
Notes on Nationalism (1945) - brandonhall
http://orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/english/e_nat
======
eklavya
Boy oh boy if only I could make more people read this. So many people in India
just conflate patriotism with nationalism and it has become a fashion to brand
any patriotic talk as "nationalistic". And they assume they are right because
they think great people of past agree.

~~~
mistermann
> it has become a fashion to brand any patriotic talk as "nationalistic"

Considering modern usage of the word, I can't tell what you mean by this. I've
explained why here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17059121](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17059121)

EDIT: Aaaaand, immediately downvoted with no reply. I rest my case. :)

~~~
Zuider
I didn't downvote, but it may be more inspired by your style of presentation
than your opinion. It is hard to make out what you are saying because your
writing looks more like lecture notes or a shorthand of your private thinking
process than a means of communicating to others. Please understand that I
don't mean to be snarky, and I would be the first to acknowledge that writing
clearly is difficult.

~~~
mistermann
I'm genuinely confused how writing in a transparent manner, being detailed,
providing links to claims, etc can be considered hard to understand. And as
usual, I am always happy to answer any question asked of me in an honest
manner, so feel free.

I had a more substantial reply, but since my sincere and valid question was
enthusiastically and immediately downvoted requiring me to keep the tab open
until my censorship is lifted, I accidentally closed the tab. To me, the anti-
intellectual groupthink overtaking online sites is rather alarming, especially
considering how they are now where the vast majority of news (and accompanying
discussion) is hosted and due to private ownership, no freedom of speech is
required. And even if it was, a deliberate "misrepresentation" of someone's
words can turn a controversial-at-best comment into a claimed (see this
subthread) racial slur or threat of violence.

------
JohnStrangeII
Both nationalism nor patriotism barely make sense any more. Time are changing.
When Orwell wrote this piece he was influenced by the war, extreme situations
like wars or famines always cloud your judgements.

I recommend reading the seemingly unrelated _The Knowledge_ by Lewis Dartnell.
It describes the skills that would be necessary to rebuild civilisation after
a hypothetical global cataclysm. Why is it relevant? If you read it, you will
realize that all of civilization is fundamentally based on global markets and
the global shipping of crude oil and other resources. Without these, nearly
all technologies of daily life would break down in a very short time frame,
including agriculture and medicine. The connections and dependences between
countries are massive and completely unavoidable at our current level of
technological development. In the long run, all countries have to work
together or modern society will fail. (It may also fail because the resources
dwindle extremely fast, viewed at an evolutionary time scale. Expanding
mankind into space is unavoidable, or at least robot mining will be needed.)

Add to this the fact that we can communicate in real-time with the whole world
and get news about distant events and politics within minutes, and patriotism
starts to appear in a completely different light - as a silly appeal to
traditions with no substance. Bear in mind that nations are entirely
artificial entities and territorial conflicts have become (almost) impossible
due to the global trade dependences.

This doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with mild forms of patriotism,
of course, just that there are no particular advantages to it in the long run.

In a nutshell, we live in an essentially transnational society and this cannot
change unless you're willing to give up almost all of modern technology.

~~~
thankthunk
> Both nationalism nor patriotism barely make sense any more. Time are
> changing.

People said the same thing in the late and early 20th century before ww1 and
ww2. They were wrong.

> If you read it, you will realize that all of civilization is fundamentally
> based on global markets and the global shipping of crude oil and other
> resources.

Modern nations are dependent on oil for sure. That's what ww1 and ww2 was
fought over.

> In the long run, all countries have to work together or modern society will
> fail.

That's fundamentally not true. Certain nations, like the US, don't have to
work with anyone. We are one of the few nations who have enough resources (
including oil ) to keep our civilization running. If you expand the US to
include the anglo-nations ( Canada, Australia, etc ), then we are more than
able to keep our society running without the rest of the world.

> In a nutshell, we live in an essentially transnational society and this
> cannot change unless you're willing to give up almost all of modern
> technology.

What? Maybe if you are denmark or iceland, but that doesn't hold true for the
US.

Also, your entire argument is about international trade, not transnationalism.
You need nations to have international trade.

And as I said, your argument isn't new. It's been long debunked. The same
argument was made in the midst of pax britannica before ww1 and ww2. People
argued that nations were too dependent on each other for wars to break out.
Hell, people argued that germany would never attack the soviet union since
most of germany's oil/resources came from the soviet union.

