Nationalism is a powerful and often underestimated political ideology that posits the nation as the fundamental unit of political organization, demanding primary loyalty and collective action from its members for the nation's interests and autonomy.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
in the modern world we typically hold
that there are four great political
ideologies liberalism which prioritizes
individual rights socialism which
prioritizes socioeconomic equality
conservatism which prioritizes tradition
and nationalism which prioritizes the
nation of the four nationalism is
perhaps the most powerful it's also
almost certainly the most neglected over
the last few centuries nationalism has
shaped the world to an extent far beyond
what many realize many of its tenants
are now simply taken for granted seen as
self-evident truths that widely go
unacknowledged and unquestioned in the
20th and 21st century nationalism has
seen unprecedented political success
after the fall of the Soviet Union it
has arguably become the dominant
ideology on Earth but what is it what is
nationalism I could offer a famous
definition it's a political principle
which holds that the political and the
national unit should be congruent or I
could point at famous examples of it but
I think the best place to start with
nationalism to gain a full appreciation
for it is to roll the clock back to look
at nationalism as it came into existence
and evolved over time and shaped the
world we're going to start with
something concrete the nation you know
what a nation is it has a flag a
territory a people and an Anthem the
United Nations is a coalition of Nations
but the world didn't used to be covered
in Nations nations in terms of world
history are fairly new mostly cropping
century while we mostly had before
nations were political societies tied to
individuals or families like Emperors or
royal families those societ were tied to
territories but the borders of those
territories tended to be somewhat
Loosely understood and open to
interpretation for example I could talk
about the history of China and trace it
back to Antiquity and doing that makes
sense in a way if I talk about what
China was like 2,000 years ago you
understand well enough what I mean but
until modern times there was no
conception of a country called China
delineated by precise borders its own
government and whose political leaders
could come and go over time while China
as a political entity still remained
before the nation of China came into
being it was fixed around the concept of
dynasties people are the subjects of
dynasties not citizens of a country
called China there was no Sovereign
political entity above the dynasty that
would be there to hold the Chinese
people together if the dynasty collapsed
and that was more or less the case until
fairly recently with other societies
around the world we did have what you
could call National nationalities the
Greek nationality is a standout early
example of that when people in ancient
times around the aan peninsula recognize
themselves and each other as Greek but
they never came together to form the
nation of Greece until modern times when
they fought against the Ottoman Empire
in the 1820s and made the country of
Greece in 1830 instead the ancient
Greeks were politically tied to city
states that fought one another and only
occasionally banded together when
circumstances seemed to C for it the
idea of nationality came into existence
over time and typically happened by way
of contrast the ancient Greeks for
example called Outsiders Barbaro
barbarians that's because the Greek's
mocked language that sounded to them as
crude it sounded like people were saying
barbar by focusing on that foreignness
it made the Greeks realize their own
commonality their common language common
culture and identity a sense of common
identity also tended to develop through
War for example when the English won a
battle against the French in the Hundred
Years War they responded by dancing in
the streets of London and in France
where national identity was less
developed at the time the Hundred Years
War confirmed and defined its nationhood
by uniting against the English the
French discovered themselves as a people
as a historian put it in seeing the
English close up they felt themselves to
be France but even as these
nationalities emerged over time we still
didn't have Nations the idea of the
nation as we understand the word now was
a conscious one developed about 300
years later there was one country in
particular that theorized about the
nation and turned it into the ideology
of nationalism in a way that we'd
recognize today and that country was
France this is that story in 18th
century Europe industrialization was
beginning populations were swelling and
something like a middle class was
developing people were growing wealthier
and more literate communication and
transportation technology was developing
and regular people began to gather in
cities communicate with one another and
think philosophically about the world
that was especially true in France and
even more true in Paris which became the
intellectual Hub of Europe in that
culture many words in French either
first appeared or were redefined Society
hom land civilization public and even
public opinion until that point in
history people may have believed that
they had some sort of regional
significance maybe to their local
communities but history and culture in
the grander sense were mostly thought to
be made by standout individuals the
select few who made their mark on the
world everyone else the overwhelming
majority of people sort of just melted
into the story undocumented unrecognized
and unremembered but these new French
terms portrayed a trend regular people
started to think that they were the ones
who truly mattered the ones who were
truly shaping something even as large as
France the elite few suddenly started to
seem over represented overly powerful
