Pop Matters recently ran a review of a documentary called "The American Ruling Class".
This started me thinking about where we get such perceptions from, and how best to learn from our differences, rather than being divided by them.
Within a society, whether we choose to use the word "class" or not, we will have perceptions of others based on their power and status compared to our own. Such judgments inevitably colour our relationships, at least in their initial stages, particularly if we're unaware of assumptions we're making, based on upbringing, peer pressure ETC.
I would suggest that the same process goes on between one society and another. This leads us to have attitudes towards, for instance, "The French", "The British", or "The Americans". Many stereotypes contain a useful grain of truth of course, and we can't help generalising based on what is, for most of us, extremely limited experience. But if we rate being constructive more highly than mud slinging, however enjoyable mud slinging certainly can be, there are a few things that occur to me.
On what are we basing these nationalist attitudes?
A lifetime of dedicated research, or the general feeling that:
"I sense you don't like me, so fuck you!"?
A government may have done something of which we profoundly disapprove:
E.G Invading Suez like the British did, invading Panama like the americans did, or invading Czecho-slovakia like the russians did - all highly dubious undertakings in my opinion. Or maybe we just don't like the food.
An individual act, or attribute, real or imaginary, is no basis for a serious "attitude" to another nation. The Germans are not Word War II: They are a bunch of people with more in common with everyone else than not, just trying to get by.
We are usually brought up to take pride in our country of origin. If we're going to be able to talk sensibly to people from other countries, then both sides of the conversation need to understand that national pride is at stake, and might run a deal deeper for some than others. What is the nature of our patriotism? Affection, defensiveness, a sense of superiority? Certainly, in every country I've visited there are things to be admired, but nowhere have I found a monopoly on righteousness, including, of course, my own country of origin. I think we need to be extremely careful in getting our sense of self-worth mixed up with our national pride. If we do that, anyone who chooses, however ill-foundedly, to find fault with our country, is finding fault with us personally, which probably was not their intention.
Something that appeals to me as an idea is to try to understand how it might feel to be a citizen of somewhere else, as a way of enhancing the discourse, rather than getting it bogged down at the first hurdle.
For example, as a Brit, I live on a very small island which once had a disproportionate amount of military and economic power, and has now lost most of it. When talking to a US citizen, I'm talking to someone who lives in a vast continental land mass, which has long embodied the highest political ideals to which humanity can aspire, has often failed by virtue of its sheer human frailty, and now faces the eclipse of its own power, so long unquestioned and unquestionable, by other nations.
Now subjectivist cann legitimately claim that it's hard enough to know how we feel ourselves, without getting into how it feels to be someone else.
However, national boundaries are becoming less and less significant in terms of our ability to communicate with one another. Such boundaries are and always were purely accidents of history and war, and have been maintained for economic and military reasons by governments whom it suits to convince their populations that the nation state is some kind of mystical entity.
I'm preaching against nationalism only insofar as I believe it increasingly does more harm than good, militates against equity in the world, and divides us as individuals. We as individuals are far more important than the nations from which we spring.
Reg
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Reg,
ReplyDeleteYou write as if you believe class and nationalism is wrong and that causes more harm than good. If you believe this then you must believe that to strip the individual to her barest existence, which can never happen, is the ideal and should be the norm.
However, all humans are born into a family, then a tribe, then a society, and then a nation. Donne wrote that "no man is an island" and this is true. To strip him of his culture and brand it perhaps "not good" is to strip him of everything that makes him human; a group consciousness and a sense of group responsibility. To take pride in oneself without taking into account all that made her what she is, is to render one's worth meaningless. Self-worth cannot be had rendered against a blank backdrop nor can it be had rendered against such a miasma of culture as to make adopting the good bits too difficult.
A culture and nation is where we learn and experience and gain knowledge. To grow up in a country is to absorb what makes us, us. It's where we learn what we find valuable and are willing to work toward. If what you say is true then pursuing citizenship would be a useless ideal, defending one's country would be a waste of time, and even creating a society with agreed upon rules would be a moot point. Who would decide where to belong? Who would decide what to fight for? And who would decide the concept of justice? Everyone's self worth is inextricably intertwined with their country's, including yours whether we like it or not.
Could you really take your ideal to its logical conclusion and think it would be a good thing for one and all?
Thanks for this. It's exactly what I'm looking for, representations of other views. It's impossible to encapsulate one's entire take on a subject this big in a single short post, but my wish to say anything at all, and get a discussion started, led me to be somewhat simplistic; I acknowledge that.
ReplyDeleteAs my intro message says, I'm looking to put stuff out in order to clear my head somewhat, and to profit from the knowledge of others.
So, to try to be clearer, I may be advocating some reorganisation and redistribution in the world, but it would be unrealistic to advocate a root and branch dismantling of what has served us so far, albeit imperfectly and at disproportionate cost to some.
Naturally, we start from where we are now, and my thoughts were aimed at trying to redress the balance, to heal some of the harm which unthinking zeal engendered by those who seek to enlist our allegiance for unworthy aims has wrought in the world.
I'm not proposing a radical abandonment of nationalism or nation states, I'm simply asking that we think about how it feels to be someone else in order to improve a discourse which has so clearly failed humanity so far.
The down side of nationalism is that it encourages prejudice, and legitimises greed. As you point out, we need our roots and our culture to have any sense of identity. Family, friends, and societies based on consensus don't have to be predicated on nationalism.
Only by at least trying to consider the culture and perspective of others do we stand any chance of mitigating the negative consequences of what we're ALL conditioned to do, which is to ascribe righteousness to our own culture at the expense of others if necessary.
I'm urging us to look outwards rather than inwards. How much do governments encourage us to live in our boxes to limit our horizons, to make us more amenable to be cannon fodder in disputes of their choosing?
These are simply questions, not statements. If, for example, the UK had been universally Quaker and passivist in the 1930s, would we now be living under the third Reich?
I'm not proposing answers or judging others. I'm simply asking if aspects of nationalism don't impede rather than help us in understanding each other better. Communication, untrammelled by the baggage of others is perhaps worth aiming at.
Reg