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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#23418 Post contents: To respond quickly to the points Scott raises (if not in the order in which he raises them): 1.) The man who commits murder for love of his wife can be said to be acting out of excessive love or love perverted, depending on the definition of love. The English word love is all too vague, both in this case and in that of patriotism as love of country. Love in the sense of caritas does not have an excess. Love in the sense of amor does admit of excess. I suppose there's a fair question to be pondered whether patriotism is pietas or amor patriae, and depending on the answer, whether it can be excessive or whether we must properly call what *looks like* an excess of patriotism by another name. While I'm not sure whether excessive love or perverted love (and thus perhaps not love at all) is the more accurate turn of phrase, the phenomenon of patriotism turned toward destructive ends is real and for the sake of clear thinking, it is still better to call this patriotism gone wrong "patriotism" (whether excessive or perverted) than to conscript a different word like "nationalism" to serve in its place. Nationalism, for good or ill, is neither a synonym nor an antonym of patriotism, though the two have some historical overlap. If we were to call everything perverted or taken to excess by another name, our language would be unnavigable. What's worse, and the error into which I fear my friends are falling, is that of believing that our wholesome feelings are incapable of leading us into folly -- that all evil comes clearly labeled and packaged and is external. I don't think the world is like that. 2.) Regarding patriotism and the Iraq War, I'm not sure what evidence could prove or disprove the role of patriotism in it, especially if one chooses to call patriotism always a good thing, no matter its degree or form. That definition would of course foreclose the prospect of patriotism playing any role in a bad venture. But if we don't use a question-begging definition, the prospect that love of country played a role in support for the war does not seem controversial. We cannot know what is really going on inside men's minds, but a lot of people who act and speak in a fashion consistent with the virtue of patriotism supported the war, and linked their support to their patriotism. They encouraged their sons to enlist in the armed forces. They believed that their country had the will and ability to transform a Middle Eastern dictatorship into a democracy, or at least a safe and minimally just country. They seemed, from my observations, to feel strong emotions of patriotism -- love of the flag; a belief in America, in a general sense. Did they conflate America and her government? Yes, but there are important -- indeed patriotic -- reasons why they made that mistake. They patriotically believed in the goodness of their countrymen and of their form of government, and how could such goodness lead to evil? I could compile evidence for all this, but it should be abundant enough to need little demonstration. The feeling and motive I have described is not accurately called "nationalism," since it does not have anything to do with America as a nation among nations or with national identity vis-a-vis other nations. It does not appear to spring from a competitive, nationalistic spirit, but from a spirit which in loving America overlooks her capacity for folly. Now, all of this is speculative and impressionistic, so if my interlocutors choose not to accept it, I can't quarrel with them too much. But it does seem to me that what my friends are doing amounts to a kind of Corcyranization or Orwellianism. If something we like is leading to folly, we simply decide to call it something else. 3.) Scott suggests that I look at Lukacs. I have, and although I don't have the book in front of me at the moment, I recall that at one point in the relevant chapter in Historical Consciousness, Lukacs allows that the distinction between nationalism and patriotism to which he subscribes might also be called a distinction between ideological and organic (if I'm recalling correctly) patriotism. I think the latter formulation is better, though even that fails to credit the possibility that flawed patriotism may not be "ideological" but simply emotional. As for the wider history that Luckacs lays out, well, it's hardly an open-and-shut proof that patriotism is always a good thing. Luckacs redefines terms retrospectively, saying that when Samuel Johnson remarked that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel, what Johnson really mean was nationalism. Even if that is true, it illustrates the historic capacity for patriotism to be taken to excess (or perversion) and to become a refuge for scoundrels. I disagree with the idea that the later word, "nationalism," simply steps in and takes the place of earlier examples of patriotism-gone-awry. The older usage, capacious enough to include patriotism-gone-awry as well as the patriotism that makes us all feel so good, is more honest. 4.) Self-determination is liberal and therefore bad. I don't agree that everything liberal is bad and everything conservative is good. To make conservatism and liberalism syonyms for good and evil is to engage in ideological thinking and the bending of language to suit a political-ideological agenda. That's the very thing I'm railing against. Sent at: 2008 05 16