Nationalism. Is there an up side?

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PsychoSerenity
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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by PsychoSerenity » Wed Nov 07, 2012 9:24 am

Audley Strange wrote:
Rum wrote: Well I know it isn't remotely realistic of course. My 'world government' would be based on a sort of liberal democracy with a strong socialist element to support the most vulnerable. It would be open minded, fair, inclusive, non-judgemental and it would also assume happy cooperation from the rest of the world! Never going to happen.
Yet we're much closer to that than we were even 30 years ago. Sure, as I keep saying there is some fine tuning needed towards centrism (not that I'm advocating that as a political agenda, but as a position of compromise which can be worked from) but have we not had that more or less since the post war era anyway? Granted its not perfect, but at the moment it is a fuckload better than the options trying to replace it.
Rum wrote: In the mean time little small minded people has scrape around in the mud, putting up new barriers and frontiers and grabbing little bits of land so that can say 'thins is mine and you can't have it'.

We will never learn I suspect and that will ultimately be our downfall.
Man, the internet is on a downer this last week...
Considering how far we've come in the last century and that the rate of improvement also seams to be increasing, I'm much more optimistic than Rum seams to be. We've also got the internet, making world class education almost free for vast swathes of the global population, and personal connections bridging old national barriers. It'll take time, and will always be a work-in-progress with more improvements to be made, but I think it'll happen.
[Disclaimer - if this is comes across like I think I know what I'm talking about, I want to make it clear that I don't. I'm just trying to get my thoughts down]

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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by ronmcd » Wed Nov 07, 2012 9:48 am

The question is irrelevant, you could just as easily be asking: Government: is there an up side? The point is that a single world government is not going to happen, because for all manner of reasons good and bad the people would not allow it. We humans appear to want our governments to be relatively local and accountable. How local and accountable varies, there is no standard, and there is no right and wrong, and it is that which you call nationalism in the Scottish/UK sense. People will have the level of political control they want, and there is nothing wrong with that. A world government couldn't respond to local concerns, and people would reject it.
Rum wrote:Should we not be breaking down barriers rather than creating them?
And we should also have replicators, holodecks, and no need for money. It's a fantasy. Today, people decide how they are governed, and the trend appears to be smaller more responsive states, not government from afar. No reason those states cant then form larger trading blocks and cooperate. Maybe the future is a single cooperative market and war free world with smaller local governments? Rather than a Starfleet Federation of Planets. I suspect the REAL federation of planets would end up more like the Blake's 7 Federation, which I guess was Terry Nation's idea.

There are other forms of nationalism based on ethnicity and fear, rather than democratic control. That kind of nationalism is certainly not one i would subscribe to, but that isnt what your thread is about. You've made that clear by talking about "world government".

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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by cronus » Wed Nov 07, 2012 10:19 am

Nationalism like all tribalism is a means to prevent the spread of disease. At present the diseases of the past appear to have been conquered but something like ebola-plus might appear and if it did then nationalism will be jolly good thing. That is my view. Although some way of reducing the massive human population means anti-nationalism is perhaps a necessary evil right now.
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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by Svartalf » Wed Nov 07, 2012 10:36 am

I'm with Audley... stupidity is a disease, and I don't want the stupid to abuse their number to make MY life hell... actually, they already do, but under a vaguely democratic world gummint, the muslim might be able to implement sharia, or the Chinese to impose something equally unpalatable.
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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by Robert_S » Wed Nov 07, 2012 10:44 am

I'm not proud of merely having been born a Merkin. But I am kinda happy about it considering some of the alternatives.
What I've found with a few discussions I've had lately is this self-satisfaction that people express with their proffessed open mindedness. In realty it ammounts to wilful ignorance and intellectual cowardice as they are choosing to not form any sort of opinion on a particular topic. Basically "I don't know and I'm not going to look at any evidence because I'm quite happy on this fence."
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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Wed Nov 07, 2012 11:25 am

Did I miss that definition? Or are we cloud-talking?
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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by Svartalf » Wed Nov 07, 2012 11:27 am

Cloud talking, obviously, you back from your prednisone thing?
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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Wed Nov 07, 2012 11:34 am

Svartalf wrote:Cloud talking, obviously, you back from your prednisone thing?
Still taking it. :ab:
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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by MrJonno » Wed Nov 07, 2012 12:08 pm

I'm proud and ashamed of my own achievements/failures not that of any country , I'm just lucky (not proud) to have been born in the UK but I would have been lucky to have been born in a lot of other countries as well
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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Wed Nov 07, 2012 12:13 pm

"Nationalism" isn't all bad.
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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by mistermack » Wed Nov 07, 2012 12:45 pm

Nationalism is the second dumbest, most stupid emotion/belief that humans experience. The first being religion.

