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Entry: An Enduring Problem Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/an_enduring_problem#30054 Post contents: So what's "nationalism" anyway? Anyone ever get that sorted out? Is America a nation? It's been a while since I read Mr. Fleming's article at Chronicles, but it seems to be a variation on a common definition: "nationalism is bad patriotism". To call nationalism a "statist ideology" is to miss the important point that loyalty to nation (whatever that is) and loyalty to the state are typically conflated in true nation-states--e.g., Germany and Japan in the 1930s--and <i>only</i> then. While I greatly respect much of Fleming's other writings, Mr. Fleming's article is a bad starting point for a discussion of nationalism here. (I'm commenting on his Chronicles post here because Mr. Fleming has banned me from posting comments at the Chronicles site. Viva Takimag!). In particular, the sentence quoted in boldface in Mr. Larison's article is patently false by any of the several <i>reasonable</i> definitions of "nationalism", by which I mean to exclude the "bad patriotism" definition. I think this is so obvious that it would be superfluous to supply examples. Note also that the rise of the nation-state in Europe coincided with the "bracketing of war" and the "relativization of the enemy" as a <i>justus hostis</i> rather than a foe who must be destroyed. On to Mr. Larison's remarks. Of course he's right that nationalism, especially what Benedict Anderson called "official nationalism", has had a historical tendency to homogenization, but Mr. Larison didn't mention that some of the "competing loyalties" it opposes are supra-national ones. The EU, for instance, which seems to be resisted more effectively by nationalism than by subsidiarity or other ideologies. On the demonization of "the Europeans" before the Iraq War, note first of all that it was the "old Europe" which was demonized and the "new Europe" which was valorized. That points to another obvious fact: nationalists can view other nations as friends as well as enemies. And please note that the bombing of Yugoslavia was a violation of state sovereignty--sovereignty being a principle defended by not a few self-described nationalists. If it were my purpose to list all the "pluses" of nationalism on the balance sheet, I could go on and on in this already over-long comment. Instead, I'll just once again recommend the best book I've read on the concept of nationalism: <i>Ethnonationalism</i> by Walker Connor. Sent at: 2008 12 01