The current international system will continue as long as nations deem it
beneficial to themselves. If it ceases to be, then it will end.

There is nothing inherently good or bad about any system. And I highly doubt
china, russia and much of the world will adhere to the US/European led
international system for much longer.

Pax americana will come to an end like all "pax" in the past. Instead of
clinging to silly utopian transnationalism, we should be preparing ourselves
for a multipolar nationalistic world.

The post ww2 era is an anomaly in human history where one nation ruled the
world. The only comparable situation in human history was the mongol empire
where mongol's established direct or indirect control over pretty much all of
eurasia. That system crumbled also.

~~~
mistermann
Very well said. Along the same line of thinking, I'd like to point out a few
things from the article that were a bit of a revelation for me:

"As the nearest existing equivalent I have chosen the word ‘nationalism’, but
it will be seen in a moment that I am not using it in quite the ordinary
sense, if only because the emotion I am speaking about does not always attach
itself to what is called a nation — that is, a _single race_ or a geographical
area."

"By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings
can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of
millions of people can be _confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’(1)_."

"But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of
identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, _placing it beyond
good and evil_ and _recognising no other duty than that of advancing its
interests_."

"Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally.
_Nationalism_ , on the other hand, is _inseparable from the desire for power_.
The abiding purpose of every nationalist is _to secure more power and more
prestige_ , not for himself but for the nation or other unit _in which he has
chosen to sink his own individuality_."

Now, maybe this is somewhat skewed by when it was written, but based on my
interpretation of modern people's usage of the word nationalism, it seems
completely consistent with current times.....so my question is basically: _why
is race (and force /violence) considered inseparable from nationalism_? Or
even more precisely, why is it seemingly only people who live in extremely
ethnically diverse societies who think this way (go watch some "man on the
street" interview videos on YouTube and you'll see that Modern Western
Progressive values that only originated in the last 20 years aren't shared
universally across the planet)?

Let's check the dictionary:

Nationalism:

1\. spirit or _aspirations_ common to the whole of a nation.

2\. devotion and loyalty to one's own country; patriotism.

3\. excessive patriotism; chauvinism.

4\. the desire for _national advancement_ or _political independence_.

5\. the policy or doctrine of _asserting the interests of one 's own nation
viewed as separate from the interests of other nations_ or the common
interests of all nations.

6\. an idiom or trait peculiar to a nation.

7\. a movement, as in the arts, based upon the folk idioms, history,
aspirations, etc., of a nation.

The only definition even remotely close to race/racism is #3, yet do a google
search for "nationalism" in the news and on forums (including this one, and in
this very thread) and I bet you'll discover that in the vast majority of cases
you'll find it being used in a way that's synonymous with racism.

I will often ask people I see doing this _why they do it_ , what their exact
meaning is, but no one will ever answer. In my opinion, these types of people
are, ironically, similarly as evil as racists, in that they hate a group of
people based on falsehoods or false stereotypes.

I'd love to know if anyone can think of a good explanation for this
phenomenon. And considering how widespread it is, "people are dumb, get over
it" seems like a completely disingenuous copout, equivalent to a racist-
apologist.

~~~
forapurpose
That's all academic. Current nationalists base their 'nation' on skin color
and religion: white and Christian (though the religious aspect is sometimes
less emphasized), like ISIS'/Daesh's nationalism based on Islam. You can read
people advocating it in HN, just like you can read many attempts to whitewash
it.

The endlessly repeated lesson of history is that if human rights are not
universal, if you accept the nationalist argument that 'people on my side have
rights and those on the other don't', then it ends up justifying denying
rights to any person or group, and the brutality that follows. That's why the
foundation of the United States is universal human rights, 'all men are
created equal and endowed ... with inalienable rights'. We've had enough
slavery, segregation, Holocausts, Tutsi massacres, Milosovic's, ISIS's,
oppression of women, Nazis, etc, etc. to know how it turns out; we don't need
to try again and hope it's different this time.

In contrast, universal human rights as the basis of the post-WWII order has
provided the greatest expansion of freedom and prosperity in human history,
with no comparison. Why would anyone want to give that up? Why are we looking
for ways to divide people and to justify and whitewash hate?

