Apollo
VIP
Highlighted for TL;DR. Dugin posted it this week and may help you understand how Russia's elite view the concept of nationalism or nationhood.
www.geopolitica.ru
Nationalism as anti-tradition
Now more specifically about nationalism. Nationalism is a Western bourgeois-capitalist phenomenon. It appears in Europe as the rejection of the medieval way of life - religion, a single European church, the Empire, the class organization of society. European nationalism is the same artificial and instrumental construction as other versions of Western ideologies. This is not an alternative to capitalist modernity, this is its direct product.
Of course, liberalism more fully corresponds to the capitalist system and was originally conceived as globalism, that is, as the spread of the norms and attitudes of the bourgeois system to all mankind. This, incidentally, was well understood by the Marxists. Nationalism, on the other hand, was an intermediate stage when it was necessary to destroy the pan-European institutions of the Middle Ages - Catholicism, the Empire, the class organization of society, and offer something in return for the temporary preservation of the state, already captured by the bourgeois oligarchy. Not surprisingly, nationalism first appeared in Protestant countries, where, starting from Holland and England, we see all three main signs of emerging capitalism (anti-Church, anti-Empire, anti-hierarchy) -renunciation of Rome, fierce opposition to the Habsburgs and the transfer of initiative in the economy and politics from the aristocracy and the priesthood to the class of urban merchants.
It was the bourgeois anti-traditional - anti-Catholic, anti-estate and anti-imperial - circles of European societies that became the main carriers of nationalism.
Historically, capitalism has developed in phases: first in the form of nationalism, then in the form of globalist liberalism, although liberal theories were formed at an early stage, and Adam Smith's globalism was identical in its contours to the territories of the world colonial British Empire.
With the success of the bourgeois system, capitalism became more and more liberal and less and less national, but in many cases national forms did not disappear anywhere - bourgeois national states have survived to this day. Modern liberal globalists want to abolish them as soon as possible, transferring power to the World Government, but they still exist and, if necessary, are used by the capitalist elites that control them. Nevertheless, it is logical to consider nationalism an early stage of capitalism, and liberalism (globalism) a late one.
Communism in this context is a detour. Communists (at least dogmatic Marxists) are in solidarity with the globalists in rejecting nation-states and consider the triumph of cosmopolitan capitalism on a planetary scale necessary and inevitable. Therefore, in the fight against clearly nationalist regimes, they often find themselves on the side of the liberals.
But at the same time, they are waiting for the moment when the capitalist system, having become global and international, will enter into a crisis, and then, in their opinion, the conditions will be created for the proletarian world revolution. This is where the confrontation between communism and liberalism will make itself felt. Such is the abstract theory of communism, completely refuted by historical practice. In fact, communist regimes did not take shape in a capitalist and international society, but in agrarian countries with an almost medieval way of life. And they turned into something national-Bolshevik, which a significant part of Western Marxists generally refused to consider "socialism" or "communism." So, contrary to pure Marxist theory, some communist regimes (Soviet Russia, China, etc.) began to build socialism in one country, that is, in fact, linked communism with the national context (without giving it, however, a theoretical formulation).
All this created a terrible confusion in terms, since all parties were forced to make ideological stretches and propaganda moves designed to somehow obscure obvious theoretical contradictions.
In any case, nationalism is something purely modern, Western and capitalist.
The nation is an imaginary community
The artificial nature of nationalism is beautifully described by the sociologist Benedict Anderson. He convincingly shows that, unlike a people or an ethnos, a “nation” is a political and artificial concept, created for pragmatic purposes by bourgeois ideologists, when it was necessary to somehow hold society together after it rejected the tradition - religious, class and hierarchical (imperial) . Anderson called his book "An Imaginary Community", which emphasized the illusory nature of the nation, as an arbitrary and fictitious creation of the intelligentsia, ideologically serving the interests of the bourgeoisie.
Benedict Anderson makes a very important statement: nationalism does not follow the nation as its extreme form, but it precedes the nation. Nationalism comes first, and only then the nation itself. Every nation is invented by nationalists. Nationalists begin by inventing ancient roots for a specific historical people that have nothing to do with it. The modern bourgeois state is proclaimed the heir of some great Empire. And then the nationalists impose on the entire population of the state some arbitrary language (most often from among the dialects, it is called "idiom"), a single cultural code and a common system of law on an individual - civil - basis. This collection of individual citizens, who were forced to speak the same language and consider themselves fictitious descendants of great (or fictional) ancestors, is only necessary so that a fragmented and atomized society does not fall apart at all, but at the same time so that neither religious nor religious estates or imperial institutions or rural communities. And in order to unite this heterogeneous mass, an enemy is needed, in the face of which all these human fragments (parts without a whole) would feel solidarity in hatred and unjustified superiority.
