Friday, January 01, 2010

Schwarzmantel: what use is the nation for the left?

In my last post I looked at a paper by John Schwarzmantel, a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Leeds. Writing as a neo-Gramscian Marxist, he believes that liberalism is so dominant that it has narrowed the range of political options, leading to a loss of interest in political involvement. So he has set himself the task of creating a counter-ideology:

My argument is that there is a need for ideological contestation, which is not met in the conditions of contemporary politics, where liberalism has cornered the ideological market. (p.10)

According to Schwarzmantel, this counter-ideology has to be popular, forward-looking and inspire emotionally. Only in this way can it hope to be a mass movement.

And here Schwarzmantel hits an interesting problem. Gramsci himself suggested that Marxists should aim at a "national-popular" movement; the idea being to use national symbols and traditions to inspire an emotional commitment:

So for Gramsci Marxism could meet these criteria for being the new counter-ideology ... It was ... national-popular in that it tried to inspire people with symbols and emotions rooted in popular culture and national traditions.

Notice, though, that nationalism is to be used to mobilise people to support the ultimate aim of internationalism:

... the concept of the national-popular is also problematic, especially in a country like Britain where many of the national traditions have connotations which are redolent of an imperialist past, rather than a democratic and international future. (p.13)

I don't think this admission will shock too many readers; it's been clear for many years that Australian politicians are willing to invoke a sense of national identity at times to garner support, whilst continuing to undermine the same national tradition.

Schwarzmantel recognises another problem in invoking nationalism to mobilise support for a democratic and internationalist mass movement. Modern Western countries have become more multicultural, so the sense of national unity is not as strong as it once was:

... a counter-ideology must possess the emotional resonance needed to inspire the mass basis needed in the conditions of modern politics. Gramsci saw that emerging at least in part from the national-popular dimension, but that may be a weaker base in times when the solidarity and unity of the nation have been reduced by a much more multi-cultural and heterogeneous population. (p.18)

How then can our neo-Gramscians emotionally inspire a mass movement? Schwarzmantel turns to the idea of a civic nationalism:

In order for an ideology to be popular, the mixture of nationalism is certainly effective. Hence, one could argue, the fact that a whole range of ideologies of the past ... have linked up with nationalism to give them greater pulling power ... I would suggest that the concept of the national-popular may be dated and not much help in forging an ideology of progressive politics suitable for our time.

Nationalism can certainly be separated from its ethnic an exclusive connotations by giving emphasis to a civic form of the ideology. Such civic nationalism would appeal to all those living on the same national territory, irrespective of ethnic origin, cultural or religious identity and belief, and would find its affective element in symbols of civic unity and shared political rights.

An ideology of shared citizenship rights, open to all, is the basis for a new ideology which opposes or seeks to contain the fragmenting and dissolving tendencies of the market. (p.16)

Several things strike me on reading this. First, Schwarzmantel sounds like an orthodox liberal himself here. Is there much of a difference here between Schwarzmantel the neo-Gramscian Marxist and your ordinary left-liberal? Both focus on civic nationalism and a criticism of the market.

Second, the argument doesn't work well. Schwarzmantel has already admitted that the "national-popular" is less effective in a multicultural and heterogeneous population. A civic nationalism, in which there is no regard for a shared ethnicity, will only serve to make a population more multicultural and heterogeneous.

Schwarzmantel chooses to blame the market for social fragmentation, but it's his solution, civic nationalism, which has done just as much or more to fragment and dissolve.

Third, it's questionable that shared citizenship would really inspire people as the older nationalism once did. Schwarzmantel himself is aware of this problem. He doesn't think that ideas of political or economic citizenship, shorn of national identity, will be quite enough to motivate people. Some sense of a shared membership in a "historically based community" are still necessary:

It seems to me that the strength of the national-popular is that it calls up two ideas, those of solidarity, which is in turn based on a shared history, an evolved tradition. Can the combined idea of political and economic citizenship aspire to the same emotional resonances which could be conjured up by the idea of the nation?

... Here the issue is whether a concept of shared civic rights is rooted firmly enough in an affective base which is needed in order to give citizens the incentive or emotional stimulus to internalise and make their own ideas of shared political community. My own view is that the idea of the 'civic minimum' and joint political/economic citizenship ... does need to be rooted in a historically based community. The idea of the nation has a role to play, but it takes second place to one of reciprocity and citizenship. (p.17)

So membership of a "historically based community" is still necessary to further certain political ends, but is secondary to citizenship rights.

