NM's blog

“The origins of nationalism lay not in the folk, nor in the individual's repressed passion for some sort of wholeness or identity, but in the machinery of world political economy.” Where do we find an elaboration on that? You can find an exact, word-for-word elaboration of that quote in  Tom Nairn’s classic 1975 essay,  “ The Modern Janus” , published in the  New Left Review .  [1, 2, 3, 4]  Nairn later integrated and expanded this thesis into his foundational 1977 book,  The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism .  [5, 6, 7]  Nairn's text provides a specific structural framework that elaborates on how the global economy—rather than romantic ideas of "the folk"—manufactured modern nationalism: 1. The Core Argument: The Uneven Development of Capitalism Nairn rejects the romantic view that nationalism naturally bubbles up from ethnic roots or a psychological need for belonging. Instead, he argues that nationalism was a structural byproduct...

Bertrand Russell warns that racial pride can quickly become harmful racial supremacy (1946): “Another passion which gives rise to false beliefs that are politically harmful is pride - pride of nationality, race, sex, class, or creed. When I was young France was still regarded as the traditional enemy of England, and I gathered as an unquestionable truth that one Englishman could defeat three Frenchmen. When Germany became the enemy this belief was modified and English people ceased to mention derisively the French propensity for eating frogs. But in spite of governmental efforts, I think few Englishmen succeeded in genuinely regarding the French as their equals.  Americans and Englishmen, when they become acquainted with the Balkans, feel an astonished contempt when they study the mutual enmities of Bulgarians and Serbs, or Hungarians and Rumanians. It is evident to them that these enmities are absurd and that the belief of each little nation in its own superiority has no objective...