Latent feelings of nationalism?

[Os Cangaceiros]

I don't know if the title is exactly what I mean, but I was thinking about this today. I was thinking that I'm not really "proud to be an American" or whatever, I think the USA kind of sucks actually, but at the same time, if an army invaded where I grew up, I'd probably be pretty upset...I don't know if angry enough to join an armed national liberation movement, haha, but pretty mad. And it's not so much that "America's being invaded!" that would make me so upset, I wouldn't get nearly as upset if someone invaded, say, Florida, but it's more that I have a real sentimental attachment to where I've lived my whole life.

I can honestly see the appeal of national liberation movements, and see why people participated in them despite risks that were often grave. Intellectually, I still think that they're not progressive in today's world, and perhaps were not that progressive even in their heyday, but I can still see the appeal. It's weird because I don't particularly think there's a ton of value culturally in how I grew up, but at the same time part of me kind of wants to preserve a lot of it just because of pure familiarity...and I guess even if you hate the culture you grew up in, you still probably embody some aspects of it, adopted some aspects of it's moral system etc.

Does that make any sense? :confused:

[homegrown terror]

it makes sense in that i can understand what you're saying, i just can't comprehend the idea of being proud or loyal to a piece of dirt one just happens to have been born on.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I wouldn't call it "pride", I'm not "proud" of accomplishments that weren't mine. It's more...affection, I guess? Affection through familiarity?

[homegrown terror]

i dunno, the whole term "affection through familiarity" just sounds like complacency, which is a scary concept to me.

[Lobotomy]

I only really feel that way about my immediate region. I like the culture of my city, and the area around it is beautiful. but I don't feel that sort of affection for my country or even for my state really. It's too big and diverse out there for me to have a real understanding or attachment beyond what concerns my everyday life.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Does that make any sense? :confused:

I can understand what you're on about - you've sort of managed to put into words my feelings about my own country. There are cultural artefacts and general attitudes that I appreciate, yet which are distinctly British/English in origin and which don't appear to have ready equivalents elsewhere.

Pride is a silly thing to hold over things like nationality (which nationality one has is a matter of chance and circumstance for the vast majority of people, rather than any conscious effort), but I think affection (borne of fond memories) and appreciation (I for one am glad I was born in the UK) are perfectly reasonable reactions.

Nationalism is short-sighted by simple virtue of the fact that it consists mainly of an argument over who should get the biggest slice of the pie, when in fact the better answer is to divide the pie equally while increasing the overall size of the pie!

[o well this is ok I guess]

The more familiar I get with the town the more I want to see it on fire. Er, that is to say that simply being "familiar" with the turf doesn't necessarily lead to attachment. Rather, I'd suppose that to be found more in the social life one inhabits in the particular city.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I went and visited the apartments I grew up in a year or two ago, everything about the place had changed, it was almost unrecognizable and I was sad about that. Even though it was a pretty crappy place to live and there being so many bad memories there that I try to hide deep in my brain that I don't want to revisit.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't know if this is exactly what you are talking about, but tons of people have "hometown" pride and often in the US it's one of the few ways class solidarity is expressed. People from bad neighborhoods or industrial and decaying cities often hold some kind of wierd solidarity (or I guess a shallow sort of solidarity - deflected class solidarity?) like this: North-side, South-Side, West-side, East-side, etc.

When people identify in this way it seems rather organic. Cities do use this sentiment for their own purposes but generally it seems like it's elietes promoting a version of these sentiments in the service of tourism PR or to attract investments for gentrification schemes. But the things workers have pride in usually isn't the "vibrent downtown gallery district or fancy resturants" that the gentrifiers tout - it's more local culture and often "undesireable" aspects of urban life that the city would rather repress or at least hide: Sideshows and Scrapers and rowdy football culture here in Oakland.

Anyway I think this sentiment comes from a "we're all in this together" sense that people living in disfunctional modern cities often display. I think this is much different than nationalism, although these sentiments can probably flow either way: more of a sense of local solidarity and shared working class experience or conversly feed into identification with local elietes like NYC pride after 9/11.

