Question

What is nationalism? Using historical examples, show how nationalism has both been a force for good and a force for cruelty. On balence, does nationalist identity serve or harm the development of societies?

Answer 1

Nationalism, philosophy based on the premise that the allegiance and commitment of the individual to the nation-state outweigh all interests of the individual or of the community. Nationalism is a state of the art movement. Throughout history, people have been attached to their native soil, to their parents ' traditions and to existing territorial authorities, but it wasn't until the end of the 18th century that nationalism began to be a generally recognized ideology that influenced public and private life and one of the greatest, if not the greatest, single determinants of modern history.

The argument against nationalism is both political and strategic: we don't believe in nationality-based value of life, and so we can't use that notion to achieve our end goals. In the end, we need to come up with other ways of connecting people to a common good and fostering cohesion in a way that is not hostile to difference. It's not easy but it's definitely not as hard as trying to shoehorn our universality and equality values into a definition founded on the exact opposite of those things.

Translated into world politics, nationalism means the alignment of the state or nation with the people or at least the desirability of deciding the state's nature in accordance with ethnographic principles. The idea was generally recognized in the age of nationalism, but only in the age of nationalism, that each nationality should form a state its state and that the state should include all members of that nationality. Formerly states were not delineated by race, or regions under one government. Citizens were not loyal to the nation-state, but to other forms of political organization: the city-state

Those of us who are committed to social justice will resist oppression in all its forms–including national oppression, which bleeds so effortlessly into colonialism, racism and imperialism, not to mention patriarchy. There's no question that there are' pitfalls to national consciousness.' But the battle for liberation from national exploitation is an aspect of the fight for human freedom from all structures of domination. We should never doubt this. This only adds fuel to the fire of resurgent national chauvinisms among leaders of powerful nations, thus facilitating the development of consent to neo-imperial plunder