over time that led regular people to
challenge an old political order one
dominated by hierarchies and privilege
they started to call it the old regime
regime the Anan regime but that raises a
question if the old social order was
removed then what replaces it what
Authority would hold people together
basically what replaces a monarchy they
increasingly arrived at an answer that
political identity and political
Authority comes from the people if it's
French Authority then that Authority
should come from the people of France
the people who live on its territory
make up its public and form its public
opinion if political identity and
political Authority comes from the
people then you could express them
together as a single political body one
that you could argue should hold
Sovereign political power a French word
came into popular use that put name to
That Body they called it the
nation the nation elsewhere in Europe at
the time typically referred to some sort
of natural division of humanity so
you're not actively creating something
but you're pointing at something that
already exists
for example you could point out that the
rich and poor are two divided Nations
French people took that concept and
slightly Twisted it they started talking
about a new kind of nation one that
didn't exist before by putting name to
it they wied a new nation into existence
this new nation they said was the French
people on the whole and even more
specifically it was the French people on
the whole so long as they didn't have
any legal privilege to be a member of
this nation you had to live under under
the same laws as everyone else and be
represented by the same government as
everyone else that meant that to these
French thinkers anyone who heal
privilege wasn't part of the nation for
example a leading Revolutionary C said
the nobility is not part of our society
at all it may be a burden for the nation
but it cannot be part of it that went
for everyone else who held legal
privilege in France including the clergy
he said if the privileged order were
removed the nation would not be
something like less but something more
which then left him with a Third Estate
the representative body for the common
mass of unprivileged French people who
at the time were being
disproportionately taxed he said the
Third Estate then contains everything
that pertains to the nation while nobody
outside the Third Estate can be
considered as part of the nation what is
the Third Estate everything that set the
French Revolution apart from the
American Revolution the French declared
that the people people could be embodied
in a single political body the Third
Estate technically only represented the
unprivileged classes and the
revolutionaries wanted to have one
single body that could claim to be the
representative of the entire French
Community privileged or not so they
abolished all the Estates and formed a
new body that could do that called the
National Assembly the National Assembly
was capable of making one decision and
therefore voicing one will which they
argued was the will of the people which
they also argued should be the Sovereign
power in France again as CIS put it the
nation exists before everything it is
the object of everything its will is
always legal it is the law itself the
French called their singular National
will the general will which was an idea
taken from the philosopher John ja
Russo's social contract which set out as
he described it to find a new form of
Association a new type of community that
defends and protects the person and
goods of each associate within that
protection is made with a common force
that unites each with all while everyone
nonetheless obeys only themselves and
remains as free as before to do that
Russo envisions a community of people
coming together as political equals so
no one has a privilege and everyone
follows the same laws this is a
community based in consent everyone
voluntarily surrenders themsel to the
authority of it this is also a community
that can be simply willed into being
everyone just has to agree to form it
the decisions expressed by that
Community are called the general Will He
said Each of Us puts his person and all
his power in common under the Supreme
direction of the general will and as a
body we receive each member as an
indivisible part of the whole so the
general will is the Supreme singular
will of the community and for the
community to be a just one and he said a
free one everyone must be forced to
follow it he said in order for the
social compact not to be an empty
formality it tacitly encompasses the
following commitment which alone can
give Force to the rest that whoever does
refuse to obey the general will will be
constrained to do so by the whole body
which means nothing else but that he be
forced to be free so in Russo's Society
everyone voluntarily surrenders thems to
the social contract therefore for making
the decisions rendered by that contract
just and equal but the political
realities in Revolutionary France meant
that the National Assembly getting
Universal consent to its Authority and
to its decrees was impossible but the
ideas of the revolutionaries were
popular and a conflict developed and
pressure built on both sides the basic
question was who has political Authority
in France the privileged order or the
nation represented by the National
Assembly over time the National Assembly
won that struggle by increasingly
resting political and financial matters
under its own control for example by
being able to pass a law that declared
all existing taxes which had not been
consented to by the nation illegal
popular revolution swept France it was
thought that if everyone submitted to
the authority of the nation France would
finally become free and equal so the
revolutionaries set out to accomplish
exactly that they set out to to
subordinate everything political in
France to the nation they demanded the
clergy bow their heads before the
