On the surface, civic nationalism may seem right-wing. In reality, Civic Nationalism—the belief that a nation is not a people but a set of values—is hostile to the very essence of nationalism.
Civic Nationalism is not Nationalism, it is classical Liberalism...
Globalism is the radical left-wing of Liberalism while civic nationalism is the conservative “right-wing” of Liberalism. Both ideologies are grounded in the liberal myth of the tabula rasa, where mankind is no more than individual blank slates...
...Not only does civic nationalism deny the reality of race, it fails under its own premise. What are these “shared values” that unite us—Liberty, Equality, the Rule of Law? Does anyone believe this? Liberty and Equality are contradictory principles, often diametrically opposed. A nation defined by conflicting values is absurd.
The writer goes on to make an important point, namely, that the values that are coming to define the civic creed in America increasingly involve an anti-white animus. This is still contested, I think. There are still right-liberals who cling to the "we should be colour-blind and only see individuals." But over time a culture is taking hold in which embracing equality means accepting the idea of white privilege, diversity and open borders. Which means that if you are a white American, then the cost of seeing nationalism in civic terms is a high one. If you want to be "American" in terms of values, you will increasingly be expected to enthusiastically accept the role of "guilty transgressor of equality" whose only path to redemption is to respectfully listen to others who blame you for their ills, to meekly accept their demands and to positively accept your own displacement within the mainstream culture.
There is a video doing the rounds of an American mayor, distraught because one of her fellow councillors refuses to accept the white privilege mentality:
The article goes on to make some good points on another theme, namely the vast reach of the civic creed:
The great irony of liberalism is that it functions illiberally, unable to tolerate the ideological other. It is religious in nature, the proposition nation operates like a theocracy. The foundational values that form the basis of the civic nation become the “civic religion.”
In America, this civic religion has replaced Christianity.
For America, this is not new, but a progression of a civic nationalist cancer that has long been eating away at them.
ReplyDeleteFor America, this is not new, but a progression of a civic nationalist cancer that has long been eating away at them.
DeleteThe United States was a bad idea right from the start. It was founded on the ideals of the Enlightenment, ideals which were both foolish and evil.
Had they won their independence half a century earlier they would probably have established a perfectly sensible monarchy.
dfordoom, you are tough on America. Of course, I agree that the idea of a creedal nation is false (a good article linked to by SAK). But on the ground Americans would have operated as a real nation nonetheless for many generations. There was a de facto nation in existence, was there not? And even though the Australian founding was more promising it still collapsed under the weight of liberal modernity - so we did not prove stronger.
DeleteThe United States has not been a nation for decades. It's a country, with fake open borders, millions of dissident aliens, no sense of direction or destiny, and nothing fundamentally more than an economic entity. There is no such thing as an "American" like shared context.
DeleteMark said; "..., you are tough on America". "America" is dead. Dfordoom can't hurt it or offend it. The former "America" was once a nation, in the common sense of what most understood a nation to be. Americans created the United States of America. The United States proceeded rapidly to devour America. Depending on context, I refer to this country as the United States. I refer to post America as "America", and to the historical American nation, long dead.
dfordoom is simply beating on a dead America, which, like a dead horse, can't feel a thing. I don't think it was a bad idea. It was lots of great ideas. It was simply humanly impossible to manifest. Lack of human virtue, and all. Like is said, it seemed to be the best of the worst at the time, and certainly worth giving a shot. Establishing another monarchy would have been impossible and nuts to try.
Civic Nationalism in action. Already A Stranger In Your Own Country:
ReplyDeletehttps://i.imgur.com/x5EtGPJ.jpg
Civic nationalism: holding your nation together economically just long enough to achieve White Genocide and hand it to brown people
Nations are people. Nations are genetic.
Nations are neither propositions nor geography nor political constructs.
I think a healthy society needs a mix of civic and ethnic nationalism, just as it needs a mix of conservative and liberal principles. There is an Aristotlean golden mean here as in many things. In Anglo-Celtic societies I think the best balance is more towards the civic & liberal side than in most other cultures, but entirely discarding ethnic & conservative interests does terrible harm - as we are seeing.