You can see from the above why those committed to political modernism haven't entirely ditched nations and national identity. It's not that they think such things are important in themselves. They are aware, though, that the future they are planning for us, of citizenship within a state rather than membership of a nation or ethny, does not have the same power to inspire or motivate our commitments to society.

14 comments:

  1. He seems about a hundred years behind the times - what right-liberal would object to civic nationalism having priority over ethnonationalism? For that matter Italian Fascism was avowedly civic nationalist in its conception.

    As you say, appeals to civic national spirit are used instrumentally by leftists (our Labour govt in Britain has been quite effective at it), but the nature of their project is anti-national. I think their attempts to create transnational or non-national mass movements like Environmentalism are more notable, though these may never have the broad appeal nationalism did, and still does to an extent. The Project seems to function ok without need for such, though - apathy and cultural pessimism among the general mass of the population seem sufficient for their program.

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  2. Simon writes of: "apathy and cultural pessimism among the general mass of the population".

    I'd love to think that the general mass of the population was culturally pessimistic (nobody is questioning its apathy); but this assumption strikes me, for one, as sanguine. If the mass of the population was culturally pessimistic, I would feel much better about it. Au contraire, I have the horrible sense that most of the population in Anglo lands, far from being culturally pessimistic, experiences in its default mode an almost bestial optimism, and will continue to do so as long as its endless supply of mainstream media porn - preferably via cable TV - is unimpaired.

    Counter-revolutions, like revolutions, can be made by minorities and by minorities alone.

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  3. "I have the horrible sense that most of the population in Anglo lands, far from being culturally pessimistic, experiences in its default mode an almost bestial optimism, and will continue to do so as long as its endless supply of mainstream media porn - preferably via cable TV - is unimpaired."

    Good one RJ Stove.

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  4. What's going on is they think they can transcend the dichotomy of "unity" versus "diversity". If enacted on a global scale you'll see one of two possible outcomes:

    A) Nearly immediate dissolution, because no one really cares, leading to a Dark Age of between hegemonies.

    B) Everyone pretending that a unified mankind is feasible, while underhandedly looking out for one's own group.

    Option B is potentially far worse, and probably more likely.

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  5. "Cultural Pessimism" - I think it was (the Frankfurt schooler) Marcuse's term. It means dislike of one's own traditional culture, ethny etc. Think of "whiteness studies" and other expressions of Western self-hatred.

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  6. Schwarzmantel wrote,

    "Such civic nationalism would appeal to all those living on the same national territory, irrespective of ethnic origin, cultural or religious identity and belief, and would find its affective element in symbols of civic unity and shared political rights."

    So, what could "national" spirit sound like in the new territorial units which the globos are plotting out for us?

    Fight, fight for the European Union!
    The democratic government of the North American Union needs YOU to do your part!
    Rah, rah for the East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere!


    Eh, I'm not feeling it.

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  7. "Rah, rah for the East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere!"

    Hahahaha.

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  8. Schwarzmantel appears to be both acknowledging and dismissing the importance of the "historically based community", as if he recognizes the utility of an "affective base" in advancing his ideology, but cannot recognize that it is just that: a base, a foundation, that exists independently of, and perhaps contrary to, whatever squirrely social engineering project he hopes to harness it to. Thus he invokes "civic nationalism" in the same way that "civic society" is sometimes adduced in similar contexts - as one abstraction among many that can be used as an emotional hook that can easily be managed by ideologues to advance their program. But "civic nationalism", like "civic society" is not an abstraction, but a product of history and culture. It may appear as an abstract, legalistic focus of loyalty, but that is only because in functioning societies there is a shared, tacit, historic culture that underpins these more explicit codes. But these two things - the shared culture and its codification - cannot just be detached and re-arranged to suit the convenience of internationalists.

    The great error here is the idea that "civic nationalism" can be constructed (or at least controlled) from the top down, and that any disruptions resulting from "citizens" having the internationalist program shoved down their throats can be addressed by propaganda instructing them how to properly arrange and prioritize their emotions of loyalty and attachment. I am reminded of a recent paper I came across with a more specific, astonishing example of this attitude, by two economists who blandly pronounced that "civil society" could be called on to cure the (acknowledged) social disintegrations resulting from (in this case) mass immigration. I immediately wondered what the hell these people thought "civil society" was, and where the hell they thought it came from. They wrote as if it were some bureaucratic initiative that perhaps only wanted a bit more funding - which seems to be analogous to how the author here is trying to frame "civic nationalism", despite his nod to "historically based community". Like "civil society", the fact that it can (under some conditions) exist, and comprise more than specific tribes and ethnies, doesn't mean that you can pull it out of of hat (or stuff it back in when it conflicts with The Program). Thus his statement that "[t]he idea of the nation has a role to play, but it takes second place to one of reciprocity and citizenship" is just so much question-begging blather.

