HooDat,HooDat wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:37 pmTLD - My definition came from a dictionary - no political science lens involved. Not sure Australia avoids accusation of wokeness etc... but I'll roll with it. The definition you provided includes BOTH definitions I was laying out in my further arguments - namely that some see nationalism as innocent love of country and some see it as the root of genocide and warfare. That slippery definition makes it useful as a WEDGE.Typical Lax Dad wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:14 pm NATIONALISM
"Nationalism refers to a people's sense of common belonging and loyalty to a nation. Nationalism may arise among people who share such common traits as culture, language, origin, and tradition. It may develop as people join to form a unified government. Nationalism may also originate as people fight to establish a unique racial, cultural, or religious identity. A peoples' struggle to prevent their identity from being changed or erased by a more powerful group might also spur a feeling of nationalism. In each situation, nationalism creates a sense of connection and commitment to a group with a distinct set of beliefs, ideals, and traditions."
(Cerulo, K. A. (2016). Nationalism. In World Book student. Retrieved from http://www.worldbookonline.com/student/ ... d=ar383740)
BTW, I purposely picked the South…..I added it because I knew that you would mention my picking the south. You have tendencies that you may not be aware of. We all lean one way or the other even when we feign neutrality. Those confederates were loyal to their vision of a Nation. You want to thread a needle with your innocent definition of Nationalism when everyone on the planet knows otherwise. That definition I posted was from Australia. I picked a foreign source to avoid the Woke, Liberal, post modern, PC claim.
EDIT:
Liberals have been stacking the SCOTUS?
My point is that everyone on the planet does not agree with your claim that there is no innocent definition of nationalism - in fact the very definition you provided includes a lot of "may"s - as it should.
I go do a little work and come back to find a wide scale debate has been raging from our little exchange earlier!
I agree with you that words get used in ways that some people find hard to understand, indeed find it easier to get their backs up and be offended rather than digging in to understand what is actually meant when the words are used.
But let me be clear, just as I have been with Salty a bunch of times...I'm a proud, patriotic American but I reject "nationalist" in all forms as a description of my beliefs.
why? Because I've studied the history of "nationalism" in all of its permutations throughout history.
Seemingly benign definitions simply don't describe how men have used the, at first glance, attractive aspects to drive evil ends.
We can go through all those permutations throughout history, including those that drove some of America's own worst behaviors, if you'd like, but if you take a moment yourself, I bet you can figure this out.
But put aside the simple, singular word "nationalist", it's incredibly clear that when we couple it as a phrase, as in "white nationalist", we mean the notion that a nation should be for the benefit of whites, not others, and that it's very definition as a nation implies racial identity. And when we use the phrase, "christian nationalist" we're describing a belief that a nation should be defined by that sole religion (moreover as only some christians define the religion!) and should be to the benefit of christians to the exclusion or detriment of other religions. These are inherently fascist beliefs, and I reject them wholeheartedly as fundamentally in conflict with the ideals of America about which I and so proud and patriotic.
Our country has not ever been, nor is it likely ever going to be, perfect in achieving these ideals, but these fascist, "nationalist" ideologies are in complete opposition to the striving to be "more perfect".
I suggest folks bother to understand the dangers, and why it's so important, rather than choosing, lazily IMO, to be offended by the words.