Notes on Nationalism: George Orwell (Penguin Modern)

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Orwell writes that patriots believe their nation or way of life to be the best in the world, but don’t feel the need to force that on anyone else. Nationalism, however, is: “inseparable from the desire for power”. If one harbours anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible. Here are just a few examples. I list below five types of nationalist, and against each I append a fact which it is impossible for that type of nationalist to accept, even in his secret thoughts: Naturally, if the English nation is modeled on something older, then the antiquity of the nation can be pressed further. Perhaps the hardest case for the modernist paradigm is that of ancient Israel. Here we are faced with what appears to be the uninterrupted intergenerational community that was conscious of its distinct identity, as well as possessed a unique language and religion and a homeland. In addition, they shared memories of an independent political community and rebellions against foreign occupation ( Grosby, 1991).

Authors like David Miller might reply that liberal nationalism is not a contemporary reconstruction of nationalism but a view inspired by historical nationalists such as Giuseppe Manzini and John Stuart Mill ( Gustavsson & Miller, 2019). While one might convincingly argue that Manzini advocated something sufficiently like contemporary liberal nationalism, things are less clear for Mill. While he did believe that national sentim The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. And those who are loudest in denouncing the German concentration camps are often quite unaware, or only very dimly aware, that there are also concentration camps in Russia. Huge events like the Ukraine famine of 1933, involving the deaths of millions of people, have actually escaped the attention of the majority of English russophiles. Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own antisemitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness. In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one's own mind. Collective humiliation and powerlessness are to be explained by national disunity, loss of identity, and autonomy. Like ancient Hebrews explaining their political subjugation in terms of their sinful ways, the nationalist blames contemporary discontentment on a failure to honor and safeguard one’s unique and distinct nation. The solution is national revival: The nation must be reunited, autonomy restored, and national identity restored to its authentic self. Sraders, Anne. “What is Nationalism? Its History And What It Means in 2018. The Street, 2018, https://www.thestreet.com/politics/what-is-nationalism-14642847. Holmes, Ph.D., Kim R. “The Problem of Nationalism.” Heritage Foundation, December 13, 2019, https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/the-problem-nationalism.

Indifference to reality. Nationalists can recognise torture, murder and forced labour as an evil when done by others. Yet these same crimes become acceptable or excusable when done by one’s own side. Third, liberal nationalists are more concerned with the relationship between the nation and liberal democracy ( Tamir, 1993, 2019). While many classical nationalists were strong advocates of democratic or republican regimes, it was by no means universal. Indeed, core nationalism is compatible with an authoritarian government so long as it is authentic or expressive of the national character. Indeed, some very prominent nationalists were antidemocratic, like Charles Maurras and l’Action française as well as Russian nationalists, who summed up their view as “Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality” ( Riasanovsky, 2005). Uri, Antonia (22 November 2018). "The Scots leid is for aa, nae jist for nationalists". The National (in Scots) . Retrieved 22 September 2020. Pryke, Sam. “Economic Nationalism: Theory, History and Prospects.” Global Policy, September 6, 2012, ttps://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/articles/world-economy-trade-and-finance/economic-nationalism-theory-history-and-prospects. Again, cases such as medieval England or ancient Israel are designed to show that while premodern nations might be exceptional, modernism is wrong to assert that nationalism invents the concept of the nation and all instances of it. In a way, we might say that critics of modernity imagine nations like democracy: Most democracies are quite young, and the success of the idea is recent, but that does not show that democracy is a modern invention.

Nationalism is the name that Orwell gives to the propensity of "identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests". Its occurrence is visible throughout history, and it is prevalent. Nationalism is defined as alignment to a political entity but can also encompass a religion, race, ideology or any other abstract idea. Examples of such forms of nationalism given by Orwell include Communism, political Catholicism, Zionism, anti-Semitism, Trotskyism and pacifism. [4]Authors who defend loyalty to the nation or national partiality purely as a means of achieving the greatest happiness or to ensure the maximal discharging of moral duties, such as R. M. Hare and Robert Goodin respectively argue, are hardly endorsing “nationalism” ( Goodin, 1988; Hare, 1981). Few nationalists think of their nation as a mere tool let alone believe that humanity is the ultimate object of loyalty.