Majesty of the laws and they banned the
right to organize around labor interests
saying citizens who practice a
particular profession must not be
allowed to assemble for their supposed
common interests there are no more group
interests within the state there are
only the private interests of
individuals and the general interest the
nobility too swore loyalty to the nation
as it was described everyone offered up
gave laid at the feet of the nation the
king became increasingly marginalized as
time went on as France went to war which
they said was to spread their values of
Liberty and equality the king felt
forced to acques as Marie antoanet put
it the king is not free he has to follow
the general will and for our personal
safety here he has to do what he is told
as the nation continued to rise in
status it became something that the king
could betray France was becoming the
French nation and the king became
subservient to that Nation when he tried
to veto laws from the assembly and when
he was supported by Foreign monarchs he
was finally deemed an enemy of the
people an ideological line had been
crossed the revolutionaries responded by
storming the tuler palace the King was
captured and judgment passed on his life
as maximilan robes spear put it Louie
must die because the home homand must
live okay so we have this United French
Nation taking power and you could
probably see the idea of nationalism
coming into shape but the reality wasn't
so simple once in power the
revolutionaries were in a weak position
they were low on resources and felt
threatened by foreign powers who are
wary of the developments happening in
France which brought in a geopolitical
side to nationalism one that still holds
true today at that point in history the
city state was seen as being far too
small and prone to being conquered on
the other hand you had Empires which
were coming to be seen as far too big
holding too many diverse populations
together too far from their power base
which made them prone to an eventual
collapse within that the nation state
was coming to be seen as a happy medium
big enough to be geopolitically
competitive and also cohesive enough to
endure through challenges and time
people in nation states could feel bound
to one another and relatable to one
another by sharing a territory the
Homeland sharing a Common Language like
French and sharing a common culture and
history for example the French had the
Hundred Years War to commonly remember
and Jon of AR to remember as a common
French hero the problem is you have to
teach people that they're members of a
Nation it's not something that people
just grow up inherently knowing and
these ideas weren't being widely taught
they were City oriented ideas at the
time generally speaking the further you
got from cities the less people
identified with or even knew about a
French Nation to the mass of peasants
and therefore to most inhabitants of
France the meaningful world and identity
seldom extended Beyond The Village even
as late as the mid 19th century a French
Observer described the Countryside by
saying every village is still a little
world that differs from the neighboring
world as mercury does from Uranus every
village is a clan a sort of state with
its own patriotism France was also
linguistically diverse most subjects of
the king didn't speak standard French
and instead spoke a wide variety of
languages and dialects which complicated
claims at the time about France being a
singular French nation which meant that
the nation as the revolutionaries were
pitching it didn't really exist yet the
Revolutionary mirabo for example called
France nothing but an unconstituted
aggregate of disunited peoples
it was a problem that had occurred to
French thinkers in the decades before
the Revolution and in the early 1770s
John jaac Russo wrote down a solution
for it he offered it in the form of
advice to reformers in the Polish
Lithuanian Commonwealth which was
typically just called Poland Poland was
under threat at the time by its
neighbors and actually about to be
carved up by them the clarity and the
level of detail that Russo offered I
think is startling he told them the
problem was Poland was weak from Anarchy
it was disorganized and internally
divided because of that it was unstable
and at the mercy of its neighbors whims
to fix that rouso told Poland to infuse
into the entire nation the spirit of its
Confederates to establish the Republic
in the Po's own Hearts so that it will
live on in them despite anything their
oppressors may do to do that Russo said
Poland needed National institutions
those National institutions would give
form to the genius
the character the tastes and the customs
of the Polish people to the things that
cause them to be themselves rather than
another people give a different bent he
says to the passions of the polls in
doing so you will shape their minds and
hearts in a national pattern that will
set them apart from other people's in
order to raise the patriotism of the
poles to its highest possible level of
intensity he says You must begin by
giving the citizens of Poland a high
opinion of themselves and and of their
Fatherland take stories of Polish Glory
he said and carve them in sacred
characters upon each polish heart build
monuments to those stories and establish
Customs that praise The Virtuous
citizens who had the honor to suffer for
their country in the toils of the enemy
while doing that he says to avoid any
mention of the enemy because to mention
them would be to honor them too much in
short he told the polls to shed luster
on all their patriotic virtues to keep
their Minds constantly on the Fatherland
to make it their Central preoccupation
to hold it up constantly before their
eyes that must be coupled with education
to shape the souls of the citizens in a
national pattern and so to direct their
opinions their likes and dislikes to
make them patriotic by inclination the
