On Nationalism

Nationalism has a beleaguered reputation of late. What with “my country right or wrong” sentiments and National Socialism, this should come as no surprise. Nationalism has had its problems and we need to be aware and weary of them. However, when rejecting something it is important to ask what we are pursuing in its place. If we are moving beyond nationalism towards greater faith and participation in God’s Kingdom, then by all means let us be done with nationalism! But I fear this is not the case. Nationalism emerged to unite people of various “tribal” identities into a greater whole. If we are moving from nationalism back towards these rightfully discarded identities, then we are almost certainly foolishly devolving.

Why have moved we away from nationalism? Why are we embracing tribalism? What will the consequences be? The movement from nationalism towards tribalism can be best understood in reference to the acceptance of a post-modern mindset and understanding of the world. Contemporaneous with this embrace has been a loss of the understanding of the importance of foundational “myths,” namely the “myth” that America is a melting pot. In terms of consequences we should expect greater civil strife and the further centralization of power in the federal government.

Let us first examine the consequences of post-modernism. Post-modernism is a slippery term that lacks an agreed upon definition. In fact, many leading post-modern thinkers deny the mantle themselves! While there are many ways to define the meaning, when I refer to post-modernism I mean simply the idea that a subject (i.e. a person) can never be objective in evaluating an object (i.e. anything outside of him or herself). It follows from this belief that no one can ever truly know anything—i.e. there is no knowable truth.

Post-modern thinkers reject the idea that man has an immutable nature—to wit, that man is made in God’s image, but corrupted by his sinful condition. Given this people create their own identities—e.g. there is no gender by which anyone is bound so a man may choose to identify as a man, woman, or something completely different. This assumed and fluid identity of the subject is projected into all that he or she sees, hears, smells, tastes, or touches. It follows that each subject thereby sees every object differently and there can be no objective knowledge of any object. This belief is everywhere. For example, instead of stating that she would interpret the Constitution objectively, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor explicitly stated that her experience as a Latina would give her a fundamentally different perspective. How is that? She, having a different subjective identity, would project it onto the law (the object) differently than, for example, an Asian man.

Now this is not to say that historical or other contingencies don’t influence the way we perceive things. Our ethnicity, religion, historical era, philosophy, sex, etc.: all of these things influence how we see, or more accurately interpret, reality. But post-modern theorists think this influence is so great that we cannot, none of us, know reality.

The results of this theory are clear. If we cannot know things we cannot find agreement. If we cannot agree on anything, there cannot be any voluntary unity. The lack of voluntary unity in turns pulls us into anarchy. As anarchy grows we naturally fear it and seek something to hold us together. But if there is no truth to hold us together, all that remains is power—hence the precipitous growth of the federal government. To put it in simple terms, if kids won’t get along they need spankings. The more they are naughty, the more spankings the need. Likewise, the more we harm and hurt each other, rob one another, kill one another, divorce or defraud one another, the more “spankings.” The government in turn must needs grow to be able to deliver those blows.

Along with this, and developing congruently with the acceptance of a post-modern mindset, has been the rejection of one of America’s foundational “myths”: that America is a melting pot. I should first define what I mean by foundational myth. By foundational myth I do not mean a false or untrue story, rather I mean a fundamental story that explains the past, gives meaning to the present, and guides the future. Man cannot live without these myths because man cannot live without meaning. Destroy one set of myths and man will quickly create another to fill the vacuum. (For example, how quickly did the Jacobins move from their anti-clerical crusade to embracing the cult of reason!)

The melting pot myth never meant that all Americans were identical or that all would equally succeed. Rather it meant that no matter who you were or where you were from you could have a fresh start in the United States. There was opportunity here and if you worked hard and had bit of good luck, you could find success.

Was this completely true? Of course not! There has never been, nor will there ever be ,equal opportunity. This is because men are born unequal. The clever will always have an advantage over the simple, the hardworking over the idle, the strong over the weak, etc. To say that all men are equal is not to say that all will have equal opportunity, let alone that they will have equal outcome. Rather it means that men have equal value in the eyes of God and should therefore have equal opportunity before the law. In other words, there should be no aristocratic type privilege. The United States explicitly provided for this in its Constitution. As a result there followed the highest level of social mobility in the world. 

Yes all and well if you were a white male, critics might say. Equality before the law? Tell that to people of color or women! This critique is valid. Women to some degree, and African-Americans to a significant degree, were legally barred from full access to the American dream. Yet the genius of Western Civilization, of which America is a part, lies in this: its ability to critique itself and peacefully reform itself. It was not an internal uprising that gave women suffrage rights, it was peaceful and patient persuasion. It was not foreign invasion that buried Jim Crow, but a (largely) peaceful movement of non-violent resistance to unjust laws.

Critics are right in pointing out that the melting pot myth was never a perfect reality. But it is wrong to assume that something false in part is fully false and without value. The melting pot myth was in part true and, as time went on, it was becoming truer. Moreover, it was uniting people of diverse tongues, creeds, and backgrounds into a greater whole. As we debunk and reject it, it is not as if we are free from myth. Instead a new myth is filling the gap.