This question also brings to mind the Paris Commune. After the French government exposed itself as unwilling to carry out the one real supposed reason for supporting the government of France during the war (protection from a siege by Prussians) while the local elietes horded supplies and weapons, Parisians defended the city themselves. From accounts I've read there seems to be a great deal of "patriotism" involved in commune participants (not just the petty-bourgoise elements but also among militia members and workers), but it was patriotism detached from the government and the ruling class: it was a sort of patriotism attached to the Parisian's past tradditions of popular rebellion and defense of the city. I'm not saying it was particularly necissary or helpful and it may have led to problems down the line had the commune lasted longer, but it was what it was and I think it goes to show that some of these sentiments when not more connected to support for the elietes are not necissarily a barrier to people also acting out of class interests in crisis situations.

[Quail]

I like Derbyshire, where I grew up, and Sheffield, where I live now, because they're really nice places to live and be and I have friends and good memories in both places. I feel quite lucky to have been born in England because compared to a lot of other places, it's a pretty good place to live regarding things like healthcare, labour laws and just general quality of life. I don't think that can really be called "nationalism" on my part though. I'm not proud of the fact I happened to be born in the UK, or proud of achievements that aren't my own just because they were made by other British people.

[Crux]

I guess I am victim of some wellfarestate nostalgia which has some inherent nationalist trappings.
On the other hand I can sympathise with this song:
5yPBRGhWFA0
Anti-Deutsche are idiots but Nie wieder deutschland is a catchy slogan.

Also:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X6F4HnEqbd8/R0U7Q4eUjYI/AAAAAAAAARc/gsi9i0WMWWo/s400/de+geer+flagga
The text on the flag says: "COCK".
<3
The text above the flag reads: "Desecrate the flag, refuse arms [dodge the draft], betray your homeland, be unnational"

So I guess I'm a bit ambiguous.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

A nationalist that I know who I've picked on extensively for once shot at me the question "What would you do if our country was invaded by the Chinese!?"

My response? "Learn to speak Chinese".

In regards to 'my stretch of land is lovely/better'-ism, then no - It's fucking dumb. I've never had any attachment to the country in which I grew up, nor do I find that it has something particularly appealing (especially not the point of enclaving it in relation to the rest of the world).

If 'preserving' a stretch of earth via creating a regulated enclave on basis of ethnicity is appealing to you, then that's truly worrying. Maybe you should lay off the romanticism.

[Thirsty Crow]

A nationalist that I know who I've picked on extensively for once shot at me the question "What would you do if our country was invaded by the Chinese!?"

My response? "Learn to speak Chinese".I suppose your response would have been "revolutionary defeatism" if it wasn't a nationalist whom you've debated.


In regards to 'my stretch of land is lovely/better'-ism, then no - It's fucking dumb.
Os never actually made such an argument.

I think it is more connected to:


I don't know if this is exactly what you are talking about, but tons of people have "hometown" pride and often in the US it's one of the few ways class solidarity is expressed.


I only really feel that way about my immediate region. I like the culture of my city, and the area around it is beautiful.


So, I think this has much more in common with sentiments arising from childhood and the attachment to a specific locality. I can relate to that, though I'm perfectly aware of just how crappy is my hometown, but I wouldn't say I'm totally indifferent to that surroundings. And all of this is definitely not a nationalism of any kind.

[hatzel]

Let's all get real here for a second: allegiance adopted local (for want of a better word) forms long before nationalism emerged. In fact the various pan-nationalist movements stood in direct opposition to these sensibilities; they often sought to replace these loyalties to one's neighbours of whatever 'nationality,' 'ethnicity,' 'culture,' 'religion' or otherwise (and the accompanying connection to the immediate surroundings inhabited by these neighbours) with a loyalty to a very specifically defined national community, its delimited territory and (crucially) a modern political structure representing the aforementioned.

So basically what I'm saying is that the kinds of sentiments in the OP are wholly distinct from nationalism, which goes a little further than an appreciation for a particular area, culture or people. Soon we'll be calling medieval city-states or 8th century nomadic Berber clans 'nationalist entities' and looking utterly ridiculous in the process...

[Jimmie Higgins]

Let's all get real here for a secondGood post, though I don't think anyone was being unreal here.:)

Maybe folks were reading too much into these sorts of sentiments, but I think it's a totally honest question.

