Has Nationalism become a bad word?

And how exactly did Gandhi's inclusive and secular nationalism inevitably lead to deaths (other than his own)?  He did everything in good faith and in a non violent, peaceful way to place his demands before the British and to convince Jinnah that partition would be a terrible idea (a belief in which he was vindicated).  

No, sorry, you can't lay the sins of the British Empire or the cynical Jinnah at Gandhi's doorstep.  

That's the problem it goes back to your initial question.  What are the alternatives to eat or be eaten :)

Late to the party, sorry...

SteveG wrote: My personal dilemma is that a lack of nationalism in the US has led to the Willy Chinese becoming the next global super power. A government that still can make citizens disappear over night without a trace.

Don't you think the problem here is Chinese nationalism, not a lack of the American variety? Why can an attempt to stop the Chinese governing the world not have humanism on its flag rather than American nationalism?

Other thing: The concept of pride for something I have no merit in completely passes me by. Why should I feel prouder as a German about Bach and Beethoven than about Stravinsky, Ligeti and Charles Ives, or Pink Floyd for that matter? (I've got to admit that pride is not big on the list of things I care for anyway, nationalist or other.)

Third thing: To me culture is an organic thing and as it's something alive, it always has to do with variety and change. I think that supporting some "traditional" or "leading" culture against change or variety is completely misguided. It also ignores all those who deviate from any kind of "leading" or supported "main culture" despite belonging to the (national) group supposed to be associated with that main culture.

(4) Obviously there are cultural borders that by and large follow national borders, although there are also all kinds of other group cultures (scientist culture, hippy culture, farmer culture, feminist culture, you name it), none of which is or should be hermetic. Also, as long as political life is organised by nation, there will be national interests and competition between nations. I don't reject all this. It's a reality. Nations in my view are neither particularly good nor bad as units to organise interests. If we didn't have nations we'd have something else instead, maybe better, maybe worse, probably just different but maybe not so much. Nations are a reality, and national interests are a reality because the world is organised like this. Common history is a reality as well as all its traces that deviate from any major national line of history telling. The nations are what they are - nationalism tries to value them higher and make them stronger, which I think is pointless or even dangerous, however it'd be naive to think we could easily do without nations, belonging to one (normally), and having one to defend their citizen's interests. I'm not saying it isn't possible in principle, I'm saying that there is no obvious way to get there. They are not "natural", but they are strong cultural constructs, so mess with them at your peril. I've got to give to them that they make some sense.

(5) But I'm not going to give them more than that. No magic makes me connected stronger to my compatriots than exactly the connections that I have, and I have no time for any cultural initiative that tries to get me closer to them (and further away from others) than I'd like to be anyway. Obviously one can talk history, culture, genetics bla bla to argue how I am stronger connected to a German truck driver I don't know than to my Italian colleagues or students from China or Egypt I meet in the classroom, but I'm not taking any of this, and the fact that my neighbours are Italian doesn't make them any closer or further from me than if they were German, Scottish (as they were in the UK) or whatever. And not caring about whether Africans trying to reach Europe drown in the Mediterranean but caring about keeping the nation pure and these poor people out is a crime against humanity whatever your nation is.

Have you ever not stopped to think that in a country whose population is 330 million, this might be the glue, so to speak, that holds such a large mass of people together? The creation of an identity which stops society falling apart? That this might be as old as humanity itself when human beings wondered off from the Savannah and started to form communities and eventually large populated centres? That this is one of the most intrinsic and primeval drivers behind what makes us who we are today?

In addition, on your last post, and your riposte to me earlier, that it is nigh on bloody impossible for each and every citizen to be actively involved in everything a complex society does and acts upon, but that they might feel some pride when others do things that are worthy, and shame when others do things which are “bad”?

You are not an obtuse person, or so I thought. Why do you and your partner carry on arguments simply for the sake of it, even when they are so utterly and incredibly against what most people with a modicum of common sense realise has some worth? I might add in addition the shockingly cringeworthy intellectual patronising behind much of this.

There. Do please feel free to be as rude in return, as I said before. When will you realise that the whole point of this thread is a debate on a subject and issue which is not, never has been, and never will be, as straightforward as you make out?

What would it take for you to accept that there are elements of patriotism and, yes, nationalism, which bring intrinsic benefits to humanity, as well as negative elements which bring intrinsic harm?

I really do seriously wonder sometimes.

This, by the way, is not one of my sarcastic or humorous posts. It is one of my “I f**king despair” posts.

I do not carry on arguments for the sake of it; I rather have the feeling it is you who are doing so.

as to this going back to when people wandered off from the Savannah: you seem to equal the feeling of belonging to a tribe with nationalism here. this is another one of your daring concepts. the general historical consensus is that nationalism was not a widely recognized concept before the second half of the 19th century. there are some writings that dealt with some concepts of nationalism that appeared as early as the 17th century though like for example "de jure belli ac pacis"; I don't remember the name of the author of this one right now.

as to "most people with a modicum of common sense": "common sense is the bunch of prejudices acquired at age eighteen" (Albert Einstein)