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  9. Rohan Swee wrote,

    " They wrote as if [civil society] were some bureaucratic initiative that perhaps only wanted a bit more funding."

    Hahaha, that's right. And because these pseudo-gnostics think that every good thing is a product of their own will (and someone else's money) alone, why shouldn't they expect to re-make society into something better too?

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  10. I hope it would not offend any of my countrymen if I take the liberty of designating "civic nationalism" as one of the hallmarks of the American experiment.

    What Schwarzmantel seems to miss is that the assignment of priority, or value, to that label is of considerable importance. I think of civic nationalism (though not in those words) as a sort of glue that allows certain bonds to form, mostly through the filter of government. It is wholly apart from the ethnic, religious or even intellectual condition of the people.

    What nation can exist without civic unity? It is "designed" by the national founders or it evolves in its own way. To think that it is a workable element we can use to "re-make" a society seems laughably absurd.

    leabpb

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  11. Leadpb wrote,

    "I hope it would not offend any of my countrymen if I take the liberty of designating "civic nationalism" as one of the hallmarks of the American experiment."

    Eh, I'm not so sure about that. What about John Jay's Federal Paper #2, in which he writes about the American people's descending from a common ancestor, speaking a common tongue, professing a common faith, etc.? That sounds like real nationalism to me.

    Civic nationalism was a later, liberal invention to disarm American resistance to mass immigration beginning in the 19th century.

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  12. Bartholomew,

    Thanks for the response. Point taken re: John Jay, but that sort of language does not find its way into the administrative apparatus of the U.S., not in our key documents or in subsequent bureaucratic deliberations. That is the stuff of the people and not of the government.

    I think what he said there does reflect a real nationalism, yes. Perhaps I am misconstruing "civic nationalism", which sounds simply like a generic catch-all that purposely avoids, for unity's sake, the things we care about most deeply. These are the points that Jay alluded to, and the formal doctrine governing a people is generally not fit to receive them.

    This was a crucial realization for me, thanks to the writings of Lawrence Auster: that the Founding Fathers deliberately kept out aspects of life constituting the nature of society itself and kept to a lean schedule of addressing common goals and priorities. Auster criticizes them for this, saying they should have "written in" Christianity and the likes of Jay's precepts.

    I disagree and would suggest that a nation that cannot maintain itself *as a society first* and according to its own vision, rather than by the hand of a government that has spelled it out for them, will wither before its time.

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  13. leadpb wrote,

    Auster criticizes them for this, saying they should have "written in" Christianity and the likes of Jay's precepts.

    I disagree and would suggest that a nation that cannot maintain itself *as a society first* and according to its own vision, rather than by the hand of a government that has spelled it out for them, will wither before its time.


    Huh, that's a fascinating point. You know, I've had the same thought as Auster (maybe I picked it up from his writings): the Founders should have been explicitly pro-European, pro-Christian because any group of people has to be pro-something. I thought that by leaving the "pro" unarticulated in the Constitution, the Founders gave Leftism a beachhead from which to begin its merciless attack on our people.

    But if I understand you correctly, you're saying that it wasn't necessary to articulate America's Europeanness and Christianity in the Constitution so long as Americans themselves articulated it clearly and openly among themselves in everyday life.

    OK, that makes sense, but wouldn't that work only if the Constitution were strictly neutral on the question of race and religion? I'm not so sure it is. Maybe Auster doubts that too and for that reason says that the Constitution should have been explicitly pro-white and pro-Christian in order to counteract any potentially subversive interpretations of other passages.

    But then again, maybe the answer isn't to add pro-Christian, pro-European statements to the Constitution but to eliminate any potentially subversive ones.

    Thanks for the thought-provoking response, leadpb.

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  14. Rohan Swee said:

    "Thus he invokes "civic nationalism" in the same way that "civic society" is sometimes adduced in similar contexts - as one abstraction among many that can be used as an emotional hook that can easily be managed by ideologues to advance their program."

    I agree the choice of words seems a slight of hand. What he means by "civic nationalism" is really International ideological leftism using the nation as a vehicle. "Civic" society, civilisation, and "nationalism" are two of the strongest forces we've had in the west so it makes sense to use or harness them for your political ends.

    Its all very much like listening to university politics. The socialists aren't really "democratic" the soft liberals aren't really "inclusive" and the whole thing is hardly "representative". It seems you need to maintain your sense of smell when listening to political arguments.

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