newly born infant he says upon first
opening his eyes must gaze upon the
Fatherland and until his dying day
should behold nothing else have them
read polish literature have them learn
its provinces its roads its towns its
history and its laws let his heart and
mind be full of every noble deed every
illustrious man that was ever in Poland
so that he can tell you about them at a
moment's notice that nationalizing
template Russo said would act as a key
for the Polish state that would allow it
to unlock a great Storehouse of energy
on one hand what he's talking about here
you could say is somewhat natural States
and societies of types might build up
myths about their own greatness what was
new here was the intentionality and the
thoroughness the imperative to educate
and indoctrinate an entire society and
to do that in the context of nationalism
everyone was to be taught that they were
a member of a nation and the nation was
to be held up as an object of supreme
importance something that defined what
people believed and defined who they
were inside Russo's Treatise became a
major source of inspiration for the
French revolutionaries so to make the
French nation into a reality they set
out to intentionally nationalize the
people of France as one of the more
radical leaders HRI grear put it all
citizens were to be melted into the
national mass in that they were somewhat
successful they established the first
comprehensive system of national
education and tried to make Paris into
the artistic capital of the world
turning a Royal Palace into the first
national museum the Lou National
festivals were also planned through
those festivals and those schools French
was to be put forward as the only
language used throughout the nation a
musician was also tasked to compose a
patriotic song to celebrate France's
declaration of war against Austria the
song produced began arise Children of
the Fatherland the day of Glory has
arrived it then urges the French to
charge into battle and let the enemies
impure blood water their fields the song
produced was the the mares still the
national anthem in France [Music]
today but for the most part the
revolutionaries plans didn't come to
fruition France was unstable and
economically collapsing the extremism of
the French Revolution was divisive even
among the
revolutionaries as divisions Rose Terror
became an instrument of order chaos ensued
ensued
and order was only restored when
Napoleon took power consolidating France
under himself as its new emperor the
project of nation building had largely
failed in France but the idea had been
demonstrated the word nationalism was
coined in the late 1790s as observers
tried to make sense out of what had just
transpired in France France's unusual
power and geopolitical connectedness
meant that the ideas demonstrated in
France traveled far and wide the
Nationalist ideas that spread can be
understood as resting on a few points
the first is that the nation came to be
seen as the world's natural unit
especially in comparison to Empires or
multinational States like Prussia which
were starting to seem like artificial
constructs the second is that the nation
was to be the primary loyalty for
individuals and the main framework for
ties of solidarity mostly replacing ties
to local regions and to religion the
nation therefore needed to be able to
formulate clear membership criteria and
needed the ability to categorize
minorities and possibly discriminate
them finally a nation had to strive for
political autonomy within a certain
territory and needed a state of its own
to guarantee it the aspiring Nations
that emerged after 1789 typically
claimed their cause was in the name of
Freedom they wanted to make the
transition from subjects into citizens
the nation would be the new highest
Authority and its leader leaders would
typically act or at least claim to act
not in their own interests but in the
interests of the nation also as the
French demonstrated this is something
that could happen suddenly a people just
had to declare themselves a people and
declare their intention to form a nation
the first major wave was based on the
idea that colonized and enslaved peoples
had a right to their own nation that
idea swept through Latin America
starting with sandang now Haiti and
continuing through the Brazilian colon
and through the wars of Liberation led
by Simone Bolivar who recruited armies
from indigenous and mixed race
populations to establish new nations
corresponding to the old Spanish
provinces which formed Venezuela
Colombia Bolivia Ecuador and Peru while
similar events further south led to the
creation of Chile Argentina Uruguay and
Paraguay those revolutions weren't
entirely based in nationalism they were
based on an idea of the sovereign of the
people which in itself was both liberal
and National again this was most closely
inspired by the French Revolution the
American Revolution by contrast was more
heavily based in federalism you can see
the French mix of liberalism and
nationalism in their Declaration of the
rights of man which says that men are
born and remain free and equal in rights
but also that the basis of all
sovereignty resides essentially in the
nation and that no group no individual
can exercise any Authority that does not
expressly derive from it so it was that
mix of liberal and nationalist
principles that started sweeping through
the world first in Latin America then
back in Europe namely in Greece and
Italy where Italians demonstrated
unification nationalism Italian
nationalists wanted to unite the
scattered Italian states the Italian
jeppi mazini was the best known European
nationalist of his age he believed that
Nations could exist as rational
political actors that could form
coalitions like a United States of
Europe that would Foster International
Peace mazini said that required
primarily emphasizing International
loyalty your first duties he told
Italians are to humanity you are men
before you are citizens but he argued
