Does nationalism still serve a purpose?

[DrZoidberg]

Back when queen Isabella of Spain invented nationalism in the 15'th century it was a good idea in order to unify Spain to drive out the Moors. While great for Isabella. Not necessary good for the Spanish. But over time the Spanishification project led to all Spanish people speaking Spanish. Well... not all of them. Actually quite few of them. But it helped her new nation and it's identity. It certainly helped trade, and made Spain powerful as a colonial empire. Didn't help the Spanish Jews though. Not at all.

Napoleon was the one who formulated it into any kind of coherent ideology. The basic principle was simple. Everybody is better off if everything we share is standardised. Only 12% of the French spoke French. They spoke 400 distinct languages (not dialects). And it was generally a mess to communicate across France. Initially enforcing French on the French was mostly just a way to make sure that his "le grand armee" would follow orders. Since it was an army of conscripts (he invented that to) it meant that all French had to learn French. Measurements became super practical when everybody's meter was the same. The benefits of standardisation was apparent to everyone pretty fast. Nationalism became a popular thing.

But then it got weird. The philosophers Fichte and Herder were the first to try to, after the fact, define nations. They did it during the French occupation of Germany. They claimed that each nation was a nation because they shared common myths and folk tales. It got pretty esoteric. At the time they were dismissed by all other philosophers because it's just nonsense. Because the borders between national areas are completely fluid. But it caught on among not-philosophers. They thought it made perfect sense. The people who really loved it were chauvinists. People who, due to lack of self esteem, really need external evidence to prove that they aren't as worthless as they felt inside that they are.

Then we got multi-culturalism. We got globalism. The drive toward linguistic standardisation is still there. But it became silly to confine it within a country. Now the old nation states, instead of being an aid to trade and communication, become a hindrance. National pride push countries apart, instead of bridging gaps and bringing them closer.

Then we got computers. Each person communicate with their own system in their own language, and the machines community in machine language. Then we got google translate. We got Duolingo. In the coming years we'll get robots doing most of the communicating outwards. We're on the brink of real-time Star Trek style universal translators.

Now nationalism only seems to be about trying to stop people from expressing themselves. We're expected to play the norm game in the common play rather than picking and choosing however we want to express ourselves.

What is nationalism for today? Does it serve a purpose?

 

[Will Wiley]

Nationalism is the worst system there is. Apart from the other one.

What system are you suggesting and how would it work in practice?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Nationalism is the worst system there is. Apart from the other one.

What system are you suggesting and how would it work in practice?

Nationalism today is just the idea that national borders aren't arbitrary. The 20'th century slogan of right of self determination, is a good example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination

Any group of people could argue that their way of organising is somehow a nation and deserve a country of their own. Completely ignoring that any other way of organising is just as good.

What matters isn't nationhood, but ideology. What makes a country successful is economic policy. Not what kinds of hats are popular.

The EU, USA or Italy is a good of supernational units. Where different national identities are cobbled together into something else. Not sure what to call it. But we use the term unions.

Then there's bodies of regulation that cuts right through national borders. Stuff like free trade agreements. UN conventions and such.

Or problems that don't give a shit about national sovereignty, like global warming or fish stock depletion.

We can keep the nation state. But I think we should find ways to formalise the cross-national standardisations and regulations and create that to be a political unit somehow.

I don't know about you, but I think that the different electrical networks is total bullshit. Traffic rules that differ. How about legal codes? Why can't it just be the same criminal codes for all countries? Would help trade a lot. Especially honest dealers. How about finding a way to plug all the tax havens once and for all? That would severely cripple dictators incentive to amass huge sums of money. Fixing this stuff isn't hard. It just requires the will.

 

[untermensche]

Nationalism is a mental disease.

It serves only those at the top who want more than they could possibly in a thousand lifetimes need.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Nationalism is a mental disease.

It serves only those at the top who want more than they could possibly in a thousand lifetimes need.

So you don't think it has ever served any purpose?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Nationalism is a mental disease.

It serves only those at the top who want more than they could possibly in a thousand lifetimes need.

So you don't think it has ever served any purpose?

You mean other than isolationism and helping certain people get into and/or stay in power?

 

[untermensche]

Nationalism is a mental disease.

It serves only those at the top who want more than they could possibly in a thousand lifetimes need.

So you don't think it has ever served any purpose?

It has provided us all a service as a side consequence.

As more and more people were directed to satisfying the desires of Kings and Queens there was more and more invention and progress which eventually became available to a lot of people.