The myth we are embracing in place of the melting pot narrative is “tribalism.” By tribalism I don’t mean we are organizing ourselves like Celtic or Native American tribes, but rather that we are finding our identities in small, exclusive groups. These groups can be non-silly or harmless, e.g. I drive Chevys or I am a Packers fan. They can be focused around sexual identity or orientation, I am a cis-gender pansexual, around ethnicity, I am a wise Latina, or religion I am a Sikh.

So what’s the problem? Can’t a woman state that she is a woman, isn’t that obvious enough? Can’t an African-American be proud of his or her heritage? Of course! Nobody that believed in the melting pot ideal pretended not to see ethnicity or gender or to say that they didn’t matter. The claim, for example, to be colorblind was never meant to be taken literally, but rather to be seen as an ideal of how someone should live their life—i.e. to treat all men the same, no matter their contingent differences. (By contingent I mean “could have been otherwise.” For example, sex, age, ethnicity, height—all of these are contingent characteristics. I could have been a tall woman that lived 500 years ago in the Incan Empire and still have been human. Whereas I could not be without a body or without a rational mind and be human—I would have been an angel or animal instead.)

Why was the melting pot myth so great? The melting pot was an inclusive myth—it didn’t matter where you were from or what language you spoke at home, you could be a part of the American nation. Again, this ideal was never perfectly fulfilled, but it was and remains a noble ideal. One can have other identities, but these identities are secondary and subsumed into something that can unite us all. To put it another way, the American “story” was so great that it could fit all the individual “stories” of its immigrants, no matter their backgrounds. In America, every person could remain themselves while becoming a part of something transcendent.

On the contrary, the tribal narrative is exclusive. I will never be Asian. I will never be a Muslim, a woman, a transsexual, or a homosexual. If my primary identity is found in one of these contingent identities and there is nothing above or beyond these identities to give me a higher and deeper meaning, how can I be united with those outside my “tribe”? I can’t. And there will be an absolute breakdown of dialogue and understanding.

Think about how difficult it is to discuss controversial issues. On the one hand there is a constant invitation to dialogue, but once that dialogue begins it quickly becomes a one-sided lecture as participants say things like, how can you say I am wrong, you’ve never been a __________ and then proceed to identify themselves with their tribe. We see this all the time. How can you comment on abortion, you are a male and will never be pregnant! You’re white and don’t know what it is like to worry about getting shot by the police, so shut your mouth about police shootings! You get the idea.

Sentiments like this would have been incomprehensible to anyone living at any period in the past. A person in the past would have responded to the effect, yes I have my contingent characteristics and you have yours, but we are both rational animals made in the image of God and as such there is infinitely more that unites us than separates us. Certainly as rational men we can discuss this profitably. But our worldview prevents us from having this type of rational discussion. Instead we fall into the ad hominem fallacy and disqualify one another based on who we or they are. Well, you are X so of course you think that! You could never understand this issue, only Y can understand it!

For the last 30 years students in universities have been told how important ethnicity and gender are. Instead of being told that in America they can join something great without losing their individuality, they have been told that the melting pot myth destroys their individuality and that it is natural and desirable for them to self-segregate in order to preserve their various tribal identities.

But ideas have consequences! We should not be surprised when people, like those in the emerging alt-right, take those ideas seriously and act in accordance to their ideology. When you tell people that they are fundamentally different and that these differences are essential, as opposed to contingent, you will create division. You can tell people all you want to embrace “tolerance,” but the fact is when people feel separated they don’t feel equal to the “others.” Rather, given their sinful condition people will always feel superior than those that are fundamentally different and separate than them. (Herodotus noticed this 2,400 years ago!) That is when men formed nations—they wanted to unite with their neighbors in an attempt to destroy notions of superiority and the problems that come with it.

So what is the consequence of the loss of nationalism? In a word: death—the death of our republic. Every republic and democracy, every government in which men have fundamental individual rights, has only been able to maintain its liberty so long as some higher identity held its citizens together. Rome was able to expand in Italy throughout a number of diverse tribes because they exported, and people bought into, an idea of “Romaness.” Romaness, in essence, was the idea that no matter who you were or where you were from you could be part of Rome if you embraced certain ideas. As Rome began to splinter along class lines so too did its liberties diminish. Rome endured for centuries, but as an empire devoid of political liberty. As people moved away from a myth that united them they embraced myths that divided them. As a result they could no longer freely unite and strongmen had to unite them on the bases of fear and power.

I fear the same is in store for Americans. Nations arose because civil strife and unrest is unbearable.  If we cannot find a unity to rally around and voluntarily united with one another, only law and its consequences will unite us. As our ideologies further converge and the ties that bind us continue to disintegrate, our laws will have to become more invasive and harsh to hold us together. As a result, we will lose much of the liberty we once had and held dear.

We need to be drawn out of ourselves into something higher. Ideally it would be Christ’s Kingdom, but short of that we are far better off uniting our tribes into a nation than living in the anarchy that tribalism produces. Are there problems left for us to deal with as a nation? Yes, and there will always be. But they must be dealt with from within, not without. Burning flags or kneeling during anthems signifies a rejection and abandonment of the nation. People can never reform what they are destroying. Fixing this country can only be done by those that first accept it and love it. Nationalism is imperfect and will someday be replaced by something even higher and transcendent. But until that happens we should be hesitant to bury what has up until now been the greatest protector of individual rights and the greatest provider and protector of prosperity and political freedom.