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So i just finished a 7 page paper in two hours (= poorly written atm haha) about Ernst Renan's What is a Nation and then into a minor detour into nationalism and its effects. I found it to be very interesting and thought it would make a rather decent topic in the backroom.
Do you learned men agree with Renan's assessment of the Nation state and what do you all believe to be the future of the nation state.
Maybe after I properly edit my essay I'll even post it here for a thrashing.
meh a typically French belief
Never read it, so I can't say.
http://www.cooper.edu/humanities/cla...3/e_renan.html
This is what a google search yielded. pretty easy to read.
Pssssh. I got a project due Thursday. Give me a couple days for that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Centurion1
This is the base for every single post by LouisQuote:
Man is a slave neither of his race nor his language, nor of his religion, nor of the course of rivers nor of the direction taken by mountain chains. A large aggregate of men, healthy in mind and warm of heart, creates the kind of moral conscience which we call a nation
Of course I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge my own tendency to induledge myself in the same boyish notion that patriotism can be a temperd virture. The more you read and the more you see the less clear this notion becomes....It would all be eaiser if their was still a war to be fought, evil to be vanquished.
Sorry for the double post but I must expand on thought
As one becomes more aware of his surroundings one is most certainly forced to acknowledge the fact that his nation was wrong, is wrong, and will be wrong again. Now for most of us here that point has been widely digested, so there is no need to expand on it further
So the next line of defense for a man is to proclaim that his nation is more enlightened than others and the groveling souls they have wronged are to be happy it isn't the bully proper from down the road. The textbook example of this is China-USA.
I have no qualms with the US installing dictators, overthrowing governments, and violating sovereignty. Even if to only further our own self interest and comfort. Now the boy inside of my whom grew up with such romantic notions inside of him, dreaming about 1776, 1789 as two mystical years in which the wrongs began to be righted may die a little on the inside. But let's be honest, 1776 and 1789 were bloody sordid affairs, nothing of fairy tale legend.
I have no qualms not because I enjoy the displacement and murdering of peoples, nasty business that. Instead I have no qualms because at the end of the day some men only understand force and there is no reaching out to them.
Patriotism can be boiled down to basic selfishness. Proclaiming the virtues of your country of the vices of another to further some larger geo-political goal and this is of course Renans biggest bugaboo. He saw the ugly jingoism that was rearing its ugly head in 19th century Europe, forged in the crude flames of race and religion and sought for a plane of patriots who could rise above such old and petty Human institutions.
He unfortunately vastly underestimated humanities ability to de-humanize, so in the end the French model of fraternity is really only lipstick on a German pig
Unfortunately, I fear more and more nations will band together in EU-type confederacies which will eventually yield one world government.
Ya. A political union will be built on the ashes of our economies after international socialism has sucked us dryQuote:
Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger
I think that Greece is ensuring that political union is a long way off.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
~:smoking:
I agree with everything Strike says.
Edit: upon actual reading of his posts, I now vehemently disagree.
Gah! If only Meneldil were still here - he's the Renan expert.
Sigh.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
Europe was the product of centre-right Catholic politicians, who gathered in Rome to seek to preserve European traditions from big modernist experiments. To protect against socialism, within and without.
The international socialist experiment, that was the other Europe. Which, incidentally, also was eventually brought down by yet another few Catholics in Rome, centred around blessed John Paul.
TheJewish finance-capitalistsinternational centre-right andJudeo-Bolshevisminternational socialism are both abberations that suppress the nation - the natural level of political, cultural, and economic life.
I have to disagree with the civic nationalists a la Renan. Culture is not in itself what binds people together as a nation, it is an expression of something much deeper. It is based on a connection and a birthright established by blood through countless generations. It forges a collective spirit, and as such produces the conditions for people to bind themselves under a government for their common good.
Even the liberals here in effect concede this, otherwise they would want to abolish national parliaments in favour for a world government. The fact is a national interest does exist, and unlike fleeting conflicts based on class and such things that change with socioeconomic bla bla conditions, it always will exist. It is the entire basis of political life.
The twentieth centry was somewhat of an abberation in that class conflict temporarily transcended national interests. But that is less the case nowadays, and I think this is reflected in the rise of the 'New Right' across Europe.
This is why a British person asks why they should be governed by Brussels, but thinks nothing of it to be governed by London, even if he lives up in Newcastle or Inverness. Sometimes you've got to think about these seemingly obvious things when you take them for granted - get back to the basics.
The nation is relevant and it isn't going to disappear any time soon.