At the same time, the word “citizen” itself is important, which comes from the word “city”, that is, “citizen”. Such is the etymology of the word bourgeois, from the word Burg, "city." Nationalism is an urban, urbanistic phenomenon, where people live scattered and nuclear - in contrast to rural communities.
Such is any nationalism. It is first formed into a theory, which is later put into practice. Nationalism molds the political nation.
Hence the feeling of inorganicity and ugliness, which are inextricably linked with all forms of nationalism. It is based on lies, forgery and destruction of the genuine organic life of peoples, cultures and communities.
Functional racism
Racism is the ultimate form of nationalism. In this version, nationalism reaches its extreme stage. Members of some fictitious nation, in which various ethnic and cultural elements will necessarily be present (but this is precisely what nationalism and racism are denied), are proclaimed the “master race”, which (it is not known by whom, because religion is considered a relic) is given the right conquer the lower ones.
Racism was the most important component of European colonialism, primarily Anglo-Saxon, where the right to subjugate and enslave entire continents was based on the “racial superiority of the white man”. In the traditional Empires of antiquity, any conquered peoples had their own legal status and it never occurred to anyone to enslave them or consider them inferior. European racism arose in modern times and was also a bourgeois invention. A race is as much an imaginary phenomenon as a nation. But it emphasizes biological characteristics, as in the case of animals - for example, thoroughbred trotters. The typical appearance of this or that people, of course, matters, but the idea of basing social and economic hierarchy on biological differences is pure absurdity. Perhaps the talents and cultures of different peoples are really different, but it is impossible to build a hierarchy between them without arbitrarily taking one of the peoples as a model and ideal. And this is racism: the identification of one's culture (one's own skin color, language, history, values, etc.) with a universal model.
If for some - primarily for the Anglo-Saxons, who created the first complete racial theories - racism served as a justification for colonial domination and slavery, then in other cases - in Nazi Germany - racism was used - just like nationalism, but only more radical - to rally bourgeois society, falling apart as traditional religious, political and social institutions disappear. Mere nationalism was not enough to unite the disparate German lands of Western and Southern Germany, and Protestant Prussia, which was completely different from them, into a single "imaginary Empire" was not enough. Therefore, ultranationalism was involved - that is, biological racism, borrowed from the British and brought to the most absurd and inhuman theories - the glorification of the Aryan race (which was identified with the Germans), the declaration of other peoples as "non-humans" (including the Indo-European Slavs or Gypsies) and their mass extermination.
And again for the same purely pragmatic goal - to unite what has crumbled into atoms with the help of a false theory.
Nationalism: criminal fiction and ideological impasse
Probably only few people paid serious attention to the fact that the Fourth Political Theory, which I adhere to, pays the most serious attention to the criticism of nationalism.
www.geopolitica.ru
Nationalism as anti-tradition
Now more specifically about nationalism. Nationalism is a Western bourgeois-capitalist phenomenon. It appears in Europe as the rejection of the medieval way of life - religion, a single European church, the Empire, the class organization of society. European nationalism is the same artificial and instrumental construction as other versions of Western ideologies. This is not an alternative to capitalist modernity, this is its direct product.
Of course, liberalism more fully corresponds to the capitalist system and was originally conceived as globalism, that is, as the spread of the norms and attitudes of the bourgeois system to all mankind. This, incidentally, was well understood by the Marxists. Nationalism, on the other hand, was an intermediate stage when it was necessary to destroy the pan-European institutions of the Middle Ages - Catholicism, the Empire, the class organization of society, and offer something in return for the temporary preservation of the state, already captured by the bourgeois oligarchy. Not surprisingly, nationalism first appeared in Protestant countries, where, starting from Holland and England, we see all three main signs of emerging capitalism (anti-Church, anti-Empire, anti-hierarchy) -renunciation of Rome, fierce opposition to the Habsburgs and the transfer of initiative in the economy and politics from the aristocracy and the priesthood to the class of urban merchants.
It was the bourgeois anti-traditional - anti-Catholic, anti-estate and anti-imperial - circles of European societies that became the main carriers of nationalism.
Historically, capitalism has developed in phases: first in the form of nationalism, then in the form of globalist liberalism, although liberal theories were formed at an early stage, and Adam Smith's globalism was identical in its contours to the territories of the world colonial British Empire.
With the success of the bourgeois system, capitalism became more and more liberal and less and less national, but in many cases national forms did not disappear anywhere - bourgeois national states have survived to this day. Modern liberal globalists want to abolish them as soon as possible, transferring power to the World Government, but they still exist and, if necessary, are used by the capitalist elites that control them. Nevertheless, it is logical to consider nationalism an early stage of capitalism, and liberalism (globalism) a late one.
Communism in this context is a detour. Communists (at least dogmatic Marxists) are in solidarity with the globalists in rejecting nation-states and consider the triumph of cosmopolitan capitalism on a planetary scale necessary and inevitable. Therefore, in the fight against clearly nationalist regimes, they often find themselves on the side of the liberals.
