Nationalism- take Ireland

[Darren Mac an Phríora]

Am posting this in this forum as I think there should be debate on nationalism in history class in schools and well because I can't think of another forum.

"The Different Drum"- M. Scott Peck

"There is, however, a kind of illegitimate nationalism, or national pride, that should be opposed, both in others and in ourselves. Just as there is a difference between "rugged" and "soft" individualism, so there is a difference between a healthy amount of independence and a state of being in which a nation insists that it be beholden to no one and that it will exercise its right to be a law unto itself.
...

How to discern between healthy and unhealthy nationalism is a critical task in our shrinking world. For the reality is that there are some places on the globe where the development of nationalism needs to be encouraged while simultaneously there are others where further development of nationalism needs to be vigorously discouraged.

The key to the discernment between healthy and unhealthy nationalism clearly, then, centres around this issue of identity development, in which the notion of the self- the "I- entity"- as a separate entity is an illusion. We are all, in reality, interdependent.

Ultimately we are called out of national narcissism and away from purely local identities toward a primary identity with humanity and a state of global community. Still, one must possess something before it can be given up. We cannot begin the work of forsaking our identity until we have developed one in the first place. So it is that the proper pattern for the development of nations if, first, growth into nationalism, then growth out of and beyond nationalism. The discernment between healthy and unhealthy nationalism, therefore, requires that we have an accurate sense of where a nation is in its historical course of development."

M. Scott Peck- The Different Drum- 1990- page 288-289

Typed up this post a while ago but then deleted it by accident so I am late posting it up. As I said earlier I am now independent politically again- and interested in policies- and I apologise for going over the top over the years criticising some people on this site in particular Bertie Ahern and Dermot Ahern.

I would see myself today as being a post-nationalist. I aspire to a united Ireland but this is not going to happen for decades- three at least. "Post" in the sense of politically. So, I am personally nationalist, but politically post-nationalist.

Thoughts??????????????

[cry freedom]

Excellent post.
For myself, I have never understood why love of Ireland had to be synonymous with hatred of England.
But then, for some people this hatred is their raison d'étre

[southwestkerry]

Very well put piece, although i can tell you I believe that the UK well drop its claim to N Ireland before the next 30 years as with the current pace off things the UK well have more pressing matters to interest them.

[GabhaDubh]

Please list in your post-nationalist phase, what you, as an individual view as healthy nationalism.

[The_Big_Fellow]

Very well put piece, although i can tell you I believe that the UK well drop its claim to N Ireland before the next 30 years as with the current pace off things the UK well have more pressing matters to interest them.

Agreed, many people think that the national question will be decided by a vote. Nonsense, it will be decided by Westminister, and we'll get to vote for a Fait Accompli. Britain will hardly be able to afford anything in a radius outside of Somerset in years to come, never mind the North of this country. People will say that we can't afford it, well guess what folks. The Labour party or the Conservatives will not give 2 craps, cause they'll have bigger problems rather than maintaining the North.

Has anyone looked at their financial position,they are as bad as us. Given their exceptionally poor Jan. tax intake, they are on course to outpass Greece.

[The_Big_Fellow]

Am posting this in this forum as I think there should be debate on nationalism in history class in schools and well because I can't think of another forum.

"The Different Drum"- M. Scott Peck

"There is, however, a kind of illegitimate nationalism, or national pride, that should be opposed, both in others and in ourselves. Just as there is a difference between "rugged" and "soft" individualism, so there is a difference between a healthy amount of independence and a state of being in which a nation insists that it be beholden to no one and that it will exercise its right to be a law unto itself.
...

How to discern between healthy and unhealthy nationalism is a critical task in our shrinking world. For the reality is that there are some places on the globe where the development of nationalism needs to be encouraged while simultaneously there are others where further development of nationalism needs to be vigorously discouraged.

The key to the discernment between healthy and unhealthy nationalism clearly, then, centres around this issue of identity development, in which the notion of the self- the "I- entity"- as a separate entity is an illusion. We are all, in reality, interdependent.

Ultimately we are called out of national narcissism and away from purely local identities toward a primary identity with humanity and a state of global community. Still, one must possess something before it can be given up. We cannot begin the work of forsaking our identity until we have developed one in the first place. So it is that the proper pattern for the development of nations if, first, growth into nationalism, then growth out of and beyond nationalism. The discernment between healthy and unhealthy nationalism, therefore, requires that we have an accurate sense of where a nation is in its historical course of development."

M. Scott Peck- The Different Drum- 1990- page 288-289

Typed up this post a while ago but then deleted it by accident so I am late posting it up. As I said earlier I am now independent politically again- and interested in policies- and I apologise for going over the top over the years criticising some people on this site in particular Bertie Ahern and Dermot Ahern.

I would see myself today as being a post-nationalist. I aspire to a united Ireland but this is not going to happen for decades- three at least. "Post" in the sense of politically. So, I am personally nationalist, but politically post-nationalist.

Thoughts??????????????

Sounds like Mr Peck has been reading too much Marx at a young age, and has developed a complex regarding Nationality and the difficulty that many Socialists have with it. Ie that all nationalism and cultures are just manifestations of the ruling class, a way to keep the working class down.

I do not buy it. Nationalism does't have to be aggressive, but it does entail standing up for ones rights and liberty and cultural identity. Such thoughts are why we now have our independence and why countries all over te world threw off Empires. Why the French resistance fought the Germans (mostly) and why 40-50 dutch people fought them as well. People confuse Nationalism with the actions of Fascist Germany. Of course that is over the top Nationalism, but it is a minority. There are many Darren Prior that would say that the way that you spell your name here was narrow nationalism, they are wrong and are coming from a highly idealogical and dangerous point of view.

