Long War

maga IS SELF-LOVE:

Sorting nationalism and patriotism with John Lukacs (Brad East, Oct 7, 2019)

Let me close with a sample set of quotations on the topic of nationalism. I commend the book along with Lukacs’s voluminous output to any and all who find themselves interested by this (pp. 35-36, 71-73; my bold print, for emphasis): […]

“After 1870 nationalism, almost always, turned antiliberal, especially where liberalism was no longer principally nationalist. …

“The state was one of the creations of the Modern Age. Its powers grew; here and there, sooner or later, it became monstrously bureaucratic. Yet—and few people see this, very much including those who prattle about ‘totalitarianism’—the power of the state has been weakening, at the same time the attraction of nationalism has not.

“Hitler knew that: I have, more than once, cited his sentence from Mein Kampf recalling his youth: ‘I was a nationalist; but I was not a patriot.’ Again it is telling that in Austria ‘national’ and ‘nationalist’ meant pro-German, and not only during the multinational Habsburg monarchy and state. Well before the Second World War an Austrian ‘nationalist’ wanted some kind of union with Germany, at the expense of an independent Austrian state. This was also true in such diverse places as Norway or Hungary or other states during the Second World War: ‘national’ and ‘nationalist’ often meant pro-German.

“Nationalism, rather than patriotism; the nation rather than the state; populism rather than liberal democracy, to be sure. We have examples of that even among the extremist groups in the United States, too, with their hatred of ‘government’—that is, of the state. We have seen that while true patriotism is defensive, nationalism is aggressive; patriotism is the love of a particular land, with its particular traditions; nationalism is the love of something less tangible, of the myth of a ‘people,’ justifying everything, a political and ideological substitute for religion; both modern and populist. An aristocratic nationalism is an oxymoron, since at least after the late seventeenth century most European aristocracies were cosmopolitan as well as national. Democratic nationalism is a later phenomenon. For a while there was nothing very wrong with that. It won great revolutions and battles, it produced some fine examples of national cohesion. One hundred and fifty years ago a distinction between nationalism and patriotism would have been labored, it would have not made much sense. Even now nationalism and patriotism often overlap within the minds and hearts of many people. Yet we must be aware of their differences—because of the phenomenon of populism which, unlike old-fashioned patriotism, is inseparable from the myth of a people. Populism is folkish, patriotism is not. One can be a patriot and cosmopolitan (certainly culturally so). But a populist is inevitably a nationalist of sorts. Patriotism is less racist than is populism. A patriot will not exclude a person of another nationality from a community where they have lived side by side and whom he has known for many years; but a populist will always be suspicious of someone who does not seem to belong to his tribe.

“A patriot is not necessarily a conservative; he may even be a liberal—of sorts, though not an abstract one. In the twentieth century a nationalist could hardly be a liberal. The nineteenth century was full of liberal nationalists, some of them inspiring and noble figures. The accepted view is that liberalism faded and declined because of the appearance of socialism, that the liberals who originally had reservations about exaggerated democracy became democrats and then socialists, accepting the progressive ideas of state intervention in the economy, education, welfare. This is true but not true enough. It is nationalism, not socialism, that killed the liberal appeal. The ground slipped out from under the liberals not because they were not sufficiently socialist but because they were (or at least seemed to be) insufficiently nationalist.

“Since it appeals to tribal and racial bonds, nationalism seems to be deeply and atavistically natural and human. Yet the trouble with it is not only that nationalism can be antihumanist and often inhuman but that it also proceeds from one abstract assumption about human nature itself. The love for one’s people is natural, but it is also categorical; it is less charitable and less deeply human than the love for one’s country, a love that flows from traditions, at least akin to a love of one’s family. Nationalism is both self-centered and selfish—because human love is not the love of oneself; it is the love of another. (A convinced nationalist is suspicious not only of people he sees as aliens; he may be even more suspicious of people of his own ilk and ready to denounce them as ‘traitors’—that is, people who disagree with his nationalist beliefs.) Patriotism is always more than merely biological—because charitable love is human and not merely ‘natural.’ Nature has, and shows, no charity.”

maga IS SO fRENCH:

In France’s rebranded far right, flashes of antisemitism and racism persist (Anthony Faiola and Annabelle Timsit, June 28, 2024, Washington Post)

“They have new suits, very nice ties, but it’s still the same ideas in a more proper, more acceptable manner,” Martigny said.