What is the basis of nationalism? That a human being's rights and my regard
from them depend on an imaginary line on the earth? One step this way, I love
them; one step the other way, I oppose them? It's absurd.

Finally, nationalism is an obsession of a small group imposed on others. The
nationalists say all white Christian people are part of their nation, but a
most of those people don't see it that way. Certain nationalists claim me as
part of their 'nation', but I abhor and oppose them and certainly am not a
member. Nationalists are a small group of people who, just like the tyrants
and evil people before them, simply try to impose their will on others. I
believe the others should live free.

~~~
mantas
> That's all academic. Current nationalists base their 'nation' on skin color
> and religion: white and Christian (though the religious aspect is sometimes
> less emphasized), like ISIS'/Daesh's nationalism based on Islam. You can
> read people advocating it in HN, just like you can read many attempts to
> whitewash it.

That's somewhat true only in a very narrow world of USA and ISIS. In most of
the world, nationalism is based on very different terms.

> One step this way, I love them; one step the other way, I oppose them? It's
> absurd.

Nah. Nationalism doesn't mean opposing anybody. It's belonging to community
and working for it's greater good.

> Finally, nationalism is an obsession of a small group imposed on others.

Most people don't care about any political, societal or any other
philosophical discourses. They just follow few people who are interested in
that kind of stuff. As far as I looked all revolutions were imposed by a small
group of concerned citizens on the rest of the community. I'm yet to find an
exception where majority people truly believed in the original idea from day
1. They just followed people who seemed worthy.

------
dalbasal
I always really admired Orwell's style as a political journalist and writer.
He writes clearly and gets to the point. He doesn't hide in flowery ambiguity,
like most journalists do when writing about "isms."

Here _specifically_ , I don't think he's clear and timeless.

This is an essay about British politics of the time, for the British.
Nationalism meant the bad guys from the war, which was just ending. Orwell is
warning against fanatical politics likes those of the 1930s. Besides the war,
the British Empire was ending. Orwell is warning the British about paranoid,
nationalist politics the loss of empire was stirring up.

He is being delicate with his labels to avoid just calling his readers
fanatics^. I think this leaves us with something less timeless.

Anyway.... First, he splits hairs to define nationalism separately from
patriotism, the safer & less violent flavour of nation-centric "ism". Then he
extends his definition of "nationalism" to include also... " _such movements
and tendencies as Communism, political Catholicism, Zionism, Antisemitism,
Trotskyism and Pacifism._ "

So, wtf _does_ Orwell mean when he says "nationalism". It's not like
patriotism, but is like Trotskyism? I think he just means fanatics.
Ideologists that care more about winning arguments and wars then morals &
greater goods supposedly furthered by ideologies.

That _is_ relevant today. I think this essay would have been gone on to the
top shelf of timeless political writing if Orwell had pretended to write for
the French about the British, instead of "anticipating the troll" and mincing
his words in response. Name the thing.

^Orwell's essay on Gandhi is written for Brits too. He doesn't hold back
pointing out the fanaticism of Gandhi. This makes his positive points about
Gandhi's nonviolent political methods clearer and more honest, having already
named the superstitious elements what they were.

~~~
scarygliders
> So, wtf does Orwell mean when he says "nationalism". It's not like
> patriotism, but is like Trotskyism? I think he just means fanatics.
> Ideologists that care more about winning arguments and wars then morals &
> greater goods supposedly furthered by ideologies.

Orwell defined what he was meaning exactly, in the second paragraph...

> By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way
> of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to
> force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both
> militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable
> from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to
> secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or
> other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.

The sentences I quoted above resonate with me today, here in Scotland,
pertaining to the Scottish National Party and especially with their rather
foaming-at-the-mouth Nationalism. To see their behaviour - despite the 2014
Independence referendum in which the people of Scotland voted against breaking
away from the United Kingdom - is to behold exactly the kind of irrational and
in my view outright dangerous form of nationalism Orwell is writing about.

I consider myself a Scottish _patriot_ , not a nationalist. I also consider
myself a British patriot, not a nationalist, and it is for those reasons that
I voted against Scotland becoming independent, breaking away from the UK, and
it is also the reason why in my opinion the quicker the SNP lose their
minority government in the Scottish parliament - they are being propped up by
a handful of Scottish Greens who themselves demonstrate a propensity towards
Communistic ideals hiding behind a thin veneer of "green" \- the better.

~~~
lukeschlather
The distinction doesn't work very well as phrased here. It's too easy to
convince oneself that _I_ am a patriot, and _they_ are nationalists. So it
ultimately just becomes another tribal marker.