But at the same time, they are waiting for the moment when the capitalist system, having become global and international, will enter into a crisis, and then, in their opinion, the conditions will be created for the proletarian world revolution. This is where the confrontation between communism and liberalism will make itself felt. Such is the abstract theory of communism, completely refuted by historical practice. In fact, communist regimes did not take shape in a capitalist and international society, but in agrarian countries with an almost medieval way of life. And they turned into something national-Bolshevik, which a significant part of Western Marxists generally refused to consider "socialism" or "communism." So, contrary to pure Marxist theory, some communist regimes (Soviet Russia, China, etc.) began to build socialism in one country, that is, in fact, linked communism with the national context (without giving it, however, a theoretical formulation).
All this created a terrible confusion in terms, since all parties were forced to make ideological stretches and propaganda moves designed to somehow obscure obvious theoretical contradictions.
In any case, nationalism is something purely modern, Western and capitalist.
The nation is an imaginary community
The artificial nature of nationalism is beautifully described by the sociologist Benedict Anderson. He convincingly shows that, unlike a people or an ethnos, a “nation” is a political and artificial concept, created for pragmatic purposes by bourgeois ideologists, when it was necessary to somehow hold society together after it rejected the tradition - religious, class and hierarchical (imperial) . Anderson called his book "An Imaginary Community", which emphasized the illusory nature of the nation, as an arbitrary and fictitious creation of the intelligentsia, ideologically serving the interests of the bourgeoisie.
Benedict Anderson makes a very important statement: nationalism does not follow the nation as its extreme form, but it precedes the nation. Nationalism comes first, and only then the nation itself. Every nation is invented by nationalists. Nationalists begin by inventing ancient roots for a specific historical people that have nothing to do with it. The modern bourgeois state is proclaimed the heir of some great Empire. And then the nationalists impose on the entire population of the state some arbitrary language (most often from among the dialects, it is called "idiom"), a single cultural code and a common system of law on an individual - civil - basis. This collection of individual citizens, who were forced to speak the same language and consider themselves fictitious descendants of great (or fictional) ancestors, is only necessary so that a fragmented and atomized society does not fall apart at all, but at the same time so that neither religious nor religious estates or imperial institutions or rural communities. And in order to unite this heterogeneous mass, an enemy is needed, in the face of which all these human fragments (parts without a whole) would feel solidarity in hatred and unjustified superiority.
At the same time, the word “citizen” itself is important, which comes from the word “city”, that is, “citizen”. Such is the etymology of the word bourgeois, from the word Burg, "city." Nationalism is an urban, urbanistic phenomenon, where people live scattered and nuclear - in contrast to rural communities.
Such is any nationalism. It is first formed into a theory, which is later put into practice. Nationalism molds the political nation.
Hence the feeling of inorganicity and ugliness, which are inextricably linked with all forms of nationalism. It is based on lies, forgery and destruction of the genuine organic life of peoples, cultures and communities.
Functional racism
Racism is the ultimate form of nationalism. In this version, nationalism reaches its extreme stage. Members of some fictitious nation, in which various ethnic and cultural elements will necessarily be present (but this is precisely what nationalism and racism are denied), are proclaimed the “master race”, which (it is not known by whom, because religion is considered a relic) is given the right conquer the lower ones.
Racism was the most important component of European colonialism, primarily Anglo-Saxon, where the right to subjugate and enslave entire continents was based on the “racial superiority of the white man”. In the traditional Empires of antiquity, any conquered peoples had their own legal status and it never occurred to anyone to enslave them or consider them inferior. European racism arose in modern times and was also a bourgeois invention. A race is as much an imaginary phenomenon as a nation. But it emphasizes biological characteristics, as in the case of animals - for example, thoroughbred trotters. The typical appearance of this or that people, of course, matters, but the idea of basing social and economic hierarchy on biological differences is pure absurdity. Perhaps the talents and cultures of different peoples are really different, but it is impossible to build a hierarchy between them without arbitrarily taking one of the peoples as a model and ideal. And this is racism: the identification of one's culture (one's own skin color, language, history, values, etc.) with a universal model.
If for some - primarily for the Anglo-Saxons, who created the first complete racial theories - racism served as a justification for colonial domination and slavery, then in other cases - in Nazi Germany - racism was used - just like nationalism, but only more radical - to rally bourgeois society, falling apart as traditional religious, political and social institutions disappear. Mere nationalism was not enough to unite the disparate German lands of Western and Southern Germany, and Protestant Prussia, which was completely different from them, into a single "imaginary Empire" was not enough. Therefore, ultranationalism was involved - that is, biological racism, borrowed from the British and brought to the most absurd and inhuman theories - the glorification of the Aryan race (which was identified with the Germans), the declaration of other peoples as "non-humans" (including the Indo-European Slavs or Gypsies) and their mass extermination.
And again for the same purely pragmatic goal - to unite what has crumbled into atoms with the help of a false theory.
9:50