Still at the core of the party’s platform is the notion of “national priority” — that “foreigners should have fewer rights than citizens even when they have equal qualifications,” said Jean-Yves Camus, director of the Observatory of Political Radicalism at the Jean Jaurès Institute. In practice, that means French nationals could have preferential access to public housing and other benefits.

National Rally has sought to woo voters by pledging to reduce fuel taxes and energy bills and protect French farmers. But its populist promises are targeted toward French citizens — in some cases even excluding dual nationals and “French people of foreign origin.”

The party continues to frame immigration as a security threat. Its leaders talk of “drastically reducing legal and illegal immigration and expelling foreign delinquents” as part of an effort to “put France in order.”

Its organizing principle remains Identitarianism: it is racist.

IT’S JUST PART OF WHAT WE OWE THEM:

Paying reparations for slavery is possible – based on a study of federal compensation to farmers, (Linda J. Bilmes & Cornell William Brooks, 6/19/24, The Conversation)

In 1988, for example, the U.S. government paid reparations to Japanese Americans – and in some cases, their descendants – who were forced into internment camps during World War II.

In another example, starting in the 1990s, Congress passed a series of laws to compensate people in 12 western states and the Marshall Islands who were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation from the government’s nuclear testing program that occurred in the 1940s and 1950s. Since 1990, these programs have compensated some 135,000 victims and paid out US$28 billion to these victims and to some of their heirs.

America has paid compensation to coal miners who have contracted lung diseases, farmers who have endured crop failures and fishermen facing depleted fish stocks.

The federal government has also paid compensation to victims of terrorism, wrongful convictions and natural disasters.

It also has paid partial restitution to thousands of descendants of Native American tribes, whose tribal land earnings were stolen or mismanaged dating back to the 1880s.

Indeed, the federal government has long attempted to compensate individuals – and in certain cases entire communities – through a combination of restitution, financial benefits and rehabilitation.

These programs cost billions of dollars annually and are funded in a variety of ways, including specific excise taxes, the use of government trust funds and subsidized insurance policies.

We have determined that the diversity, scale and complexity of federal programs and beneficiaries show that reparations are administratively feasible. While only a few of these programs address racial injustice, they all demonstrate the government’s capacity to administer large-scale programs of compensation for those directly and indirectly harmed.

PALEOCONS IN FANCY DRESS:

The Rise and Fall of American Integralism (Kevin Vallier, June 13, 2024, The Dispatch)

Liberalism has faced criticism since it emerged in the late 18th century, whether from socialists who thought it downplayed solidarity, fraternity, and equality, or from conservatives who considered it harmful to traditional institutions like the family, the local community, and the Church. But by the end of the 20th century and into the 21st, liberalism had seemingly defeated its opponents. Almost everyone in the West defended liberal institutions. Take the 2012 U.S. presidential election: Mitt Romney was no illiberal right-winger, and Barack Obama was never a socialist. They both were—to different degrees, certainly—liberals.

Things changed in 2016. Suddenly, immigration restrictions and aggressive right-wing approaches to the culture war became influential, if not dominant, in many liberal democracies. Culture trumped economics. In the U.S., questions of identity took over the “national conversation” that health care reform had occupied a few election cycles prior. The political right—now content with a large welfare state and eschewing fiscal discipline—started winning elections.

To comprehend the post-liberal project of the Right one needs to comprehend that the energy behind the Obamacare hysteria was just Identitarian too. After all, the model was the right’s own Heritage plan and Romneycare, while the supposedly small government Tea Party only opposed social welfare for “others”.

THEY’RE AN A-FRAME:

Left-wing authoritarians share key psychological traits with far right, Emory study finds (Carol Clark, Sept. 9, 2021, Emory University)

People with extreme political views that favor authoritarianism — whether they are on the far left or the far right — have surprisingly similar behaviors and psychological characteristics, a new study finds.

The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published the research by psychologists at Emory University — the first comprehensive look at left-wing authoritarianism.

No one is surprised.