~~~
boomboomsubban
The two things are separate even if nationalists try to use patriotism to
justify their beliefs.

~~~
mistermann
What would be an example of a nationalist belief that they would try to
classify as only patriotism?

~~~
dalbasal
Any one on that list he gave, zionism -> pick any flavour of modern israeli
politics. Celtic nationalsim -> pick any flavour of modern irish politics.
Neo-Tories.. same.

Most people self labeling as any of these would unanimously (if not alway
honestly) all self describe the belief as patriotic by exactly the definition
that Orwell gave. The other isms on his list aren't about nations. I guess
Trotskyists wouldn't necessarily call themselves patriots, but what does that
prove?

~~~
mistermann
> Any one on that list he gave, zionism -> pick any flavour of modern israeli
> politics

Just so I'm not misunderstanding you....so, any _thing_ (I'm looking for
examples of specific beliefs or policy goals that are motivated by Nationalism
but passed off as patriotism) any politician in Israel believes is
Nationalist, but presented(?) as patriotic? What does this look like in
action?

Or have I misunderstood?

~~~
boomboomsubban
Their quote was rather hyperbolic, but much of Israel's foreign affairs policy
is aggressively nationalistic. I could give examples of their nationalism in
action, but as an outsider I'd rather not assume I know what they consider
patriotic. I'll pick an example from the USA instead.

The US phenomenon around "support our troops" is presented as a patriotic
appreciation for true Americans making hard sacrifices. The best way to
support our troops would be keeping them home, which would also be the best
thing to do by Orwell's definition of patriotism. The slogan has been used as
a way to demonize those opposed to US foreign policy, and as a form of
propaganda to show young people how much their community will love them if
they enlist, nationalist ambitions.

~~~
mistermann
Israel is well beyond Nationalist if you ask me. But I'm trying to get some
detail on this seemingly well known phenomenon of Nationalist actions being
presented as patriotic. Maybe I'm wrong but it's starting to seem like some of
these assertions are opinions based on some sort of social signalling rather
than facts.

~~~
boomboomsubban
Orwell's definition of patriotism is fairly specific, and he mentions how hard
it is to understand what anyone means when they say "patriotism" or
"nationalism." Because of that, most things called patriotism barely try to
fit Orwell's definition, but I can try again...

The Bush rhetoric about the necessity of the war on terror was presented in a
very patriotic light by Orwell's definition. They brought up a seemingly
constant risk to all American homes, and the often repeated line about the
"terrorists hate our freedom" seemed to threaten and belittle the cultural
values core to American patriotism. An appeal to patriotic feelings to justify
nationalist actions.

If that doesn't work for you, I don't know what will. I'd guess you're using
different definitions of the terms, as even my most cynical views on Israel
would be nationalist.

~~~
mistermann
> An appeal to patriotic feelings to justify nationalist actions.

Attacking foreign countries who are not a threat is Nationalism? Is there any
even remotely authoritative source that would agree with this?

Maybe I haven't been clear, but this magical redefining of words is part of
the issue I'm having. If I was to say Liberalism (just for example) was
synonymous with <some repugnant crime>, people would give me a "HN timeout"
within 5 minutes, but it seems like you can throw whatever you want under the
Nationalism banter and it's all good. Does anyone have any integrity anymore,
or is it fake news all the way down?

> I'd guess you're using different definitions of the terms

It seems I am, the ones found in the dictionary for decades. But this seems to
conflict with some other definition that everyone else seems to know, but
won't say out loud. It's a rather interesting phenomenon to observe from
someone on the outside.

