09-29-2024, 09:28 PM
This post was last modified 09-29-2024, 09:32 PM by Maxmars.
Edit Reason: grammar
I offer for your consideration some thoughts on the topic of your thread. They are not meant to impose a restraint or counter to your statements... but they do represent a different approach to the subject, in my opinion. These 'other' ideas are an adjunct to your comments, not an argument for or against - they are offered in humility and respect... and I applaud your offering them here for discussion.
Nationalism, as a thing.
We are often confounded by ideas which feature a moving contextual reality; nationalism is one of those things. Some people have stated elsewhere that until the French revolution, the idea of people firmly embracing a "national identity" was out of the ordinary. Until then, most people were more inclined to subscribe to a sentiment of identity that related to their regionality on a much smaller scale. It has been said that most people were more inclined to think that they were of a certain heritage, religion, or local geographic nature... It was a social phenomenon to restrict identity by 'label' as opposed to what could be defined physically.
I feel that nationalism, is a sociological construct... manifested in people by reducing human existence to something totally outside themselves, and only relevant to a standing social order. Perhaps this is wrong, but I can't find the chink in that reasoning to diminish it.
As people define themselves in collectives, the idea of a sovereign state, a national existence, rises naturally. Nations seem to exist to make a real 'independent reality'... creating a society which demands the sovereign right to exist. No outside 'authority' exists that can force, compel, or rightly coerce a change in its own nature and functioning; no outside authority can threaten its citizens, their objectives, or their goals. To that end, society implemented institutions of government and law... each featuring a supreme sovereignty - each which would classically be independent, inviolate, and existing as the result of the most intense and rigorous extension of society's common will. It is an intention most nations still struggle with.
Other people often reduce nationalism to an extension of tribalism, usually failing to comprehend that where tribes are incidental constructs, nations are intentional. Tribes "happen," nations are "crafted." It's common for a society to "justify" itself through human contrivances like ideological axioms, the interpretation of religious dogma, or other constructs of "civilization." Leading to social requirements for overt patriotism, or zealotry. But in the end, the cause for a nation is more primal; a need (and demand) for safety.
Globalism is just nationalism on a planetary scale... which seems unachievable as long as societies insist on sovereign primacy (and they do.)
Therefore "globalism" is the a ghost of a dead ideal. It cannot succeed without social homogeneity... not homogeneity of enforced behavior, but one of general common will. Regulation will not achieve it... we would have to be a different people, willing to accept first, and reject only with deliberation... this is not yet who we are.
Globalism is easy to theorize about, but easier still to abuse; like a team of horses deliberately pulling a carriage towards a cliff... they must be painfully 'discouraged' to keep them, and yourselves alive.
The larger the body of people, the more 'social inertia' can become the enemy - assuming that your destination is an approximation an 'ideation' upon which there is no true global consensus... (just appearances.)
I have to say, that the general lack of rhetorical acumen grants to some the ability to re-contextualize nationalism as a trite emotional thing... the politically motivated often abuse the concept - inflating it by terms like "We're on God's side," "Our country FIRST," or "Remember the fallen." But personal motivations are not a function of nations, only it's leaders.
The state, or nation, as a construct has worked for a very long time. A population must be participants in it... or it inevitably fails... the fewer individuals participate in the state, the less likely it can survive the trials of time.
I have more, but I think, politics aside, nationalism is often misunderstood.
I will end this here... so I can think more on the subject... and take an opportunity to thank you again.
Thank you for enduring the verbose response...
Nationalism, as a thing.
We are often confounded by ideas which feature a moving contextual reality; nationalism is one of those things. Some people have stated elsewhere that until the French revolution, the idea of people firmly embracing a "national identity" was out of the ordinary. Until then, most people were more inclined to subscribe to a sentiment of identity that related to their regionality on a much smaller scale. It has been said that most people were more inclined to think that they were of a certain heritage, religion, or local geographic nature... It was a social phenomenon to restrict identity by 'label' as opposed to what could be defined physically.
I feel that nationalism, is a sociological construct... manifested in people by reducing human existence to something totally outside themselves, and only relevant to a standing social order. Perhaps this is wrong, but I can't find the chink in that reasoning to diminish it.
As people define themselves in collectives, the idea of a sovereign state, a national existence, rises naturally. Nations seem to exist to make a real 'independent reality'... creating a society which demands the sovereign right to exist. No outside 'authority' exists that can force, compel, or rightly coerce a change in its own nature and functioning; no outside authority can threaten its citizens, their objectives, or their goals. To that end, society implemented institutions of government and law... each featuring a supreme sovereignty - each which would classically be independent, inviolate, and existing as the result of the most intense and rigorous extension of society's common will. It is an intention most nations still struggle with.
Other people often reduce nationalism to an extension of tribalism, usually failing to comprehend that where tribes are incidental constructs, nations are intentional. Tribes "happen," nations are "crafted." It's common for a society to "justify" itself through human contrivances like ideological axioms, the interpretation of religious dogma, or other constructs of "civilization." Leading to social requirements for overt patriotism, or zealotry. But in the end, the cause for a nation is more primal; a need (and demand) for safety.
Globalism is just nationalism on a planetary scale... which seems unachievable as long as societies insist on sovereign primacy (and they do.)
Therefore "globalism" is the a ghost of a dead ideal. It cannot succeed without social homogeneity... not homogeneity of enforced behavior, but one of general common will. Regulation will not achieve it... we would have to be a different people, willing to accept first, and reject only with deliberation... this is not yet who we are.
Globalism is easy to theorize about, but easier still to abuse; like a team of horses deliberately pulling a carriage towards a cliff... they must be painfully 'discouraged' to keep them, and yourselves alive.
The larger the body of people, the more 'social inertia' can become the enemy - assuming that your destination is an approximation an 'ideation' upon which there is no true global consensus... (just appearances.)
I have to say, that the general lack of rhetorical acumen grants to some the ability to re-contextualize nationalism as a trite emotional thing... the politically motivated often abuse the concept - inflating it by terms like "We're on God's side," "Our country FIRST," or "Remember the fallen." But personal motivations are not a function of nations, only it's leaders.
The state, or nation, as a construct has worked for a very long time. A population must be participants in it... or it inevitably fails... the fewer individuals participate in the state, the less likely it can survive the trials of time.
I have more, but I think, politics aside, nationalism is often misunderstood.
I will end this here... so I can think more on the subject... and take an opportunity to thank you again.
Thank you for enduring the verbose response...
