Thursday, January 17, 2013

Knocking Australia Day

The 26th of January is Australia Day. In the lead up to this day, without fail, the Melbourne Age newspaper runs a series of columns attacking the idea of Australian patriotism.

They've kicked off this year with a column by a staff travel writer, Ben Groundwater, titled "Why I'm not a proud Aussie". It begins:
Sorry proud Aussies, I don't get you. I don't agree with you.

This is not just the Southern Cross-tattooed proud Aussies I'm talking about, the VB drinkers watching footy in the bars of Kuta. This is all the Australians who pronounce pride in their place of birth
 
So it's not just assertive displays of patriotism he dislikes, it's the very fact of feeling a sense of pride in your country of birth.

Why? He explains:
...the more I travel the more I become convinced that the whole concept of nationality and nationhood is irrelevant. Where do you come from? It shouldn't matter.

That's interesting. The liberal argument is that predetermined qualities like race and ethnicity are impediments to individual self-determination and so should be made not to matter. Therefore, traditional ethnic nationalism has been ruled out of bounds. The idea was that it would be replaced by a civic nationalism, in which we would be united as a country not by a common ethny but by a shared commitment to liberal political institutions and values.

But civic nationalism, predictably, isn't holding. That's not only because it lacks depth, but because it's illogical. After all, most people don't choose to be members of their civic nation, any more than they choose to be members of their race or ethny. They just happen to be born in a particular country. So even membership of a civic nation is something that is largely predetermined rather than self-determined. To a consistent liberal it all seems merely arbitrary.

That's why he writes:
what are we really so proud of? The dumb luck of having been born on a certain piece of land that then becomes "yours"? And what makes your country so much better than everyone else's – other than your familiarity with it?

I dislike the whole concept of nationhood, the way people support their country like it's a football team playing in a grand final. Like we have to choose sides. How much better would it be if we'd all stop taking pride in the little slices of the globe we happened to pop out in and starting just being citizens of the world?

It might sound corny, but it could happen. We could ditch the parochialism and the patriotism and just treat other human beings as other human beings.
 
He sees a civic nationalism as arbitrary, as dumb luck, and urges instead that we just become individual human beings without attachments to any particular place or people - citizens of the world.

And that's the logical end point of liberalism: not just to make traditional ethnic nationalism not matter, but any identity that is larger than the individual unit. We are to ditch the larger and meaningful traditions we belong to in order to identify with ourselves alone.

The better option would be to ditch the underlying assumptions of liberalism, the ones which make self-determination the overriding good. If you do that, then a traditional national identity does make sense. It is based on real forms of connectedness between people: a shared kinship, history, language, religion and culture, one that over time logically creates a sense of being a distinct people and which links individuals to generations past and present, to a cultural heritage, to a love of place and to a willingness to work to maintain or improve standards and achievements.

29 comments:

  1. A few years ago for the first time I left Australia to live in Europe.
    I quickly realised to identify myself as Australian any chance I had.
    If I did not I was confused for a Brit and they were considered the least popular tourists in Europe.

    On top of that in Europe and a lot of the world nationalism is much stronger than it is in Australia.
    I proudly identified myself as Australian and discussed Australia. I also proudly waved around other peoples flags! and dived straight into their national culture.
    The result was people liked me a lot. They saw that I respected their countries.
    It was only when I didn't clearly identify myself that problem arose. People did not trust me and disagreements occurred.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The trouble with the Ben Groundwaters is that they're all wishful thinking and no care for facts. Does he consider that incoming migrants might not share his grand plan of surrendering ethnic/national identity? And hence diversity may not be the path to the promised global village, but may simply be an opportunity for foreigners to bide their time and later reassert their ethnic/racial identity when they have the numbers to do so. No, it's all fantasy and wishful thinking. I'm not even sure these Pollyanna's actually believe what they say, maybe it's just a narrative to maintain a facade of leadership when really they are a bunch of passive fatalists commenting on the passing scene.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What strange sentiments for a fellow named Groundwater. If he was named Rainshower, one could understand his here-today-gone-tomorrow attitude, but groundwater has sunk into the soil and stays put. Maybe people divide into three classes. First you have the Groundwaters (properly so named) who are fixed in place for millennia, then you have the Rivers, who sometimes linger but never stop for long, and then you have the Clouds that race before the wind. This fellow wishes he were a Cloud.