[arcadeparade]

Teaching Nationalism is good if it encourages independence, but not hate or arrogance of others.

What we really need is an education system that teaches people to think for themselves.

[Thranduil]

"There is, however, a kind of illegitimate nationalism, or national pride, that should be opposed, both in others and in ourselves. Just as there is a difference between "rugged" and "soft" individualism, so there is a difference between a healthy amount of independence and a state of being in which a nation insists that it be beholden to no one and that it will exercise its right to be a law unto itself.

If a nation is not a 'law unto itself' on matters relating to it's internal nature and inside it's internal borders then who is the 'greater law'?

However i agree with the general sentiment as it is applied to nations that seek to go beyond their borders and make claims on things that are not theirs, sometimes nationalism is involved there and yes, it is very unhealthy.

How to discern between healthy and unhealthy nationalism is a critical task in our shrinking world. For the reality is that there are some places on the globe where the development of nationalism needs to be encouraged while simultaneously there are others where further development of nationalism needs to be vigorously discouraged.

More importantly who is given this task? Who could claim to have the right to decide when a nation's self expression oversteps a mark? Surely not some self appointed cadre of intellectuals and journalists i hope, if nationalism is to be put onto a different course it must be with the blessing of the will of the people of the nation as a whole, it's closely linked to the principle of self-determination. 'Vigorously discouraged' is a key term in his thinking (the 'vigorously' bit perhaps needs some extrapolation) - obviously it is silly to suggest forcing a people to adopt an ideology they do not want to and nationalism has always been a popular movement (of the populace) does he mean it should be opposed even against the will of the people of those nations as a whole?

We are all, in reality, interdependent.

Yes we are and so we must cooperate with each other in order to satisfy our own needs, but we do this already anyway and have done for the last few decades.... it's hardly a new concept. We can become interdependent to a degree that fulfills our needs and retain our sense of nationalism (our identity with nation) at the same time, they are not mutually exclusive.

We cannot begin the work of forsaking our identity until we have developed one in the first place.

We don't need to forsake our identity in the first place.

Sounds like Mr Peck has been reading too much Marx at a young age, and has developed a complex regarding Nationality and the difficulty that many Socialists have with it.

There are two planet-spanning ideologies that oppose nationalism and i think Marx is dead so that just leaves neoliberalism, which may be worse than Marxism. Anyway, taking neoliberalism and Marxism both ultimately aspire to doing away with democracy, in the US they have been so bound up in the tentacles of private power/wealth that they are openly talking of removing the vote from less well off sections of society and we have already had warnings of the way the EU hierarchy thinks about the vote of the common person. Nationalism need not always be egalitarian but a valueing of the idea of the people is always codified to some degree within it.

[Mitsui2]

It seems to me that the historical tendency in Ireland since independence to continue to define nationalism as being in one way or another "against" the former imperial power - in our case Britain - provided an easy and shallow place to park the collective national brain.

Given something concrete for Irish nationalism to be against, there was little or no incentive to worry our heads about what we as a nation were for. Equality? Fairness? Honesty? There was no need to properly debate these thorny issues so long as there was old John Bull to give out about.

Naturally this suited those in control perfectly well, and for decades - while Britain and elsewhere took on hundreds of thousands of those that our own failing island either could not provide for or had in one way or another chewed up and spat out - our leaders could always rely on a mention of British perfidy to unite us in pulling on the proverbial green jersey.

As a result of a sort of collective mental unwilingness, exhaustion or laziness we - as a nation - permitted the growth over the decades of the sort of inequity and rottenness in both politics and society whose fruits stand starkly revealed today, with our various coteries of elites simply presuming that they can preserve themselves in the syle we allowed them to become accustomed to while the rest of the country sinks. I cannot think of a single one of the institutions which ruined us - politicians, bankers, the self-syled "elites" of both Church and State - which does not have a long and consistent history of behaving exactly as they are behaving now, and yet they were permitted to continue in a manner which bred in them only greater impudence.

The explosion of the Northern situation in the 1960s should have exposed our cosy thinking as the fantasy it was - and indeed it did do so, rationally speaking. But as a nation we have proved to be very slow learners, and even now it doesn't seem to me that there has ever been any genuine national discussion in Ireland about who or what exactly we want our nation or indeed ourselves to be. For my part I find it increasingly hard not to think that we left it too late: the die is cast, and such questions are no longer very much in our control.

[Thranduil]

Teaching Nationalism is good if it encourages independence, but not hate or arrogance of others.

What we really need is an education system that teaches people to think for themselves.

This OP was posted in education so i presume the suggestion/point the OP is making is to foster (no pun intended) an education system that weeds out nationalist sentiments? Advocates of that approach should recal that they did it in the North over the decades, no nationalist history was taught and the people there will always be more in touch with their national identity (ironic considering many consider them British whether they like it or not) and history than those in the Republic perhaps ever were since independence. I guess you have to be careful you don't overdo an agenda based teaching scheme or it becomes transparent and you only engender rebellion against it (i myself remember being taught that nationalism should be regarded as kin to fascism in secondary school).

Telling the story of the 16 rising in a manner designed not to connect with nationalism is tricky, likewise recounting the 'famine', the penal laws, the struggle for freedom before that etc in a dispassionate tone that suggests the reader should connect no more with this than any other part of global history might be hard to pull off, dealing with the loss of language and culture as just a step on the path to 'modernity' might be easier (given how students seem to feel about the language and how many of our young are addicted to modern, foreign trash).

I fully agree with your last suggestion and in that vein it is not teaching to go overboard with a one-sided OTT nationalist agenda either, maybe a too hot ideological approach to teaching is just never a good idea.