The Illogicality of Nationalism

Here’s an interesting anomaly of human nature. People everywhere want to emigrate to the USA. Many will risk their lives to get there, in open boats, or over barbed wire, or trusting themselves to cartels and coyotes; to get that precious green card. And yet, when Donald Trump offers union to Greenland, or to Canada, the locals act insulted and truculent. They even threaten to shoot. This does not make sense.

By joining the USA, Canadians, for example, individual would have many more career opportunities. They could expect a higher standard of living. They would have more choices where to live. Apart from Quebec, they risk losing nothing of their culture—by any normal world standard, it is the same culture. They would sacrifice nothing of their freedoms or right to self-govern. America has the same democratic traditions. Indeed, they would probably have better protection for their rights, a more independent judiciary and a longer and stronger human rights tradition. Canada, after all, only got responsible government in the 1840s, and a formal Bill of Rights only in 1960. The courts’ interpretations of the current Charter of Rights and Freedoms has grown problematic. They—we-- would also have greater security against foreign threats from genuinely oppressive governments.

And yet Mark Carney is hurrying off to China, America’s chief adversary, to cut deals that seem not in Canada’s interest, in hopes of countering American influence. Or perhaps just to spite the USA.

This behaviour seems mad and self-destructive.

I think it shows the strength of the nationalist instinct, and how it works against our interests. People are herd animals, if they follow their instincts. But the gospel truth is that all men are brothers. Even Samaritans. Even Americans.

 Appealing to this idolatry of nationalism has let many a corrupt and oppressive government seize and stay in power. 

You might, of course, accuse Trump in turn of being a nationalist, in wanting to annex Canada or Greenland. But that is a separate argument, and an argument for others to consider.

Nationalism and Globalism

Map showing democracies in shades of blue; Economist Intelligence Unit.

I would not have thought that, in suggesting that endorsing “family values” is no different from endorsing nationalism, that I would get pushback on the idea that there were problems with nationalism.

Yet, when I suggested this to my friend Darius, I did.

He writes, “Being a patriot is a good thing not bad; maintaining an awareness and respect for one's heritage and national accomplishments … is a defense against Godless globalism.”

I do not condemn nationalism in itself. I wrote that nation is “useful,” and a national government “desirable.” The danger is in seeing the nation or national government as sacred or holy, as we tend to with “family values.” That is, straight up, Fascism.

I would call myself a “Canadian nationalist.” I support a nationalist view of Canada because I see Canadian nationalism not as a defense against globalism, but against tribalism: against ethnic allegiances like those of Quebec, or aboriginal groups, or various special interest groups. Canadian or American or Australian or Singaporean nationalism is special in this way, because Canada or the USA or Singapore are not nations in the conventional sense. They are not based on blood ties, but on adherence to shared values. In this, they are more like a monastery than a family.

To be American is to commit to the principles stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. To be Canadian is to endorse the principles stated in the preamble to the Canadian Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Since I wholeheartedly endorse these principles, and think they should be extended to all mankind, I endorse Canadian or American nationalism. All men are created equal; all are endowed with inherent rights. Among these are freedom of speech, of assembly, of conscience, and so forth. But this sort of nationalism is, implicitly, globalism; since these principles apply to all men.

I am much less well-disposed to other nationalisms: most nations are ethnically based, and so nationalism there amounts to tribalism. It is fine to feel a special warmth for your homeland, because it is human nature to do so, it is pleasant and enriches life. It is fine to feel an appreciation for your (or another) culture, as a thing of beauty, just as one can appreciate a fine painting. But it makes no rational sense to me that I should take any pride in what some other person did, because we are both Canadians. This is in principle the same as collective guilt. Are we going to hold Jews guilty for the crucifixion, then?

And I reserve the right to appropriate from whatever culture I so choose. Culture is for man, not man for the culture. The latter idea, again, is Fascism.

