 1968, with new editions in 1985 and 1994). If not, perhaps he’d like to pick up a copy of ISI’s Remembered Past: John Lukacs on History, Historians, and Historical Knowledge, a remarkably inexpensive 900-plus-page reader which reprints “About Historical Factors,” as well as 66 other major essays.

There, he’d find that Lukacs quotes George Orwell on the definition of patriotism:

By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one . . . has no wish to force upon other people.

In other words, patriotism is rooted in a particular place, and the people who live there, not in “adherence to a creed or doctrine.” By “a particular way of life,” Orwell (and Lukacs) mean just that: not abstract credal principles but the real life of real people in a real place—their language, their food, their religion, their manners, etc.

Nationalism, on the other hand, is, for Lukacs (and Orwell), an ideological phenomenon. It subsumes man in the nation; it divorces the nation from “a particular place and a particular way of life”; it defines the nation at least in part in terms of its opposition to the other. And, as Orwell continues (in the passage that Lukacs cites):

Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he had chosen to sink his own individuality.

Again, all of this is obvious to anyone who has even a passing familiarity with Lukacs’s work. What may be less obvious, however, is what is wrong with this part of Goldberg’s statement:

nationalism is rooted in the mystic concept of a nation—most famously in blood and soil

Here, Goldberg seems to be implying that consciousness of the nation, in any form, goes hand in hand with nationalism. Again, nothing could be farther from the truth. As Lukacs explains:

[I]deological nationalism is a secular religion. And in Europe at least, the era of ideological nationalism may have come to an end: its attractions declined steeply after the last world war. Still, the factor of nationality . . . continues to prevail, in Europe as well as all over the world. And this is the reason why I found it necessary to distinguish between patriotism and nationalism . . . My argument is that nations are one thing and nationalism another. The former not only preceded but they survive the latter. Nations and national consciousness are enormously important historical factors even now . . . Thus, nationality is still the most formative historical factor in our democratic times, despite powerful influences and technological institutions working against it.

And finally:

The sovereign and independent national state may have had its day: but nationality continues to function, perhaps in a novel manner, corresponding to the change in the texture of history.

Agree with him or disagree with him (and, it should be clear, I agree), John Lukacs is most emphatically not a kindred soul of Jonah Goldberg. Which raises the rather interesting question: Since Goldberg could so easily point to many, many people who are his kindred souls, why is he suddenly so anxious to identify himself with such decidedly anti-neocon writers as Kuehnelt-Leddihn and Lukacs?

@Andrew Capp:

Thanks, too, for the link to the article on Ross Lockridge’s Raintree County, a novel that has long fascinated me and, despite its flaws, counts as a true American masterpiece.

I should note, though, for those who don’t realize this, the Lukacs quoted in the article is Georg Lukacs, the Marxist historian, not John Lukacs (and no relation to John Lukacs).

Hey Sid, that’s Mr. Momak to you. If I was a female, it would be stara momica , or maybe stara kokica . But I wouldn’t expect you to understand that—in my experience most ‘conservative’ multiculturalists are strangely lacking in actual knowledge of other cultures and languages.

At any rate, we should have the type of ‘economic crisis’ that Japan has. A crowded (with Japanese) island with no resources still manages to run huge balance of payments surpluses with us, build factories on American soil, on the bleeding edge of robot technology (precisely because they want to remain Japanese).

Here is another ‘xenophobic’ country that is kicking butt, Germany.

http://www.newsweek..com/id/91613/page/1

If you read the article, there is the usual MSM call—but they need more immigrants! In other words, the MSM can’t seem to fathom, as Sid can’t, that cultural homogeneity and even labor ‘shortages’ can be a good thing. And strangely, for all their Turks, the German insistence on an ethnic identity has keep those people from rioting, bombing. Unlike the French ‘assimilationists” and the British multiculturalists.

Sid, you might want to take a look at two ‘emerging’ powers, China and Japan. How many Jamaicans, Pakistanis, Turks, in any of those countries. India allows immigration—if you are brown (but not a Paki or Bangladeshi), as Peter Brimelow has shown. You can try this at home—google ‘India’ and “Person of Indian Origin Visa”.