~~~
boomboomsubban
This discussion is in a topic about Orwell's "Notes on Nationalism." The first
several paragraphs are spent defining what he is calling "nationalism." I had
figured you had read it, or one of the various comments summing it up, or even
questioned why I repeatedly mention "Orwell's definition of patriotism."

~~~
mistermann
Aaaaah.....well then, that would very well explain my confusion, pardon me for
the confusion.

------
coldtea
> _Chesterton was a writer of considerable talent who whose to suppress both
> his sensibilities and his intellectual honesty in the cause of Roman
> Catholic propaganda. During the last twenty years or so of his life, his
> entire output was in reality an endless repetition of the same thing, under
> its laboured cleverness as simple and boring as ‘Great is Diana of the
> Ephesians.’ Every book that he wrote, every scrap of dialogue, had to
> demonstrate beyond the possibility of mistake the superiority of the
> Catholic over the Protestant or the pagan._

And here Orwell is being "nationalistic" (in his sense of the word) over his
preferred ideas, doing what he accused others of: "there is always a
temptation to claim that any book whose tendency one disagrees with must be a
bad book from a literary point of view. People of strongly nationalistic
outlook often perform this sleight of hand without being conscious of
dishonesty."

------
candu
This reminds me of Hoffer's _The True Believer_ \- he makes similar
observations about how fanatics of different / opposing stripes are much more
similar to each other than to non-fanatics, and how fanaticism is often
transferable to a different object (nation, ideology, religion, etc.) for this
reason.

------
coldtea
A better name for what Orwell calls "nationalism" here would be
"partisanship".

~~~
jqgatsby
The term that popped into my head was "tribalism", which seems related to but
distinct from partisanship.

------
Jedi72
"Among the intelligentsia, it hardly needs saying that the dominant form of
nationalism is Communism — using this word in a very loose sense, to include
not merely Communist Party members, but ‘fellow travellers’ and russophiles
generally. A Communist, for my purpose here, is one who looks upon the
U.S.S.R. as his Fatherland and feels it his duty t justify Russian policy and
advance Russian interests at all costs. Obviously such people abound in
England today, and their direct and indirect influence is very great."

I find this somehow hard to believe. I can buy that the British intelligensia
was probably full of people who thought communism was a good philosophy. But
outright supporting Russia as their homeland? That doesnt make sense, unless
there was some huge ex-patriation of Russian intelligensia types to other
countries?

~~~
dalbasal
Orwell is being obtuse when he says "nationalism."

What he meant is some flavour of what we'd call "ideologist" today, whether or
not the ideology has much to do with nations or nation states. Communism was a
major political movement all over europe (and the world) at the time. Most
labour movements considered themselves communists.

Anglo-American liberalism was the _biggest_ ideological faction, but Orwell
doesn't seem to count that as "Nationalism." After that, communism probably
_was_ the biggest faction in universities in 1945.

~~~
icebraining
But it's not just Communism, it's Russia itself. I see it even today among
some members of our national Communist Party (which was historically
Stalinist). They not only irrationally¹ defended the USSR, as they transferred
that to current Russia and Putin. It truly boggles the mind.

And they are not Russians, or particularly care about the land or the people,
it's a support of the Russian nation specifically.

¹ By irrationally, I mean what Orwell describes - defending actions they would
never defend in other countries and ignoring inconvenient facts

~~~
mantas
Those people just love to support enemy of their enemy. It's mind boggling how
many mental hoops they're willing to jump.

As eastern european, it was very sad to meet fellow europeans who didn't like
that my country got away from monstrosity that was USSR and couldn't care
about suffering of people as long as it helped to move forward their idolised
ideology. Meanwhile they pretended to be "progressive" and caring about
"common man" whatever that is...

~~~
icebraining
Well, in our case it's a bit more complicated, because here, the USSR was
actually helping the common man. We were living in a right-wing dictatorship
ourselves and the communist party, which was one of the most important groups
fighting against it (and whose members were tortured and sent to concentration
camps in Africa), got a lot of help from the USSR.

I was born after the transition, so it's easy for me to separate the issues
(and to understand that good deeds are not always done for good reasons), but
to the people who lived it, there is a real dissonance that is hard to deal
with.

~~~
mantas
Did communist party built at least single successful country in Africa?

It's like saying that Nazis helped a common man in Germany. And they did! Life
for a common German man definitely got better in mid-late 1930s. But at a
cost..

Regarding USSR, that help to far away countries was one of the reason why it
fell. Life in USSR was shitty (maybe not Africa-shitty, but still). And people
were unhappy that resources are sent away instead of improving their lives.
There were plenty of jokes that there's no food or merchandise since some
revolutioner dude in South America or Africa eats or wears them.