that you need to make a nation first
before you participate internationally
he said we must exist as a nation before
associating ourselves with the Nations
which compose Humanity roughly similar
politics have since been articulated by
thinkers like wdro Wilson and you could
argue are perhaps even more roughly
embodied in organizations like NATO
bricks the European Union and the United
Nations but despite mazzini's hopes
conflict between nations often occurs
territorial disputes between nations
often occur Nations often go to war with
one another and human diversity within
any one given territory can cause
nationalist Conflict for a number of reasons
reasons
for example if you go back to John ja
Russo's recommendations for Poland to
nationalize its citizens what would
happen to the people living in Poland's
borders who don't want to identify as
poles what if they don't speak Polish
and what if they're in a region where
most people around them are like them
and not like other poles do they accept
the Polish language and polish culture
being imposed on them or do they fight
for their own Nation separate from
Poland or for that matter if Poland did
become a nation what would happen to
those who identify as poles but live
somewhere outside of Poland's borders
like Prussia at the time should they try
to get Poland to Annex parts of Prussia
to unite the poles as nationalism spread
a history of similar conflicts spread
with it that to many made hopes of
achieving International Peace through
nationalism seem naive it also created a
new type of nationalism what you could
call the nationalism of persecuted
Nation alties Zionism is probably the
most famous example of that a leading
Zionist thinker Theodore Herzel
legitimated his claim to a Jewish Nation
by saying no one can deny the gravity of
the Jews situation wherever they live in
perceptible numbers they are more or
less persecuted the persecution of
people who seem foreign is a practice
that goes back to Antiquity but Herzel
framed the problem as specifically
occurring on the level of Nations for
example saying every nation in who midst
Jews live is either covertly or openly
anti-semitic because of that persecution
it was argued that Jewish people needed
their own nation which of course became
Israel as the 19th and even the 20th
century went on it became standard for
Nations to try to strengthen themselves
by implementing russan National programs
to teach their citizens that they were
members of a nation and to Foster
National loyalty pride and solidarity
for example at the end of the 19th
century the United States of America
implemented a national Pledge of
Allegiance in its schools it goes I
pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the
Republic for which it stands one nation
under God indivisible with liberty and
justice for all I can recite it from
memory because I was taught it as a
child because American politics also
emphasize individual Freedom it's not
something that I was forced to say if I
wanted to opt out of saying the Pledge
the authorities around me respected it
okay so I want to Pivot our attention to
a new type of nationalism but to do that
I need to bring in some philosophy the
nationalism I've been talking about so
far meaningfully although not entirely
came out of the Enlightenment
Enlightenment thought can be understood
as an emphasis on logic and rationality
and of the belief that they produce
knowledge which when accumulated adds to
human progress Enlightenment thinkers
observed humanity and concluded that
there's a common Humanity shared by
everyone which inspired the French
revolutionaries to make a new French
Nation where all French people had a
certain amount of power and a certain
amount of political dignity a key
takeaway here is that Enlightenment
principles are Universal in nature if
you think about it the whole point of
logic and rationality is to get us away
from a subjective reality and bring us
towards a universal reality when people
agree to use logic and rationality
they're agreeing to have the same
intentions to follow the same set of
rules and that way they can check one
another they can find problems in each
other's thinking and circle over time
closer and closer to the truth it's the
philosophy that science is built on
science is something that anyone
anywhere can take part in precisely
because it's Universal now now we're
going to bring in another type of
philosophy Romanticism Romanticism by
contrast appeals to emotion in its pure
most essential form it's a revolt
against received ethical and aesthetic
standards it takes the standards of the
day and turns them on their head and in
doing that creates excitement typically
by rejecting modern what are normally
called civilized values and by leaning
into Primal values values that make us
on some instinctual level feel alive
rouso is typically seen as its first
major figure though not all his writing
works as Romanticism he was most clearly
one when he rejected what everyone else
around him saw as progress for example
when he asked has the restoration of the
sciences and the Arts contributed to
purifying or to corrupting morals and he
concludes that it was the latter he said
the effect is certain the depravity real
our souls have been corrupted in
proportion as our sciences and our Arts
have advanced toward Perfection how did
he arrive at that conclusion I actually
don't think that it's the point the
excitement in the shock of the
conclusion especially to its perian
audience at the time I think was the
main point and an argument was produced
to procure that excitement Romantics
don't try to be Universal but instead
appeal to the inward self to their inner
convictions and their inner feelings
that affects how they see others two
Romantics friendly relations to others
are only possible in so far as the
others can be regarded as a projection
of their own self that often leads to an
emphasis on race or as we'll see an