So you would think that it would soon disappear. But no, it won't. Because there are a hell of a lot of dumb people out there.
And just like religion, nationalism is soaked up from childhood, so it's often there for life, for those who can't and won't think.

And of course when you combine religion and nationalism, you've got a toxic mix, because they are so ingrained, people don't even bother to think, so they are easy to manipulate.

But there is a trend away from it. And media and communication are slowly wearing it down.
Things like the EU and NATO etc. are slowly making people feel part of something bigger and better.
And the spread of English as an international language is having a slow but steady effect.

So over time, if things keep going the way they are now, with better education and international activity, nationalism will fade.
But the instinct will never go away.
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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by charlou » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:20 pm

Audley Strange wrote:
Rum wrote:When I was a kid I read loads of science fiction. I was an idealist too and I figured that one day we would have some kind of world government that was wise, beneficent and liberal.

All silly of course given the state of things these days.

Is nationalism defensible these days when all it appears to offer is difference rather than commonality, splitting rather than uniting, excluding rather than including?

Should we not be breaking down barriers rather than creating them?
No Rum we should not. We as a species are not all on the same page. There are factions who kill girls for going to school and rape them first because adulteresses go to hell and truly believe they are good. I don't want them anywhere near my culture.

Nationalism is only defensible in so far as we do not have a mono-culture yet and until such time that humanity reaches a consensus towards that, nationalism is sadly, our main defence against it. I don't like the whole right wing "erosion of culture" thing, because it is exaggerated to a hysterical degree. However when there are factions of cunts who would happily replace modernity with archaic theocracy or post-modern corporate states, sometimes the status quo needs to be preserved and fought for because the alternatives are dangerous in the extreme.

Perhaps in a few hundred years when this net thing makes those boundaries utterly irrelevant finally.
The net is just a tool. It can only be people who make those boundaries utterly irrelevant.

I see no use for nationalism in striving for common humanitarian ethical values.

Violence, poverty, lack of education, lack of health, etc, are all issues that are best tackled for what they are, wherever they are ... not by way of outraged and self-righteous finger pointing at whole nations of people, but by understanding and compassion. And not any wishy-washy, impotent form of understanding and compassion, but a pragmatic, leading by example and being clear about what will and will not be tolerated form of understanding and compassion.
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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by Cormac » Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:57 pm

I think there is a place for nationalism to give impetus to liberation movements, where democratic expression is suppressed. In such cases unifying and momentum building can be accelerated and strengthened by nationalism.

Once liberation is achieved, and democratic institutions are in place and functioning, then the sooner nationalism fades away, the better.

Of course, there can be a thin line between nationalism and xenophobia, and that kind is always negative and usually counterproductive.
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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by Jason » Wed Nov 07, 2012 4:10 pm

Rum wrote:
Audley Strange wrote:
Rum wrote:When I was a kid I read loads of science fiction. I was an idealist too and I figured that one day we would have some kind of world government that was wise, beneficent and liberal.

All silly of course given the state of things these days.

Is nationalism defensible these days when all it appears to offer is difference rather than commonality, splitting rather than uniting, excluding rather than including?

Should we not be breaking down barriers rather than creating them?
No Rum we should not. We as a species are not all on the same page. There are factions who kill girls for going to school and rape them first because adulteresses go to hell and truly believe they are good. I don't want them anywhere near my culture.

Nationalism is only defensible in so far as we do not have a mono-culture yet and until such time that humanity reaches a consensus towards that, nationalism is sadly, our main defence against it. I don't like the whole right wing "erosion of culture" thing, because it is exaggerated to a hysterical degree. However when there are factions of cunts who would happily replace modernity with archaic theocracy or post-modern corporate states, sometimes the status quo needs to be preserved and fought for because the alternatives are dangerous in the extreme.

Perhaps in a few hundred years when this net thing makes those boundaries utterly irrelevant finally.
Well I know it isn't remotely realistic of course. My 'world government' would be based on a sort of liberal democracy with a strong socialist element to support the most vulnerable. It would be open minded, fair, inclusive, non-judgemental and it would also assume happy cooperation from the rest of the world! Never going to happen.

In the mean time little small minded people has scrape around in the mud, putting up new barriers and frontiers and grabbing little bits of land so that can say 'thins is mine and you can't have it'.

We will never learn I suspect and that will ultimately be our downfall.

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Re: Nationalism. Is there an up side?

Post by ronmcd » Wed Nov 07, 2012 4:15 pm

MrJonno wrote:I'm proud and ashamed of my own achievements/failures not that of any country , I'm just lucky (not proud) to have been born in the UK but I would have been lucky to have been born in a lot of other countries as well
Completely agree with that, the problem is that many of those who will talk about "nationalism" are actually referring to self-determination and political decision making being more relevant to them, rather than the pejorative us-against-them use of the word, something which is certainly the purpose of some here.

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