But at the time the price was a short life of misery for most made better only with the lies of religion.

And we are stuck with religion still as a result.

Because that greatly served those at the top as well.

 

[DrZoidberg]

So you don't think it has ever served any purpose?

You mean other than isolationism and helping certain people get into and/or stay in power?

Nationalism has brought as national standards and a shared language within each countries borders. The fact that each language mastery matches the borders of each country is the result of nationalism. This was artificially created through force. Which was horrible initially. But once everybody within each country shared the same language, it was really quite handy. It wasn't long ago various regions of Sweden couldn't communicate at all. The people in the country spoke quint Norse dialects nothing like the Germanised norse they spoke in the cities. Making trading a nightmare.

 

[DBT]

Nationalism seems to be a natural progression from the family unit to tribalism to city state and national identity and governance, self and other, us and them, family, friends and colleagues being a part of self identity extended to national identity, being part of something greater, a culture and a way of life that may suit a large proportion of its citizens, but something that may be threatened, taken away by invaders, or seen as being corrupted or diluted by 'foreigners' with an influx of immigration, different beliefs and cultural practices.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Back when queen Isabella of Spain invented nationalism in the 15'th century it was a good idea in order to unify Spain to drive out the Moors. While great for Isabella. Not necessary good for the Spanish. But over time the Spanishification project led to all Spanish people speaking Spanish. Well... not all of them. Actually quite few of them. But it helped her new nation and it's identity. It certainly helped trade, and made Spain powerful as a colonial empire. Didn't help the Spanish Jews though. Not at all.

Napoleon was the one who formulated it into any kind of coherent ideology. The basic principle was simple. Everybody is better off if everything we share is standardised. Only 12% of the French spoke French. They spoke 400 distinct languages (not dialects). And it was generally a mess to communicate across France. Initially enforcing French on the French was mostly just a way to make sure that his "le grand armee" would follow orders. Since it was an army of conscripts (he invented that to) it meant that all French had to learn French. Measurements became super practical when everybody's meter was the same. The benefits of standardisation was apparent to everyone pretty fast. Nationalism became a popular thing.

But then it got weird. The philosophers Fichte and Herder were the first to try to, after the fact, define nations. They did it during the French occupation of Germany. They claimed that each nation was a nation because they shared common myths and folk tales. It got pretty esoteric. At the time they were dismissed by all other philosophers because it's just nonsense. Because the borders between national areas are completely fluid. But it caught on among not-philosophers. They thought it made perfect sense. The people who really loved it were chauvinists. People who, due to lack of self esteem, really need external evidence to prove that they aren't as worthless as they felt inside that they are.

Then we got multi-culturalism. We got globalism. The drive toward linguistic standardisation is still there. But it became silly to confine it within a country. Now the old nation states, instead of being an aid to trade and communication, become a hindrance. National pride push countries apart, instead of bridging gaps and bringing them closer.

Then we got computers. Each person communicate with their own system in their own language, and the machines community in machine language. Then we got google translate. We got Duolingo. In the coming years we'll get robots doing most of the communicating outwards. We're on the brink of real-time Star Trek style universal translators.

Now nationalism only seems to be about trying to stop people from expressing themselves. We're expected to play the norm game in the common play rather than picking and choosing however we want to express ourselves.

What is nationalism for today? Does it serve a purpose?

Nationalism generally means that members of that nation care about their national identity. It also infers the actions taken to maintain this or achieve this.
This is rather like a team or a group of people living in a larger tribal community. This definition does not necessarily infer race, class or colour but in some nations it can.

This does not necessarily exclude freedom of expression or democracy. Political correctness has inferred different meanings such as racist, protectionist and so forth.

The UK generally will identify itself as a British nation with people from all ethnic backgrounds. Some may try to exclude minorities. In extreme cases, Jihadi's want to redefine the parameters of a nation they enter by relabelling what the nation is by way it is.

The main problem is different countries have different economic systems. A worker from Eastern Europe can work in the UK for a minimum wage and share a room with 3 others. He can send money back home and buy a good property. An English worker will have to abandon the idea of doing that in the UK as houses are expensive.

Humans need to evolve a few hundred million years before they are able to live in a one world community. In historical terms, man has only just fallen out the trees, developed more advanced speech and developed his technology and and science. He's still territorial like the Chimpanzee where though our current nationalism encompasses more tribes we are still an unequal planet with more issues than solution.