emphasis on the nation but Romanticism
didn't begin in politics it was
typically in art for example in
paintings poems and literature but after
the French Revolution Romantics were led
into politics gradually through
nationalism which of the major
post-revolutionary principles offered
the most visceral excitement it was the
most vigorous the country that developed
and embodied romantic nationalism more
than anywhere was Germany Germany at the
time was far from being the European
power that we know now the German people
were scattered downtrodden and
economically behind it was far from
clear that the re was such a thing as a
German state or a German Nation if
anywhere it seemed to be embodied most
most in the Holy Roman Empire but that
was a decentralized and unusually weak
Authority a high-ranking imperial
official put it this way in 1766 he asks
what are the Germans and he answers
himself we have been for centuries a
puzzle of a political Constitution a
prey of our neighbors an object of their
scorn outstanding in the history of the
world disunited among ourselves weak
from our divisions strong enough to harm
ourselves powerless to save ourselves
eles insensitive to the honor of our
name indifferent to the glory of our
laws envious of our rulers distrusting
one another inconsistent about
principles coercive about enforcing them
a great but also a despised people a
potentially happy but actually a very
lamentable people in the late 18th
century Germans found a way to cope with
that lack of national strength and unity
by essentially getting in touch with
Germany they traveled the countryes side
in search of Germany's metaphorical
interior they looked for Germany's
rhythm in BS and folk songs they tried
to capture the sensual power of its
Landscapes through poetry they also
philosophized about the German language
calling attention to its unique
character but then going even further
claiming that words aren't just things
that describe the world but allow you to
feel the world from the inside that way
of thinking found its clearest
expression in the stern German drun
movement the storm and stress movement
but it wasn't nationalism yet it was
Germans creating a romanticized sense of
country or a romanticized sense of
nationality it was making Germany into
something subjective something interior
it was creating a deeper relationship
between subject and object a person and
a place it was something that would
allow Germans to say eventually this is
who I am that feeling crystallized into
nationalism for the first time after the
French Revolution specifically after the
French invaded German lands its clearest
proponent was a man named Ernst morit ar
ar explicitly called for the unification
of Germans into a nation in doing that
AR articulated a key feature of romantic
nationalism which is that it leans into
a sentiment that's felt or could be felt
by its Nationals that's often a
sentiment that flies in the face of the
so-called civilized world the sentiment
that that art leaned into was the shared
hatred of the French it was a sentiment
held personally by art as he recalled
upon seeing the French occupy the Rin
land here I learned to hate them as
enemies and destroyers of my people and
hardly do I see one more and my cheeks
flush hot with blood he then tapped into
that hatred as a means of arousing and
unifying Germany for example in this
poem what is the Fatherland of the
German name me the great country where
the German tongue sounds and sings songs
in God's praise that's what it ought to
be call that thine Valiant German that
is the Fatherland of the German where
anger Roots out foreign nonsense where
every French man is called enemy where
every German is called friend that is
what it ought to be it ought to be the
whole of Germany AR wanted the hatred of
the French to be the main pillar of a
new nationalism in Germany something
that would have the cohering power of a
religion as he put it let the unanimity
of your hearts be your church let hatred
of the French be your religion Let
Freedom in Fatherland be your Saints to
whom you pray so there's a strong
element of collectivism here he's trying
to get everyone to think and feel the
same things to behave the same way
nationalism by definition is a
collectivist ideology a nation is a
collective and nationalists behave
politically by collectivizing with their
Nation but some nationalisms allow for a
significant amount of individualism
while other nationalisms lean more
heavily into collectivism the Germans
ended up creating a highly collectivized
form of nationalism most fully embodied
by the
Nazis the man who developed the
philosophy of collectivism for the
Germans was Johan gutle fisha like AR
fish's nationalism matured once the
French invaded Germany a key moment for
him was seeing Napoleon ride through
Berlin in 1806 fisha in response
delivered a series of addresses to the
German Nation a German Nation
politically speaking didn't exist at the
time but there was a common language
that could be used to unite the German
people so it was on that language that
fisha focused fisha claimed that all the
neol Latin languages around him like
French were inferior since they were
tied to Latin he claimed that they were
dead languages he said to be frank they
have no mother tongue at all he pointed
out that Germans had their own original
language which he called a living
language he also claimed that it
transformed the people who spoke it
Germans he said by speaking a living
language were vitalized people for
example saying description and
characterization in such a language is
itself a directly vital and sensuous
matter representing once more one's own
entire life seizing it and intervening
in it so all these German people are
vitalized in the same way because
they're speaking the same living language
language
from there a metaphor to a body forms he
says Germans separated are a
malfunctioning body and to be strong and