Now, getting back to the matter at hand (does anyone else see M. Cundriff as actually subtracting from serious discussion)

Granting terms as defined in this dialog, the problem with ‘patriotism’ is that is is without a political program. Love of ones own land and its traditional inhabitants is simply not enough this day and age. Fact is that people are mobile today, indeed modernity requires mobility and there is no putting the toothpaste back in the tube. A people who is told that they have no rootedness and therefore aren’t a nation will not be able to defend themselves from the next group of ‘immigrants’ that seek to remake the territory in their own image.

A nation can be mobile, it can seek to maintain its living spaces, even if recently acquired. E.g. Southern California. Before 1965 it was on a certain trajectory, had developed its own culture—surf, music (someone once called the Beach Boys a truly American folk music) , even architecture and art. Obviously Anglo-American culture was not ‘long’ rooted in the territory, but it was unique, there and would have continued to thrive. Sadly Americans bought into the ‘creedal nation’ thing, and some others (paleocons) would disdain the new Anglo communities created because of their newness. The result, mass immigration has altered the place, the communities that were their being immigrated out of existence , people moving north or east , a few islands exist as a sort of old timey remnant. The problem, the ‘Anglos’ lack an ‘Anglo’ (read white) nationalism, a political and ideological program to legitimize their possession of a space and their political control of that space.

This goes to whether France and the USA are ‘nations’—those who say they are not is stuck in either/or logic. The presence of quite literally peripheral communities in France does not alter the fact it was built on an ethnic core. Likewise the existence of various Euro groups in America does not alter the fact of a English/British core or the fact that the Germanic hinterland was populated by people of vary similar manners, customs, religion and yes genetics. There is a matter of distance on all these dimensions. Sometimes the distance is so great the gulf cannot be bridged without destroying those on either side. That, I believe is the case with the new immigration. Somalis in Minnesota are much further from ‘old stock’ Americans than were the Norwegians of 100 years ago. Again the problem is political—those who seek to divide white Americans into small localities, or along faded ‘ethnic’ lines are surrendering what we have created to those who do have a ‘nationalistic’ program—attachment to their own group in a pursuit of purity of ideals. They are letter perhaps the best (patriotism as defined here) be the enemy of the good (a Euro-American nationalism). La Raza won’t make the same mistake.

@stari_momak:

“Love of ones own land and its traditional inhabitants is simply not enough this day and age. ”

“The problem, the ‘Anglos’ lack an ‘Anglo’ (read white) nationalism, a political and ideological program to legitimize their possession of a space and their political control of that space.”

I’ve heard this argument frequently, and I have to admit that I simply cannot understand it.  It is, to me, as if someone said, “The fact that your family and your home are yours is no longer enough in this day and age; you’ll never defend the lives of your wife and children, and your possession of your property, unless you adopt a political and ideological program that legitimizes your relationship to your family and property.”

In fact, it seems to me that such ideological programs, no matter how superficially they may appear to “legitimize their possession of a space and their political control of that space,” are part of the problem, because they implicitly concede that it is not enough that the fact that our people and our land belong to us.

For me, it is; and I’ll defend my family and home for that reason.  I won’t defend them for an ideology, but because they are mine.

@stari_momak:

“A people who is told that they have no rootedness and therefore aren’t a nation will not be able to defend themselves from the next group of ‘immigrants’ that seek to remake the territory in their own image.”

And a people who are convinced that their nationality is completely divorced from the place in which they live will not be able to defend themselves, either.  We know that, because the Americanization campaigns between the wars did precisely that, and, come 1965, a superficially united America was not able to defend itself against massive waves of Third World immigration.

@stari_momak:

“A nation can be mobile, it can seek to maintain its living spaces, even if recently acquired. E.g. Southern California. Before 1965 it was on a certain trajectory, had developed its own culture—surf, music (someone once called the Beach Boys a truly American folk music) , even architecture and art. Obviously Anglo-American culture was not ‘long’ rooted in the territory, but it was unique, there and would have continued to thrive.”