ReplyDeleteNationalism itself is a modernist innovation, blurring the distinction between kingdom (the territory subject to a single ruler) and nation (an ethnic group with a shared history, language, and culture). There is no need for a country to have a single dominant ethnicity, any more than there is a need for different ethnicities to be dissolved in the acid bath of liberalism. There simply needs to be a single ruler as the principle of civic unity, the man to whom all citizens swear allegiance. If that is given, the various ethnicities can exist together peacefully, insofar as that's possible for human beings, mingling or not mingling according to circumstance.
ReplyDeleteNationalism itself is a modernist innovation, blurring the distinction between kingdom (the territory subject to a single ruler) and nation (an ethnic group with a shared history, language, and culture).
DeleteYes, I think there's some truth in that.
There simply needs to be a single ruler as the principle of civic unity, the man to whom all citizens swear allegiance.
That worked well in medieval times but it has to be remembered that government was a lot less intrusive then. As long as you didn't openly rebel and you paid your taxes the king didn't care very much what you did.
It's not that such societies were libertarian. They weren't, but the source of authority wasn't necessarily the central government. The Church was a major source of authority. Other sources of authority were local. And of course the head of a family had a great deal of authority.
Nationalism itself is a modernist innovation, blurring the distinction between kingdom (the territory subject to a single ruler) and nation (an ethnic group with a shared history, language, and culture).
DeleteNationalism in practice too often has meant that one ethnic group dominates while others are crushed. In just about every modern European nation state you'll find minority ethnicities and cultural groups whose cultures have been destroyed as a result. These aren't immigrant groups, but people who have always lived there who suddenly are unlucky enough to find themselves incorporated into a larger nation state.
We usually get the stories of nation states from the point of view of the dominant group. We might for example be less enthusiastic about British nationalism if we got the story from the point of view of the Cornish.
"I think a healthy society needs a mix of civic and ethnic nationalism, just as it needs a mix of conservative and liberal principles"
ReplyDeleteThis is an impossibility over the long term as human life depends upon absolutes in order to sustain physical existence. One can inhale or exhale, flex a muscle or extend it but one cannot do both actions simultaneously. Similarly one can have freedom or civilisation and traditionalism or liberalism. Just as the human body cannot perform opposing actions simultaneously, society cannot sustain conflicting polarised ideologies. Where liberalism is introduced into a traditional society, liberalism will either predominate and destroy traditionalism or liberalism itself will be rejected. In the Anglo societies, traditionalism has been destroyed by liberalism which has dominated and eradicated its rival.
Therefore one can have ethnic nationalism and traditionalism or liberalism which is what civic nationalism is in reality.
This entry is riddled with cognitive dissonances.
ReplyDeleteThe AltRight writer begins with one dissonant cognition after another.
Mark naturally and sensibly substitutes "civic creed" for the oxymoronic "civic nationalism".
Words have meanings. If trads, in particular, are going to discuss the concepts that they find most abhorrent, then consistent, precise definitions and identifications of terms is mandatory. Using terms like "civic nationalism", "gay", "transgender male/female", while at the same time making the case that these so-named fictions, though they exist linguistically - as do all known fictions - don't actually exist. Because they are not real this seems unnecessarily convoluted. It would be like have a serious public policy discussion about the pros and cons of tax payer funding, versus private money in a "national" effort to save the endangered unicorn.
I'm probably irritating, but; this is no different than referring to a mentally disordered female as a "transgender male", or referring to homosexual sex as "gay" sex, or to "gay" as a lifestyle, or to same-sex unions as "marriage" every time some new twist or turn makes the news, or identifying a human as being of a "gender". Unless, of course, under the threat of force by our own governments.
Analyzing someone's redefinition and miss use of a simple concept like "nation", as if it is actually a nation being described; a new kind of nation, a newly evolved and fully formed new species of nation; but with a completely different definition and completely different characteristics and elements, even a different blood type and DNA , that demands a new classification on the "nation" tree - notwithstanding a long-held historical, traditional common sense definition - seems, like with the other terms, to be a joining with, rather than a separation from, the very ideas that we find repugnant to what we want.
Again. Mark's "civic creed" makes good sense. "Civic nationalism" makes no sense.
A nation is a nation, or it's not a nation.
At some point, if this kind of word inflation or depreciation keeps on, no one will be able to understand what anyone else is saying. We'll all be talking in circles and chasing our own tails, just like this AltRight writer.