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Nationalism has a strong component of devotion, an emotional attachment, to the state. Its a derivative of statism, which itself is a derivative of tribalism. Y

by cmurf 11y ago

Nationalism has a strong component of devotion, an emotional attachment, to the state. Its a derivative of statism, which itself is a derivative of tribalism. You can have either liberals or conservatives subject to such an emotional appeal to the state. Due to the strong emotional appeal in nationalism, the political ideology is more nuanced. In classic liberalism, power comes from the individual who then grants a revocable delegation of that power to form a state (government). In conservatism, power comes more broadly from society, culture, and affinity for stability. The Bolshevik revolution is an example of a left of center revolution, it certainly was nativist, nationalist, and was not conservative. The Cultural Revolution, likewise a left of center revolution, its ideology was very centered on empowering the individual, it was nationalistic, nativist (the purging of "impure elements" of Chinese society), and certainly not conservative. There are many examples of liberal and conservative nationalist movements. I think it requires some research to demonstrate if one or the other is more inclined to nationalism, or jingoism.

mirimir 11y ago
> The Bolshevik revolution is an example of a left of center revolution, it certainly was nativist, nationalist, and was not conservative. Actually, it was a fascist coup pretending to be a "left of center revolution".
- cmurf 11y ago
  Untrue. Difficult to have fascism when the state isn't strongly supporting businesses. For the simple version, Mussolini's description is good: fascism is better called corporatism. Revise your understanding of fascism.
  - mirimir 11y ago
    Fair enough. It's better to say authoritarian. Lenin was a dictator, and spawned generations of them. Also, he was supported by the Kaiser, to keep Russia out of WWI. Fascism is much closer to corporatism. But I'd call it authoritarian corporatism.
hackuser 11y ago
Thanks for raising some interesting issues > the political ideology is more nuanced ... I think it requires some research ... I agree on one hand. On the other, any issue like this is much more complicated than what can be presented in an HN comment, so we all need to simplify things a little. > You can have either liberals or conservatives subject to such an emotional appeal to the state In theory, yes. I find this response by you and others to be odd. Nationalism is a tenant of conservativism, I believe, and I think that's widely accepted; I think most conservatives I can think of would embrace it. It almost seems like people are pushing back against anything that reflects badly (in the context of my original post) on conservatives, and/or are trying impose a theory of equivalence on a real situation where it doesn't exist. But I could be wrong, of course; I don't see significant evidence I'm wrong, I see plenty in my favor, but it's not conclusive. I'd have to find a list of parties and their positions to know for sure, which is beyond the scope of what I'm going to do for this discussion. I'd be interested in seeing it if someone has one. More valuable would be surveys 'nationalist' attitudes, however those are defined, and other political beliefs (a quick online search didn't turn up any). The correlation doesn't have to be perfect, of course. Some here pointed out the Scottish National Party, a left-wing but nationalist (or separatist) party. Also there is the Christian Democratic Union in Germany; its leader and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is pro-immigration (though I don't know about the rest of the party). Also, we might learn some nuance to tmy simplistic model by understanding what drives those parties. > The Cultural Revolution, likewise a left of center revolution ... was nationalistic ... and certainly not conservative It was indeed the opposite of conservative! I'm not sure I agree about nationalism. It was mostly the radicalization of a younger generation to reject and take power from the prior one (with plenty of self-serving political machinations mixed in, of course). I'm not sure how to map 'nationalism' to something like that. Also, much of Chinese communist ideology was service to the proletariat and, I think, to international Communism (and against capitalism), and not to the state.
- creshal 11y ago
  One example for a non-nationalist conservative party would the German CDU (Merkel's party): They were one of the driving powers behind the ECSC, EEC and later EU, and staunchly pro-NATO, even at the cost of German sovereignty.
userulluipeste 11y ago
"Nationalism has a strong component of devotion, an emotional attachment, to the state." Actually, as the name itself suggests, it is about devotion to the nation not the state. Nationalism never ceased to be promoted, even after ww2, but the attention bias caused much of it to go unnoticed. The so-called "rise" of today's nationalism is in fact more of a rise in public awareness to it from (globally) opposing sides.
- Alupis 11y ago
  > Actually, as the name itself suggests, it is about devotion to the nation not the state Nations are called States commonly. Sometimes even referred to as "Nation-States". The USA is unique in that we have states within a nation, rather than a single nation state and/or provinces.
  - hackuser 11y ago
    Technically they are two different things, in the language of political science. I'm don't know exact definitions, but a nation is something a group of people have an emotional attachment to, a cultural entity; a state is a political entity. If you're lucky, the two coincide and you a have a nation state. The U.S. usage of 'state' has a different meaning. Maybe when the states were more independent entities (with their own currencies, militias, etc.) around the time of the Revolution, it carried the standard meaning.
  - userulluipeste 11y ago
    "Nations are called States commonly." "The USA is unique in that we have states within a nation" I understand where you are coming from, but I have to disagree that nation and state is the same. They are different as concepts (state is organized territory, nation is people), and although usually states and nations reside in roughly the same place, not all of them do! USA have managed to develop itself as a nation to some degree, but there are enough countries out there that didn't! To understand this it's enough to look at the states with separatist movements or in general at ones in which the feeling of appurtenance to the country is very low to say the least. There are people inside the same country very foreign to each other (speaking from group attachment perspective), close to the report between any given two foreign people on the planet. Is India a state? Well, it has states within it, like USA, and its overall organization is like a state too. Is India a nation? Not really! People inside it fought together for independence, and they may have common problems like a nation does (defense, foreign policy, etc), but the ethnic groups in there although living peacefully with each other don't really adhere much to something "national". Not yet at least. It's the same with Iraq, a state inhabited by different ethnic groups which the head statesmen failed to make a nation from. The same for a bunch of African states. Nation is different from the state.