Roger McGrath, who grew up in Southern California at that very time and still resides there today, has written about this very thing in Chronicles, but he would (despite being more of a nationalist) point out that, in fact, part of what allowed the development of that regional culture was the fact that communities were becoming rooted.  The L.A. of his day had well-defined neighborhoods and cultural borders; it was not a “community” of transients.

@stari_momak:

“Again the problem is political—those who seek to divide white Americans into small localities, or along faded ‘ethnic’ lines are surrendering what we have created to those who do have a ‘nationalistic’ program—attachment to their own group in a pursuit of purity of ideals.”

I’m not seeking to create such divisions.  I’m saying that abstract nationalism was tried and failed, and that, for the past 40 years, we’ve suffered the consequences.  If it were sufficient to do what you wish it would do, then “white America” would not have crumbled so quickly and completely post-1965.

The “Anglo culture” of El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula ("Los Angeles") was destroyed not by “those immigrants”, but by the Anglos themselves.  The Beach Boys went from producing nice Southern California “popular music” in 1961 to drowning while drunk in 1983.  Twenty two years.

To be fair, the non-Anglo “culture” has destroyed itself as well.  When the Hispanics of Los Angeles protest, what do they carry around, but this:

http://static.flickr.com/54/152666072_4729047d79_o.jpg

Instead, we should see more of THIS, which is carried more by the immigrant population here in Appalachia:

http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Vincent-Barzoni/Lady-of-Guadalupe-Montage-Print-C10079588.jpeg

Anyway, to try and unite “White Americans” across 3,000+ miles into one “nation” is signs of pure megalomania.  The only thing that could unite a fundamentally different set of people over such a long distance is God; that is, “White nationalism” must become a religion that replaces all others in the minds of “White” people across the country.

I’ve been searching all morning for the issue of Chronicles in which I quoted from Raintree County in my column.  I finally found it (October 2004).  Here’s the wonderful little passage that I think is one of the best representations of patriotism in American fiction:

“Johnny Shawnessy decided that some day when he was big enough to go away from home by himself, he would go over and get Nell Gaither, and they would get into a big covered wagon and go down and find the National Pike, and they would ride off together toward those big plains and those far western mountains beneath the shining stars, where the land was fair and free, where the Indians lived in tepees, and the streams were full of fish, in the country called the United States of America, which was somewhere in Raintree County.”

@Scott Richert

Roger McGrath, who grew up in Southern California at that very time and still resides there today, has written about this very thing in Chronicles

Indeed he and his Chronicles articles have been instrumental in my thinking on the subject, though I remember reading the thesis that Surf Music was an authentic folk music long before. I would extend the time from up until the mid 80s actually, when the big waves of immigration really started hitting. But that’s another story.

At any rate, I think we are probably agreed that the US is too big (after all, it was the federal courts that overturned prop 187, though the issue was not contested by governor Gray Davis. (Who was recalled, but not exactly over 187) As you tend to let pass remarks about genetics/biology I take it you tacitly agree but either think it is either counterproductive or useless to speak of such things. That’s fine, and different than Gospod Zmirak’s position (I hope he pops up to Slovenia while he is in the neighborhood, and gets to see old time Hapsburg multiculturalism in Triest).

As to the collapse, I don’t know. My feeling is that white Americans probably thought they were a large enough population and had a large enough majority to not be concerned with what they were assured would be relatively low numbers. I think a lot of white Americans who live away from immigration impacted areas feel that way today. The matter would require more thought than I have time for right now and more space than a blog comment.

Once again, nice debate, even Mr. Cundriff (I apologize for being a bit harsh before, but i get exasperated at regurgitation open borders talking points that can be refuted with about a minute of thought.) This is an interesting topic that touches on real lived politics—this debate has been similar to the Steve Sailor v. Jared Taylor ‘citizenist v white nationalist’ debate at vdare. Maybe Chronicles or Takimag could run something similar.