    One other thing. I don't see why "citizen of the world" and "member of the human race" are any less arbitrary, or any more worthy of pride, than more circumscribed loyalties. If that's where Mr. Groundwater's loyalties really lie (which I doubt), good for him, but this does not make him morally superior to a "parochial" person who thinks of himself primarily as citizen of a town or member of a family.

    (Actually, I think it makes Mr. Groundwater morally inferior, since what he says is brimming with self-satisfaction, and yet entangles Mr. Groundwater in no real moral obligations or commitments.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QumGaL8pS2U Somewhat off-topic.. "Muslim Area" in the UK

    ReplyDelete
  5. That's what I question about these types who are far-left, strongly anti-nationalist, and so on...

    If they want no borders and no nations, does that mean they are opposed, really, to geography? Even if all nations were to be abandoned tomorrow as political entities, populated geographical settlements such as cities, towns, villages and so on would still exist. And each of these settlements will be unique to some degree.

    Your observation that the logical end point of (left) liberalism is to make any identity that is larger than the individual (personal) unit not matter, suggests something further: that social, sexual, racial and/or reproductive imperatives (from our point of view) would also not matter under left liberalism, or even be seen as active impediments to social progress.

    Left-wing atomised individualism, and the anti-family, anti-marriage culture it promotes, is good for feminists, Marxists, and the like because it means that women can keep (repulsive) white heterosexual males at a distance.

    Fundamentally, individualism is highly overrated anyway. Individuals, ultimately, are only examples of people, the byproduct of social and cultural influence. For example, if you find yourself becoming friendless at some point in your life, then you can just make new friends, and in many cases, you won't miss a lot of your old friends that much because they were just a bunch of people that you talked to but you didn't really have that much in common with.

    The idea of the "global citizen" is parochial in itself - it's mostly white, university-educated left-wingers who believe in that kind of thing - most of the world doesn't believe in it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ben Groundwater: "We could ditch the parochialism and the patriotism and just treat other human beings as other human beings."

    But how would they treat us?

    It's an important question, because like everyone else who subscribes to the left-liberal analysis of the national question Ben Groundwater is demanding that the majority population (in any country where the historical majority is white) should give up its identity and power. Then how will be treated?

    The answer is that we are already being genocided (through mass immigration, forced integration and assimilation, and an anti-white elite consensus that expresses itself in culture and legislation), and giving up identity and power won't make that better it will make it very much worse.

    Consider the "farmer murders" in South Africa, where the head of the government has sung along with "Shoot the Boer", or the prospects of the whites remaining in Zimbabwe, or the white genocide in Haiti.

    Or merely consider "Beat Whitey Night." It's a joke that in America, if you are white and the street you are on is named after Martin Luther King, you're well advised to start running. In other words, you are in enemy territory.

    That is what giving up our identity and power means for whites. It means that our territory becomes enemy territory, where we are not welcome or safe. It means that other identities, such as Black identities defined in anti-white ways, dominate. It means that we have no future. We'll be eliminated. But first we'll be humiliated, subordinated and exploited. We'll dig our own graves, or else.

    ReplyDelete
  7. How is it that left liberals can miss the obvious, inevitable and from time to time demonstrated consequences of whites giving up their identities (even weak, thin, "civic nationalist" identities) and giving up power?

    A lot of them are so anti-white that they are for white genocide. If you object to it, they'll start justifying it, with the leftist line that basically boils down to: "white (Christian) man, you've got it coming".

    But they also miss the point in the same way that Freudians missed the point about psychological development after the age and level of maturity where, according to Freud's theories, it ought to have stopped. For the true believer, what is outside the bounds of theory is as good as invisible.

    This goes double for true believers who have absorbed the theory as an unquestioned consensus reality, with no process of study, making implications and assumptions explicit, and questioning them.

    It goes quadruple for those who also accept taboos on "evil thoughts," which the left always tries to impose, and at university pretty well does impose.

    According to the left-liberal take on race, which is also its take on the national question in general, oppression comes from designated oppressors. (That is, whites, and males, Christians, nationalists of the wrong nations and so on.)

    It has to, because of the emptiness of the concept of "oppression". That means "boo!" It doesn't even have a wrong analysis behind it, like Marx's theory of "exploitation" underpinned by his labor theory of value.

    Because of that, it doesn't "naturally" arise. It arises like an evil miasma from stigmatized groups. (Such as males, for feminists like Shulamith Firestone.) It is the stench of "the oppressor" that makes acts "oppressive"; otherwise they are just acts of power, such as "liberating, socialist" forces might resort to from time to time. (Like, whenever they get into power.)