by cmurf 11y ago

mirimir 11y ago

> The Bolshevik revolution is an example of a left of center revolution, it certainly was nativist, nationalist, and was not conservative. Actually, it was a fascist coup pretending to be a "left of center revolution".

cmurf 11y ago
Untrue. Difficult to have fascism when the state isn't strongly supporting businesses. For the simple version, Mussolini's description is good: fascism is better called corporatism. Revise your understanding of fascism.
- mirimir 11y ago
  Fair enough. It's better to say authoritarian. Lenin was a dictator, and spawned generations of them. Also, he was supported by the Kaiser, to keep Russia out of WWI. Fascism is much closer to corporatism. But I'd call it authoritarian corporatism.

hackuser 11y ago

Thanks for raising some interesting issues > the political ideology is more nuanced ... I think it requires some research ... I agree on one hand. On the other, any issue like this is much more complicated than what can be presented in an HN comment, so we all need to simplify things a little. > You can have either liberals or conservatives subject to such an emotional appeal to the state In theory, yes. I find this response by you and others to be odd. Nationalism is a tenant of conservativism, I believe, and I think that's widely accepted; I think most conservatives I can think of would embrace it. It almost seems like people are pushing back against anything that reflects badly (in the context of my original post) on conservatives, and/or are trying impose a theory of equivalence on a real situation where it doesn't exist. But I could be wrong, of course; I don't see significant evidence I'm wrong, I see plenty in my favor, but it's not conclusive. I'd have to find a list of parties and their positions to know for sure, which is beyond the scope of what I'm going to do for this discussion. I'd be interested in seeing it if someone has one. More valuable would be surveys 'nationalist' attitudes, however those are defined, and other political beliefs (a quick online search didn't turn up any). The correlation doesn't have to be perfect, of course. Some here pointed out the Scottish National Party, a left-wing but nationalist (or separatist) party. Also there is the Christian Democratic Union in Germany; its leader and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is pro-immigration (though I don't know about the rest of the party). Also, we might learn some nuance to tmy simplistic model by understanding what drives those parties. > The Cultural Revolution, likewise a left of center revolution ... was nationalistic ... and certainly not conservative It was indeed the opposite of conservative! I'm not sure I agree about nationalism. It was mostly the radicalization of a younger generation to reject and take power from the prior one (with plenty of self-serving political machinations mixed in, of course). I'm not sure how to map 'nationalism' to something like that. Also, much of Chinese communist ideology was service to the proletariat and, I think, to international Communism (and against capitalism), and not to the state.

creshal 11y ago
One example for a non-nationalist conservative party would the German CDU (Merkel's party): They were one of the driving powers behind the ECSC, EEC and later EU, and staunchly pro-NATO, even at the cost of German sovereignty.

userulluipeste 11y ago

"Nationalism has a strong component of devotion, an emotional attachment, to the state." Actually, as the name itself suggests, it is about devotion to the nation not the state. Nationalism never ceased to be promoted, even after ww2, but the attention bias caused much of it to go unnoticed. The so-called "rise" of today's nationalism is in fact more of a rise in public awareness to it from (globally) opposing sides.

Alupis 11y ago
> Actually, as the name itself suggests, it is about devotion to the nation not the state Nations are called States commonly. Sometimes even referred to as "Nation-States". The USA is unique in that we have states within a nation, rather than a single nation state and/or provinces.
- hackuser 11y ago
  Technically they are two different things, in the language of political science. I'm don't know exact definitions, but a nation is something a group of people have an emotional attachment to, a cultural entity; a state is a political entity. If you're lucky, the two coincide and you a have a nation state. The U.S. usage of 'state' has a different meaning. Maybe when the states were more independent entities (with their own currencies, militias, etc.) around the time of the Revolution, it carried the standard meaning.
- userulluipeste 11y ago
  "Nations are called States commonly." "The USA is unique in that we have states within a nation" I understand where you are coming from, but I have to disagree that nation and state is the same. They are different as concepts (state is organized territory, nation is people), and although usually states and nations reside in roughly the same place, not all of them do! USA have managed to develop itself as a nation to some degree, but there are enough countries out there that didn't! To understand this it's enough to look at the states with separatist movements or in general at ones in which the feeling of appurtenance to the country is very low to say the least. There are people inside the same country very foreign to each other (speaking from group attachment perspective), close to the report between any given two foreign people on the planet. Is India a state? Well, it has states within it, like USA, and its overall organization is like a state too. Is India a nation? Not really! People inside it fought together for independence, and they may have common problems like a nation does (defense, foreign policy, etc), but the ethnic groups in there although living peacefully with each other don't really adhere much to something "national". Not yet at least. It's the same with Iraq, a state inhabited by different ethnic groups which the head statesmen failed to make a nation from. The same for a bunch of African states. Nation is different from the state.