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Entry: Nationalism is What We Need Now--The Case for an "Unpatriotic Conservatism" Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/nationalism_is_what_we_need_now_a_case_for_an_unpatriotic_conservatism#23409 Post contents: "Sticking to accepted definitions" is what I've done, Cort. The definitions I've used are those found in any dictionary; you'll notice that I link my definition of "nationalism" to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which defines the term in a nutshell as "the attitude that the members of a nation have when they care about their national identity and (2) the actions that the members of a nation take when seeking to achieve (or sustain) self-determination." What's so bad about that? Or rather, what's necessarily so bad about that? The point of my essay, after all, is that the worse term has its virtues while the better one has its vices of excess. There are virtues which have no vicious excess -- one can never be too just, for example. But patriotism is not one of these. One can indeed love one's country too much or in the wrong way. To call such excessive or misplaced love "nationalism" is not always accurate (even though it sometimes is), since hubristic patriotism need not have any of the "us and them" distinction inherent in nationalism. It can be, and in the present case often is, simply too much "us." Scott asks why I would want more of something when I'm not willing to define my as the thing in question. Because that's how imperfect politics works. I might like to see more paleoconservative Protestantism, too, but that does not mean I am a Protestant myself or agree with Protestant theology. It simply means that I think the country would be better off with more Harold O.J. Brown and less James Dobson. What does give me pause, however, is the idea that the word "nationalism" has been worsened to the point where even attempting to show that it is not inherently and sempiternally evil is liable to create confusion. But I don't think we have reached that point: both Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy have had essays on the inevitability and sometime benevolence of ethnonationalism recently, and everyone from Samuel Huntington to Michael Lind has been able to discuss the matter seriously without being accused (except by the usual suspects) of brownshirt sympathies. What I should say explicitly is that the kind of nationalism I have in mind is roughly the sort advocated by Patrick Buchanan or Samuel Huntington -- though even the more leftward nationalism of Michael Lind might be preferable to democratic imperialism and multiculturalism. Sent at: 2008 05 16