“To define France, Italy, and the USofA as “nations” is to accept the modernist definition of the word, which plays right into the definition given by Mr Richert in the beginning, quoting Pope John Paul II. “

That was my point—they are nations in the defition of nation-state.  Incidentally, I would *not* be so hasty as the other peopel here to say that France, Italy, etc., are not peoples with common history, etc.  Even *before* nationalism, Florentine and Genoese and Venetian were all identifiable as dialects of Italian, so there were Italians, a people with . . . etc., etc.  Obviously Sicilian and Sardinian are so distinct as not to fit.  So what?  That does not mean that there is no consistency whatsoever.  “Italy” need not be considered as a uniform, standardized nation as nationalists say.  There is a hall in the Vatican which consists of *all* the parts of Italy.  There seems to be more going on there than just the physical layout of the peninsula.  Clearly, with the exception of the Bretons, the pre-modern French as a whole spoke related Romance languages.  Provencal stands out as more eccentric, I admit, but clearly the French did not consider themselves the same as the Germans or the English or the Spanish or the Italians, and that was LONG, LONG before nationalists tried enforcing standardized French or creating a centralized nation-state.

“There is a hall in the Vatican which consists of *all* the parts of Italy.”

I am referring to the Hall of Maps.  The frescoes depict all the parts of Italy, including Corsica.  That hall was painted long before Garibaldi and strongly suggests that “Italy” is a natural grouping.

In sum, it seems that Messr. Cundiff and Capp are engaged in every bit as much reductive thinking as the nationalists.  A nationalist says, “America is a real people, ergo there cannot be distinctive regional identities.” Cundiff and Capp say, “Regional identities are real, ergo there cannot be a distinctive supra-regional identity, such as the nation.” What a bunch of garbage.  I have taken a class in Rome, with a class filled with fellow Americans.  Believe me, the Americans in that room had a common origin, background, customs, etc.  We certainly had more in common amongst ourselves than we did with the Italians outside the class, or the Britons, Irish, Belgian, and German class members.  Now, the Americans had interesting conversations about being from Tennessee, Alabama, etc. 

Both the extreme nationalists and the extreme regionalists, it seems, are seekikng to limit variety of any kind.  The nationalist says, “Everything within the nation must be uniform.  I want *only* national culture/identity in the state.” The extreme regionalists say, “If Appalachia and New England were in the same country, then there would be a variety of regional cultures.  I want *only* my culture/identity in the state.  Ergo, we must break up.” Nonsense—and *ideological* nonsense, at that—from all sides. 

In short, Mr. Cundiff, please count me out of the little ideological fiefdom “Tory conservatism” you’ve stewed up for yourself.

Lastly, Mr. Capp, are you actually arguing the same thing as Mr. Cundiff?  He’s denying that nations exist.  You, I guess, are merely saying that our current identification of nations is skewed.  Appalachia would be a nation, not the U.S.?  Fine, but that is not the same argument which Cundiff is arguing.  If you admit that nations exist, then I have proved my point.

Caper’s description of extreme nationalism and extreme regionalism is on target.

<<If you admit that nations exist, then I have proved my point.>>

My “patria” is Appalachia; my “natio” is the few ("native", meaning not Floridian) Catholic families of Appalachia, my gens is the people that attend family reunions (a dynamic group, some are more active than others, and others leave and come back into the family fold).

A “gens” identifies with a “natio”, which is born out of a “patria”.  To be “patriotic” is to love the Land, in my case Appalachia (even the acres owned by the 99% Protestant population).  My “nationalism” come in me supporting Catholicism in the mountains.  I suppose I am a kind of “nationalist” because of my support of our Catholic Mexican immigrants to Appalachia.  The next step is “gensatism”, to love one’s immediate family.  This immediate family is my immediate priority; my wife, children, mother, father, brothers, cousins, etc.

My Catholic family is a part of our larger Catholic “nation”, in our Homeland of Appalachia - we have a completely different land and a divergent history than that of, say, Mr Cundiff’s.

Gens < Patria > Natio

The Land is most important - if I see a member of my family, or a Mexican Catholic offending our Land, that upsets me.  To a patriot, the Land is most important; to decide between a nation and a family member requires some assessment of the situation (for example, if a Catholic Mexican immigrant were to oppose one of my cousins that supported gay marriage, I would support my “natio” (the Catholic Mexican immigrant) over my “gens (my gay cousin).