    All groups tearing down the inherently-oppressive white Christian make are liberating, not oppressive. (Hey, if Muslin jihadists can get a pass, anyone can.) Therefore, when whites have given up identity and power, and can do nothing any more, even effectively to defend themselves,there is, in the left-liberal analysis, no "oppressive" agent, and therefore nothing oppressive (read "bad") is supposed to happen.

    For the mental-taboo-respecting, leftist-consensus-reality-believing person of good opinions, the question does not occur: "after whites (and the majority populations in all and only white majority countries) give up their identities (suffering a lot of distress and confusion in the process), and after they give up power (which necessarily follows, as isolated and confused individuals cannot exercise collective power), might they then not be treated badly? Isn't this something one should think about before giving up power, and before endorsing cultural changes that would make loss of power inevitable?

    ReplyDelete
  8. The idea of the "global citizen" is parochial in itself - it's mostly white, university-educated left-wingers who believe in that kind of thing - most of the world doesn't believe in it.
    -
    Correct.

    Neither did a lot of the people who originally came up with this mental poison. They subjected the white Christian male to intentionally destructive criticism. But themselves? No. Their identities, as feminist or whatever, were fine.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Whatever happened to the requirement that arguing a point must involve some arguments? Yet another opinion piece that involves nothing more than “here’s my ideology, and here are the obnoxious opponents of my ideology. Everybody who doesn’t support my ideology is exactly like this”. About the only thing that comes close to a logical argument is the idea that you shouldn’t celebrate your nationality unless you have a reason to, for example if your country is actually better than others.
    Everything traditional like patriotism and family; everything that comes naturally to humans has to be subject to ultra-rationalist logic. But when it comes to multiculturalism, globalism and everything unnatural, then it’s pure ideology – no logical examination required. The author eschews patriotism because he FEELS that it stands in the way of a globalist utopia, not because of any logical evidence.
    He also confuses blind, obnoxious nationalism with honest patriotism – and conveniently forgets the fact that multiculturalism is one of the biggest causes of obnoxious patriotism. You can’t marginalise the majority without expecting a reaction.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The word “liberal” in my opinion is dead in definition and distinction, because it has become increasingly elastic. Therefore we must abandon this broad brush and utilize a finer medium. Having said that, I believe Ben Groundwater specifically suffers from a disease called “Nirvana” or in other words “wishful thinking”. Like most fantasy books, the author is privileged to control or inhibit bad consequences; however in Ben Groundwater’s case, he unfortunately lives within reality and he is trying very hard to suspend his disbelief. The fairytale “Peter Pan” metaphorically sheds light on those who purposefully avoid shedding off their infantile mind by going through the rights of passage of adulthood. Ben Groundwater is just another Peter Pan that would like to fly, play and wishes the world was a fantasy! Only those who have gone through the rights of passage properly can understand why they call the fairytale Never- Never Land. After all, the word utopia literally means “no where land” or in other words Ben Groundwater wishful thinking does not exist. But Ben hates it when you say this, because don’t you see? Only adults are pirates! (Perceived as pirates through the eyes of a childish mind) And that is why only adults are afraid of the ticking clock….tick…tick….tick….the sound of death.

    ReplyDelete
  11. And one more thing…….who shopped off the hand of Captain Cook? Peter Pan did. That’s strange….. I remember hearing a saying once upon a time and it went something like this, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you boy”

    ReplyDelete
  12. I expanded my comment into a longer article here if anyone's interested: :D

    http://bit.ly/SaHB1N

    ReplyDelete
  13. "Forget zealously protecting your patch from "other" people trying to move in"

    Spoken like a European from the European colonial period.

    Liberal Terra Nullius. The lands of Europeans belong to no one. The lands of the Europeans belong to everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  14. First anon again the comments section on that article had a liberal discussing how people who identify themselves with their nationality are unworldly.
    Really anyone that has traveled the world will tell you how dangerous it is to not identify yourself.
    If you are not open with who you are you are a rogue.
    "An unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal. "
    Sounds like Liberals.

    The word “liberal” in my opinion is dead in definition and distinction, because it has become increasingly elastic. Therefore we must abandon this broad brush and utilize a finer medium

    I beg to differ it encompasses all radical leftist/feminist/socialist/communist and progressive people.

