Whether nationalism is really the fever and liberalism the normal condition
Benjamin Wallace-Wells at the New Yorker raises the possibility that has me clutching the blankets in fear.
The question this ultimately raises is whether nationalism is really the fever and liberalism the normal condition, or whether it might be the other way around. In France, Nicolas Sarkozy’s party of the center-right and Marine Le Pen’s party of the nationalist far-right are leading early polling for next year’s Presidential election, with the parties of the left and center-left trailing well behind. In the U.K., the majority of voters now appear to be more nationalist than David Cameron’s Tories were. The Tories have become Boris Johnson’s party, and even further to the right there is the ascendant United Kingdom Independence Party. The worry is that liberalism may be winning the ideas festivals and losing the elections. The left still exists, at least in some form, but liberals seem endangered. Not long ago, we thought the reverse was true.
We think of fascism as the derangement and liberal democracy as the steady state…but as Wallace-Wells says, maybe it’s the opposite.
I talked about that yesterday in my column for The Freethinker.
We know from history that people can take inspiration from demagogues like Trump, and we know what kind of horrors ensue.
I try to derive some consolation from the thought that we’re all getting a Living History lesson – hey girls and boys, this is what it was like in Germany around 1929 or so! Now do you get a sense of how an advanced country like Germany, with a famous philosopher on every corner, managed to let itself be seduced by a screaming mediocrity like Hitler?
Now do you see how in just a few short years they were looking hard in the other direction while the SS pushed most of the Jews in Europe into gas chambers? Now does it seem less baffling to you that Yugoslavia could collapse into a genocidal nightmare practically overnight? Now do you feel with your own fingers how very thin and weak the barrier is between a functioning society and a howling wilderness of murder and torture?
I know I do.
He’s probably absolutely right.
No, I’ll stick with Dr Johnson and the idea that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
A little patriotism is probably inevitable because we all identify with “home” however that is defined but when it’s the only idea you have it can become a weapon of mass destruction. Has anyone ever discovered, even asked, UKIP what its economic policies are or how it would fund science? No, and therein lies the problem.
(It fascinates me that both Boris and Farage are the descendants not just of immigrants but of refugees. The Boris family were given asylum in the the early twentieth century after one of his ?grandfathers was assassinated, Farage a little further back as the descendant of French Hugenots.)
Maybe there’s no one natural default state shared by every person.
I’m reluctant to quote MiB but:
“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”
Always living in the past.
It fascinates me that both Boris and Farage are the descendants not just of immigrants but of refugees. The Boris family were given asylum in the the early twentieth century after one of his ?grandfathers was assassinated, Farage a little further back as the descendant of French Hugenots.)
What fascinates me is the way in which progressive look at today’s problems through the prism of yesteryear.
I doubt very much if the ancestors of Boris and Farage spent three years camped out in Calais before finally making it to the UK.
And then promptly going on benefits.
Those we call refugees are nothing of the sort. They’re unskilled, opportunistic migrants ( with smart phones) shopping for the best welfare deals.
The so-called Far Right is on the rise in Europe and America because the overall direction politics has taken, the economic and social policies since the end of WWII, and in particular since the 60s, have proven an abject failure.
I’m not worried about anything. The Brexit win was MEANINGLESS because the result isn’t binding. Chill out.
If voting could ever acquire the power to actually change anything, it’d immediately be rendered illegal.
Benjamin Wallace-Wells, like everyone else at the fading, floundering Times, lives in the past.
Sorry, John, but you can’t understand the present without understanding how we got here. The British Archipelago is at the edge of a vast continent which stretches from Japan to the Atlantic coast of Europe. It has a temperate climate and is endowed with a variety of natural resources.
Therefore it is a place that people might want to get to. It is also a place where it would be inevitable that the natural movements of people would have to stop, regroup and develop the technologies to move further because no-one arrived here who was able to walk on water, let alone do it for three thousand miles to get to the next place which was similarly endowed with the means of survival, the Americas.
So, at the end of the last ice age when the whole place had been covered in several kilometres thick of ice, say 10,000 years ago, there were no inhabitants at all. Every last one of us here today is the descendant of “immigrants” the first of whom crossed the land bridge between England and what is now France and the Low Countries to hunt during the summer and later to settle as the climate improved. Among those peoples were the ones who brought us agriculture, which was not developed here, linked us into trade routes across the continents, brought new materials and new technologies.
Some have theorised that all of this may be why we industrialised first but that’s a whole library of books you’d never read so let us move on.
I have no idea where you are on the planet but i’m pretty sure you can’t prove that all your ancestors were within a day’s walk from there even 1,000 years ago. I have evidence of one strand of my ancestry in a particular place, where I don’t live now, dating back to 937 CE, but that is about as far back as anyone can go unless you are part of a royal family in a literate society. I repeat, we are all immigrants. We all descend from species which arose in the Rift Valley of eastern Africa and we all moved about.
You seem to misunderstand the entire system for dealing with the new people arriving. Refugees, a term with a legal definition, and asylum seekers are housed, sometimes in pretty grotty conditions, and get just over £30 a week which is not even subsistence. Now some get their paperwork sorted out quickly but others stay in that limbo for up to 10 years. They hate it but are all agreed that it’s better than being dead.
The sudden arrival of much greater numbers of people seeking work, which almost all find, does of course put stresses and strains on the system. Sometimes their appearance causes a small war e.g.Darfur but this is not inevitable or usual. Besides, it’s what we pay governments to manage, though some do it better than others.
If you have evidence and can give me a link to it of vast numbers of people arriving here, claiming every known benefit and staying that way for years then let me, let us all see it. More common, as it has been for centuries, is that those who were here earlier exploit, underpay and abuse the newcomers.
Among the ones I’ve known personally are a couple of doctors, a high-powered lawyer with a sideline in journalism and a professor of physics. What we should worry about is that so few of them get to work at the level of which they are capable, often because of racial and religious prejudice. We should also worry, surely, about the fact that so many people are displaced now because of continued imperialist wars. The Chilcot Report is due out in a couple of weeks – see that for why many of those moving right now are Iraqis and Syrians.
You sneer at me for seeking to understand what is going on and wave the spectre of the far right at me. I’m glad I have enough grasp of history and of human beings not to be fooled by the appalling guff they talk and to resist the violence which they actively promote. I’m glad I have the sense to know that fascism and its little brothers were never defeated by agreeing with them, something you seem only too willing to do.
There are times when you can’t beat having long conversations with people who have numbers tattooed on their inner arms and veterans of the International Brigades. You’ll have to find another source, though, because those opportunities are almost gone.
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John also forgot to show how the economic policies are an “abject failure” and that all refugees are looking for welfare. And John what do you consider an abject failure given that most developed countries have economies that are growing. Ideally, it should be about 3% GDP. But then John probably didn’t forget to show evidence. He just wants to believe what he wants to believe. The world is more complex and not simply black and white or us vs them. The global economy has brought more economic growth which means that you have to deal with the complexities of international relations
The town I recently moved to has agreed to take in some of the 10,000(?) refugees Cameron promised to support–the way it works is that the national government can say whatever it likes, but it’s up to local councils to actually take action. Some organisation (I’m unclear on the details) identifies the most vulnerable people currently living in camps (people with medical conditions, mothers with small children, old or disabled people) and recommends that they have priority in settlement in the UK. We the local taxpayers have provided houses, food, stipends and supplies; some of us have volunteered to provide school places, tutoring, help getting into universities, computers, bikes, baby equipment, and other things people need, as well as facilitating social events and mutual support. We feel like we’re rich enough that we can afford to help a few dozen people get back on their feet after horrifying traumatic experiences.