In principle, I am in favour of globalism over nationalism, just as and for the same reason I am in favour of nationalism over tribalism. This is one important reason I am Catholic: the sense of unity and brother hood around the globe. This is a reason I even lament the loss of the British Empire―despite my Irish heritage. It united people around the globe in one common endeavour, and under comparatively liberal principles. This is why I am essentially pro-American: because American culture is globalist culture. Where do you think hamburgers come from? America? Where do you think ketchup comes from? Pizza? Hot dogs? Jazz?

I do oppose “Godless globalism.” That adjective identifies the enemy. I rather think we liberal democracies should walk away from the United Nations and form a League of Free Nations, perhaps built on NATO’s foundations. If any member veered from the path of democratic elections and a fundamental list of human rights, their membership would be revoked. The present situation is pernicious: the worst offenders always get the first seats on the UN panel meant to deal with any given issue of human rights.

Any such league must recognize the supremacy of God. As the Canadian constitution does explicitly, and the Declaration of Independence does implicitly. You cannot have human rights and human equality without belief in God. As Locke himself pointed out, the two cannot be separated.

Moreover, any such league must be founded on the principle of subsidiarity, or federalism. This is where the EU went awry. Powers must always reside with the lowest level of organization capable of dealing with them. This is required by the very concept of human rights, which means that the individual has, as much as possible, the right to decide for himself.

Family Values and Fascism

First family. Wait till you meet the kids.

A friend avers that the sanctity of the family is next only to the sanctity of God himself. 

A common view, these days, among those on the right, and among Christians.

I urgently need to disagree.

Logically, family here is equivalent to nation: either is a useful social unit, based on shared genetics and shared experiences. The difference is only in scale.

Now what does it sound like if you speak of the “sanctity of the nation”? If you guessed Fascism, you guessed right. This was the core idea of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. It is not just incompatible with Christianity; it is antithetical to it.

So too with “the sanctity of the family.” It automatically denies the brotherhood of man, and goes ugly places. Crimes as awful as those of Nazi Germany, if on a smaller scale.

No question that family is desirable and useful, just as is a national government. Both give us the warm fuzzies. Exactly for this reason, there is a danger of idolatry, of overvaluing it. Money is useful too; so is sex. But there is immediately a problem if you think of money or sex as sacred.

For my marriage ceremony, we were free to choose our own Bible reading. Not coincidentally, it is extremely hard to find a good Bible reading, unambiguously praising marriage.

How about St. Paul?

“But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. But if they don't have self-control, let them marry. For it's better to marry than to burn.”

There’s damning with faint praise, surely.

The Case for Colonialism

Former Queen’s prof (now at Portland State) Dr. Bruce Gilley has been summarily removed from Queens’ Centre for International and Defense Policy for publishing a paper titled “The Case for Colonialism.” Apparently arguing that colonialism can be moral in some circumstances is now intolerable.

But of course it can, or at least a reasonable argument can be made. Kosovo, for example, was a colonialist intervention. Bosnia was. Such interventions to prevent human rights abuses are not rare in the annals of European 19th century colonialism. More often than we are told, the intervention of the European power was largely humanitarian in intent. It was a matter of peacekeeping, or of preventing a holocaust.

Even when this is not the case, much colonialism can be compared to the sound corporate policy, when a business is not doing well, of bringing in new management from outside. It works in business; it works as well in government.

Of course, at the time that Europe was colonizing the rest of the world, European culture was also significantly more technologically advanced than any of its colonies. The colonial authority introduced this new technology, improving living standards: railroads were laid, canals dug, new industries developed, schools and hospitals founded. Sure, European firms profited in building and managing these things; but so did the local inhabitants.

The case against colonialism is that it infantilizes people; makes the colonized dependent and strips them of initiative. And this is an important issue.

But really—the idea that different ethnicities should be sovereign and govern themselves is a new idea, dating from about 1917 or so and Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Before that, everywhere, colonization was the universal norm. It is, moreover, arguably racist to insist that there is something wrong with it—that government ought always to be on the basis of race or ethnicity. And this position that governments must be ethnically-based is disastrous for minorities everywhere.