    It is perfect. Liberals have long cheekily taken advantage of the golden rule of Liberals "Thou shalt not name us (liberals)"
    It could just be a vain reflex of theirs that they don't want to be typecast as a socialist or a communist but it seems to fit in with other groups that get incredibly angry when they are identified by name. Obviously because any negative actions or comments they commit can then be associated with their entire group making them look bad.

    ReplyDelete
  15. "Liberal Terra Nullius. The lands of Europeans belong to no one. The lands of the Europeans belong to everyone."
    -
    That's what it is.

    And in the long run, "everyone" means "except whites," or a little more euphemistically "except the majority population in every country where the whites are the majority". Because, first, they're the only ones that can't claim territory and defend it; everyone else can and will. And second, with continuing mass immigration and forced integration and assimilation (only for the whites, as the others are free to play "us vs. them" ethnic games) whites will be gone.

    ReplyDelete
  16. The main point though is one that Mark made already and I can't improve on. "Civic nationalism," that is the race-and-ethnicity-blind patriotism of everyone who happens to have been born in a certain territory, or everyone who has come to be standing in a certain territory, fails.

    The same political correctness which disparages one will eventually disparage the other, and civic nationalism can't make much of a defense of itself. It's "thin" and unsatisfying, and doesn't have much reason to exist except as a rhetorical club with which to beat white forms of ethnic nationalism.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I can't understand how anyone can support raceless or anti-white ideology that is they themselves white and still claim to be rational and intelligent.

    Every time you get up in the morning and look in the mirror you see yourself and your ethny. Attacking your ethnicity is attacking yourself. It is the same as cutting yourself. Just with long term repercussions (and even short term repercussions if you are unlucky)

    Why do some people lack the foresight to understand this is stupid? Is that what makes a liberal a liberal.

    Blacks certainly understand an attack on their race is an attack on themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  18. What I found vexing about this article is unfortunately all too symptomatic of the 'One law for us, and another law for them' mentality of liberalism today.

    The author of the article would be fired if has was aiming these sentiments at certain groups instead of whites. The picture accompanying the article was of course 'bogan, true-blue, white aussies'. Imagine this article, accompanied by pictures of indigenous Australians! My god it would create a media storm for a week (no doubt until Lance Armstrong or some other cretinous issue commandeered that ship HMAS 'what the public wants').

    These anti-nationalist, anti-identity sentiments certainly wouldn't be directed at jewish people either. Or any other 'designed' minority group.

    So while identity politics is being rolled back in much of the world in favour of individualism, as you suggest Mark, this is not true in all cases. Certain groups are encouraged to engage in 'essentialism politics', and some are not.

    ReplyDelete
  19. "I can't understand how anyone can support raceless or anti-white ideology [if] they themselves [are] white and still claim to be rational and intelligent."

    "Every time you get up in the morning and look in the mirror you see yourself and your ethny. Attacking your ethnicity is attacking yourself."

    ...

    Very well observed. There's a guy I know whose political views lean far left. He is a white male, and he said things like:

    "White males are a tiny minority of the global population, they are a group that has treated others badly in the past, and it's good that white males have less power in society, [white males] attempting to cling to power is more likely to encourage revolution than giving it away voluntarily"...

    I don't know about what you think of this, but what he was saying was actually made me quite angry.

    The hard-left is so intent on its own ethnic and cultural suicide, that it wishes to drag others down with it against their will. This being taken into account, it's not hard to see why a man might some day choose to send a bunch of Cultural Marxists to their graves...

    Also, it really bothers me deeply that non-white men are allowed to date white women. I don't give a damn how much this view offends people.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Attacking your ethnicity is indeed attacking yourself. Your ethny is actually like a large extended family.

    But I can't help but feel, to be honest, that the grass really is greener on the other side, for many of the other people in our countries. Like, to be a white heterosexual male is actually a misfortune.

    I don't like myself. Why should I like myself when I have been born into a dying race? And when there's nothing I can do about it?

    Why should I like myself when many thousands of women of my race have chosen to reject men of their own race, and have chosen non-white men instead? Do you know what this does to my self-esteem? Tears it apart, sends it to hell and back a million times.

    I don't want to be part of a race that is inherently vulnerable and weak. I don't want to be a white male, when white females are the biggest sluts and whores on planet earth, and will mostly spread their legs for the first black man that comes along, and yet will deny me a sex life.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I can't understand how anyone can support raceless or anti-white ideology that is they themselves white and still claim to be rational and intelligent.