overcome their problems the German
people need to come together and form a
new whole body for fisha that process
had the force of divinity behind it he
said the animating breath of the
spiritual world will take hold of our
national B's inert bones and join them
together so that they might gloriously
exist in a new and trans figured life he
argued that this wasn't something you do
just for the good of the nation he said
that if you join together with the
national body's bones you gain a
profound existential meaning a meaning
that goes beyond your own finite life he
said a man is certain that the
cultivation he has achieved remains in
his people so long as this people
endures and that this cultivation itself
becomes a lasting foundation for all
further development and it's the
universality he said of that particular
law that binds people together he said
it binds this throng into a natural
consistent hole so in this system
Germans gain meian life by being part of
their nation that makes the existence of
their Nation more important than any one
particular National that means that
Germans must be prepared to make
sacrifices for their Nation to preserve
their Nation fisha said a German must
even be prepared to die so that it might
live and he live in it the only life
that he has ever wanted
that created a doctrine of people and
Fatherland the people give everything
even their lives for the Fatherland and
the Fatherland in turn is the people who
are kind of orgiastic brought together
as this imagined living body a set of
ideas picked up and carried out by the
Nazi party a little more than 100 years
later in such a society the love of
Fatherland must itself rule the state as
the supreme ultimate and independent
Authority no other force or principle
can be allowed to conflict with it which
fisha said was for the purpose of
creating domestic peace fisha said to
achieve this end the Natural Freedom of
the individual has to be limited in
various ways and if there were no other
considerations it would be well to
restrict the people as much as possible
uniting their activity uniformly and
keeping them under Vigilant and Lasting
supervision fish's ideas were directed
at German intellectuals and at first he
and AR mostly only found support with
students they inspired for example
members of the Burkin shaft movement
which by 1817 became notorious for
burning books that criticized it or were
considered sufficiently anti-german one
of its members in 1819 murdered a Critic
before running into the street stabbing
himself in the chest and crying out long
live the German Fatherland he survived
and was executed the Executioner though
sympathized with the ideals of the
nationalists he dismantled the
bloodstained scaffold after the event
and used the wood to build a secret
summerhouse for members of the burken
shaft to meet it was a sign if any that
romantic nationalism had taken root in
Germany Germany would finally become a
nation in 1871 when the King of Prussia
was converted to the cause but it would
face a rocky path to stability and
prosperity okay to zoom our perspective
back out nationalism again was a
European invention there were
nationalities and things that resembled
Nations but the concrete conception of
Nations and nationalism were things that
tended to emerge around the world upon
contact with Europe first in Latin
America and around the rest of Europe
and then in Asia and Africa from the
20th century on the inspiration taken
from the West Was often a conscious one
many societies around the world
effectively realized that they had the
Poland problem they were disorganized
and internally divided and and to fix
that to bring strength unity and
stability to their people they said they
must to some extent learn from the West
until the first half of the 19th century
nationalism inspired by the French was
closely linked to Liberal values but as
romantic nationalism became more popular
things began to change nationalisms
around the world started to take on a
hybrid character the ideology of Chang
kek the leader of China before Mount
seang is a good example of that Chong
called for the naming of and
extermination of domestic enemies namely
Communists he called for the spiritual
regeneration of his people for the sake
of making a strong unified and safe
China a goal he told Chinese they should
be ready to die for at any moment but
that was also with the goal of
eventually creating a democratic
pluralistic China precise labeling of
that kind of ideology isn't easy and
must just settle with calling Chong a nationalist
nationalist
as nationalism spread it began to appear
increasingly powerful even Unstoppable
many of those making that realization
were politicians who began to lean into
nationalism as part of their image and
platform that combined with developing
technology and state apparatus made a
new type of nationalism possible and the
last one we're going to talk about today
and that nationalism was fascism fascism
if we're trying to use the word
accurately is an EXT form of nationalism
the Italian fascisti were the first
official fascists they wanted to create
a single party fascist State and then
subordinate the entire Italian Nation to
that fascist state that would all be
done in the name of establishing and
heightening the greatness of the Italian
Nation as musolini put it our myth is
the nation our myth is the greatness of
the nation and to this myth this
greatness which we want to translate
into a total reality we subordinate
everything else musolini was somewhat
inspired by mzini but he rejected
internationalism as a principle that
could bind people together as he put it
the unit of loyalty was too large and he
instead focused on his own country which
developed into a passionate nationalism
as he put it to the Italian parliament
in 1925 we all know that what motivates
me is not a personal whim it is not lust
for power it is not an ignoble passion