[Art Vandelay]

I grew up and have spent my entire life in the middle of hick infested prairies...facck no I don't have any attachment to it; although if grew up somewhere cool, I could maybe see what you're getting at. I know you come from Alaska, so this probably stems from the fact that you enjoy the land and way of life associated with your state; nothing wrong with that.

[hatzel]

I don't think anyone was being unreal here.:).

Generally I'm happy to agree, but (and not intending to pick on anybody) if the 'you' in...


If 'preserving' a stretch of earth via creating a regulated enclave on basis of ethnicity is appealing to you, then that's truly worrying. Maybe you should lay off the romanticism.

...is directed at the OP as some kind of accusation, then I can't help but feel we might be taking some pretty big steps away from realness*, because I can't personally see the bit where OC even hinted at ethnic cleansing, racial segregation or anything even vaguely approaching that. But maybe I'm not reading close enough :confused:

EDIT: *in fact I could even go so far as to claim that it is a capitulation to the logic of nationalism; instead of questioning ideological attempts to unite territory, ethnicity and politics into one indivisible (and distinctly nationalistic) trinity, such ideas are accepted as wholly 'natural,' thereby delegitimising possible non-nationalistic forms of kinship and their accompanying political manifestations.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Os - I understand what you mean. Where you grow up and have your formative experiences, where you made friends, where you first got pissed and first fell in love and got laid, where you first got high and all that sort of stuff - it does render a sentimental attachment and you sometimes feel an intrigue towards that.

Probably it's easy to confuse this with latent nationalism. It's not. It's just, you know, you grow up somewhere and there's an attachment to it, for better or worse.

Bruce Springsteen once drove from California to the house he grew up in in New Jersey in the middle of the night, not even cos he liked the place, but cos he couldnt' get it out of his head. Sat there outside it during the night and then drove back to California. It's inexplicable. It's not nationalism, though.

[ind_com]

I don't know if the title is exactly what I mean, but I was thinking about this today. I was thinking that I'm not really "proud to be an American" or whatever, I think the USA kind of sucks actually, but at the same time, if an army invaded where I grew up, I'd probably be pretty upset...I don't know if angry enough to join an armed national liberation movement, haha, but pretty mad. And it's not so much that "America's being invaded!" that would make me so upset, I wouldn't get nearly as upset if someone invaded, say, Florida, but it's more that I have a real sentimental attachment to where I've lived my whole life.

I can honestly see the appeal of national liberation movements, and see why people participated in them despite risks that were often grave. Intellectually, I still think that they're not progressive in today's world, and perhaps were not that progressive even in their heyday, but I can still see the appeal. It's weird because I don't particularly think there's a ton of value culturally in how I grew up, but at the same time part of me kind of wants to preserve a lot of it just because of pure familiarity...and I guess even if you hate the culture you grew up in, you still probably embody some aspects of it, adopted some aspects of it's moral system etc.

Does that make any sense? :confused:

Being pro-national liberation is not the same as being a nationalist. If imperialist country A conquers a part of imperialist country B, then the lives of the working classes of imperialist country B will deteriorate. Therefore to join a national liberation movement would be pro-working class, and not necessarily nationalist, though even nationalism would become a progressive option during an occupation. If your country is attacked an occupied, as a communist your first choice should be to try to direct all struggles towards a socialist revolution. But until it materializes, fighting for national liberation is the best you can do. So it is a communist position provided that you try to transform it into a struggle for socialism.

[black magick hustla]

then the lives of the working classes of imperialist country B will deteriorate.

btw this is a very empirically dubious claim. and you can pretty much find cases that don't fit this

[Ostrinski]

I too was asked what would happen if China invaded the United States in some hypothetical scenario. My answer was to try and build some solidarity between the American and Chinese working class and possibly armed forces toward a revolutionary socialist directive and denounce the fostering of anti-Chinese and nationalist sentiments.

Response was that that constituted treason and national treachery.

Felt badass :thumbup1:.

[ind_com]

btw this is a very empirically dubious claim. and you can pretty much find cases that don't fit this

An example please?