    It is rational from a class warfare perspective. It is elite whites attacking lower-class whites and enlisting non-whites for the attack. The very first words out of his mouth are a sneer at lower-class whites ("Southern Cross-tattooed proud Aussies I'm talking about, the VB drinkers watching footy in the bars of Kuta").

    Elite whites think they are going to be like the white overclass in Latin America lording it over the mestizos. They may be right, but they are certainly overlooking the fact that the non-whites, whom they view as compliant tools, will assert their own agenda as their numbers grow.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Where do you come from? It shouldn't matter.

    Another Leftist flunks the "is / ought" problem...

    Shouldn't Matter =/= Does Matter

    ReplyDelete
  23. JP: Elite whites think they are going to be like the white overclass in Latin America lording it over the mestizos.
    -
    They seem to assume that, but it's an asinine view considering that the anti-white white cognitive elite is already being out-competed by Asians.

    The rival Asian elite is better at the test-passing and apple-polishing that makes for success in a bureaucracy, certainly from a cultural point of view, and according to the evidence from mental testing, from the point of view of evolved capabilities also.

    And, ethocentricity and high trust within-group cooperation (that also freezes out ethnic rivals) are powerful advantages. That is how market-dominant minorities work. Of course the anti-white elite whites fail that contest as badly as possible, freezing out those of their own race and culture and readily supporting the rise of ethnic rivals who will not reciprocate that foolish, collectively self-harming behavior.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous said...1

    The word “liberal” in my opinion is dead in definition and distinction, because it has become increasingly elastic. Therefore we must abandon this broad brush and utilize a finer medium

    Anonymous said...2

    "I beg to differ it encompasses all radical leftist/feminist/socialist/communist and progressive people."

    Anonymous said...1

    You beg to differ, but yet in the same breath you strengthen my opinion? “It encompasses all radical leftist/feminist/socialist/communist and progressive people." Seems like a “perfect” broad brush to me? Groundwater would be proud of your statement, because this avowal comes closer to an undifferentiating proposal. Having said that, I am not suggesting that your definition is not valid, it just lacks clarity and distinction. For example, not ALL women chose feministic ideologies for the same reasons. I don’t think I need to exemplify my idea any further than this, because in the end we are only arguing semantics and I believe you and I share the same convictions.

    ReplyDelete
  25. The globalists are quick to appeal to patriotism when they see taxpayer revenue slipping out of their greedy little hands.

    Just ask Gerard Depardieu.

    It's funny they don't seem to realize that nobody wants to pay taxes to a country that the globalists say doesn't exists.

    And nobody wants to send their son(s) to die for that non-existent country either.

    The Frenchmen who are in Mali risking their lives for a nation that the globalists say doesn't even exist are indeed very tragic cases.

    ReplyDelete
  26. @anon 4:38:00

    You sound like a liberal to me. Only a Liberal loses his mind over the tag Liberal.

    They need a tag so they can be identified and discussion can be simple.

    Not having to spend a few pages distinguishing between several radical schools of thought that essentially are the same people.

    Why the hell should we play the liberal game?

    For that reason you sound like a Liberal and yes I beg to differ...

    ReplyDelete
  27. The idea that if someone uses the word Liberal they are a nosepicking right wing bogan is the same thinking as Groundwater.

    So anon@ 4:33 you actually sound like Ben Groundwater. Are you Ben Groundwater?

    There is no issue using the world liberal as a broad term for a bunch of radical ideologies. Nothing stopping anyone from then discussing the individual subsets in detail under the broad term of "Liberal".

    If you are not a Ben Groundwater. Then you have bought into the idea the Liberal opinion that referring to them by name is uncouth.

    I mean since everything has been liberalised. Everyone must be a liberal only "racist" (broad term), "conservatives" (broad term) would deny Liberalism.
    Since this is the case there is no need for the word Liberal right? Because Liberal refers to the majority of normal minded people.

    Is this your logic?

    ReplyDelete
  28. Mark the anon @12:34 is the perverted troll.
    Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is insanity. Mr Troll.



    ReplyDelete
  29. Liberalism like that professed by Ben Groundwater is nothing more than fanciful idealism because it denies human nature and millions of years of evolution. People will never "stop taking pride in little slices of the globe" and opt to become "citizens of the world" unless we modify the human genome.

    ReplyDelete