@Andrew Capp:

“The Land is most important - if I see a member of my family, or a Mexican Catholic offending our Land, that upsets me. ”

But the land cannot be the most important, simply by order of priority.  This is the point I was making, in a rather clumsy way, when I wrote that:

“a patria, by itself, has no human meaning, any more than, say, environment does.  From a human standpoint, both terms imply some relationship to some group of men.”

The reason it upsets you that someone is “offending our Land” is because it is yours, correct?  Presumably, you would not be particularly concerned about the same sort of offense occurring here in Northern Illinois, because the land is not yours.  Therefore, the land itself doesn’t really take priority.

And before John Ball launches into a rant about us all poisoning our land, pointing out that the land by itself cannot take priority, from a human standpoint, is not to denigrate the land; far from it.  In fact, the only hope for the preservation of the land is to have people who really do care for it, and they’re only likely to do so if they are a part of the land and the land is a part of them.

The answer to the environmental problem is to combat mobility--not simply because of the damage that, say, fossil-fuel emissions cause, but because only people rooted in a particular place are likely to care enough about that place to preserve (and even improve) it.

Re:  Mr. Capp

And like it or not, whatever your gens, patria, and natio are, you belong to the Res Publica of the United States.  Q.E.D.

It occurs to me that looking around the world, that Mr. Richert’s attributing the willingness of Americans to endure mass, non-western immigration cannot be attributed to the failure of Americanization. Simply look at Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France, the Netherlands. All have allowed what I would consider non-compatible immigration. Something larger is a work than the ‘Americanization’ programs of the US in the 1920s.

At root I suspect that Peter Brimelow is right, that this is all to do penance for the sins (or ‘sins’ in the case of white Americans, English people, Anzacs) of the Holocaust. Just the other day I saw a video of a young woman campaigning for a council seat for the British National Party.  While being interviewed by the BBC an man came up and spat in her face—and then he said ‘You gassed six million Jews.’ Now the BNP has its own problems, and obviously the man was unhinged, but I think his actions were only an extreme example of the thought of a lot of normal, leftish white Britons.

@stari_momak:

“It occurs to me that looking around the world, that Mr. Richert’s attributing the willingness of Americans to endure mass, non-western immigration cannot be attributed to the failure of Americanization.”

That’s not quite what I’m saying.  I’m certainly well aware of the fact that mass non-Western immigration is occurring in many European and European-derived countries, and I do think that, in every country where it is occurring, it’s a result of a loss of will.  Some of the factors contributing to such a loss of will are undoubtedly the same (or similar) across all of the countries.  Others are particular.  I’ve been discussing one particular factor in the United States, and I’ve focused on it primarily because racialists and nationalists suggest that this particular thing--some sort of abstract nationalism or “white racial consciousness"--is the solution today.  But if it wasn’t sufficient in the past, why do we think it would be today?

abstract “white racial consciousness”

Well, as I said I have lived for a good part of my adulthood as a ‘rootless’ cosmopolitan, and I don’t think that racial consciousness is as abstract as you seem to believe it is. Let me give you some anecdotes. Twice in the last week I have been asked by black men how I think Obama will do in the election. One was a well educated, very nice Jamaica, one was an ignorant, uneducated and aggressive African (I’d say east African). They didn’t ask about the election in general, they were obviously concerned about the outcome for someone they ‘identified with’. I personally think that this identification is, for a large part, hard wired into the brain. At any rate, race was playing a big part in their thinking.

Two, I was in South London on a trek to find a local traditional type of eatery—a Pie and Mash and Eel shop. Now, if you know South London you know it is now very non-white, but every single customer in the very busy lunchtime crowd in the place was a white, cockney type Londoner. If place was so important, you’d think that some blacks—some of whom are going into their third or forth generation in south London—would be there. But no. I didn’t do a survey, but I would bet that eating pie, mash, and eels was very much a white communal thing. (I wouldn’t get straight answers on that anyway.)

This leads into political practicality. I think that biology reinforces the place based identity you are supporting; I think the racial breakdown at the Pie and Mash shop reflects that. Moving on to ‘high’ politics, I note that regionalist parties such as the Vlaams Belang and the Liga Norda (I think that’s correct) also have a ‘racial’ element—implicit or explicit