but only an unlimited and burning love
for the Fatherland he became especially
interested in the collectivizing
potential of national Consciousness he
wanted a shared National Consciousness
to be at the center of a movement so
collectivist that it was openly
anti-individualistic all individuals
were in theory to merge their being with
the fascist State as musolini put it
fascism stresses the importance of the
state and accepts the individual only in
so far as his interests coincide
with those of the state this is taking
nationalism to such an authoritarian
degree that people essentially become
subjects again what the fascist State
officially thinks and wants its subjects
also officially think and want this
higher personality he said becomes a
nation the state creates a nation so
fascists want to destroy the existing
government and make a new state then
that state creates a nation and through
that Nation the will of the people is
realized to the nation valtion is
conferred and the people are made one it
makes them as he said aware of their
moral unity so with fascism the nation
and its subjects belong to the fascist
State and there's no restrictions on
what the fascist State can do to that
nation and to its subjects as you might
expect that allows the fascist state to
aim to entirely transform its nation and
its people according to its needs as
musolini put it fascism aims at
refashioning not only the forms of life
but their content man his character and
his faith to achieve this purpose it
enforces discipline and uses Authority
entering into the soul and ruling with
Undisputed sway both musolini and Hitler
saw the nation as a highlevel singular
organism musolini called it a living
ethical entity it had to move to stay
alive inactivity he said is death and it
specifically had to move aggressively he
said it had to make its will and power
felt and respected not just domestically
but beyond its own Frontiers a principle
musolini made good on when he invaded
Ethiopia in 1936 ples clear the way for
3,000 armored cars to advance with
Native troops in front Hitler and the
Nazis took a similar set of ideas a set
of ideas now called generic fascism but
they also included especially strong
doses of anti-semitism M and social
Darwinism anti-Semitism was tied to
German nationalism from the beginning at
first playing a minor part but getting
Support over the decades social
Darwinism was also popular around Europe
towards the end of the 19th century when
combined with nationalism it created the
doctrine that the nations with the
greatest physical mental moral material
and political power would win in the
struggle for survival or Supremacy and
they would be justified in doing so B
those ideas together and you had a
fascist state with full control over its
people it was led by men who became
convinced that some living within
Germans borders were not true Germans
they were actually parasites within the
nation they also believed that the
German people in their greatness
deserved more living space and in that
regard they had their eyes set
particularly to the east that all led to
such a disaster that the word fascism
has become perhaps the biggest
pejorative in Paul politics ever since
but nationalism still survives after the
fall of the Soviet Union and the global
decline of socialist States I think it's
fairly easy to make the case that
nationalism became the most influential
political ideology on the
planet I think that's enough said to
bring things together it's time to ask
the question what is nationalism I think
the best thing to do here is to quote a
few professionals and then take it from
there here's the first nationalism
locates the source of individual
identity within a people which is seen
as the bearer of sovereignty the central
object of loyalty and the basis of
collective solidarity another said that
nationalism can be understood as a sense
of belonging to a large Collective that
conceives of itself as a political actor
with the common language and Destiny
what is beyond doubt said another is
that the doctrine divides Humanity into
separate and distinct Nations claims
that such Nations must constitute
sovereign states and asserts that the
members of of a Nation reach freedom and
fulfillment by cultivating The Peculiar
identity of their own nation and by
sinking their own persons in the greater
whole of the nation to think about
nationalism more broadly it's a modern
solution to political organization some
organize around tradition others
organize around individual rights still
more organize around socieconomic
equality nationalists organized around
the nation they may blend in other
principles but that's the way they
primarily operate
to expand that into a definition it's a
political ideology that sees the world
as ideally divided into Nations and sees
citizens as ideally collectivizing for
the sake of the interest of those
Nations if we can accept that then it
breaks nationalism down into two main
components the first is the view that
the world is ideally divided into
Nations those nations are units of
people who are thought to have a
sufficient amount of things in common
which almost always includes a Common
Language and territory the second
component is that Nationals should
ideally politically behave by
collectivizing for their Nation since
the 20th century the first component has
swept the world and more or less become
a global belief if there's ever been
another political ideology that's had
that kind of success I'd personally be
hardpressed to name it but the second
component is still controversial and for
someone to be called a nationalist they
need to believe both they need to see
the world as ideally divided into
Nations and they also need to prioritize
the importance of national solidarity
what that nation is what its interests
are and what it asks of its Nationals
depends on the
nationalism I hope this was helpful
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
