Nationalism – a failure of Marxist theory?
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In an article in the New Left Revew ( "The Modern Janus", Nov/Dec 1975) , Tom Nairn pulled no punches. As he bluntly put it, the "theory of nationalism represents Marxism 's great historical failure"
How can it be that "working men", having no country (as the Communist Manifesto assuredly informs us), still feel impelled to morally identify in their droves, and with such passionate conviction, with this abstraction they chose to call "their" country – even to the point of laying down their lives for it? Such folly seems to belie the claim that it is "economic interests" that motivate individuals to do what they do. Another writer, Benedict Anderson, offers the suggestion that it may have something to do with secularisation and the decline of religion – that we seek compensation, as it were, for our own mortality and personal extinction through the immortalisation of the nation which survives us – though he does not go so far as to suggest a direct causal connection between these things. What he proposes instead is that nationalism be understood in the light of those "large cultural systems that preceded it, out of which – as well as against which – it came into being "(B. Anderson, 1983, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London, p.19) All of which brings into sharp focus the role of ideas, beliefs and values in changing society
There are some who are also of a radical political persuasion who take a somewhat different approach to the question of the nation than does traditional Marxism. Despite the close association of nations and nationalism with the rise of modern capitalist states, these individuals have sought to uncouple these things, to see in the "nation" a kind of organic mystical connection between the people and the land which an intrusive state had somehow effectively severed or suppressed. Rob Knowles in his article "Anarchist Notions of Nationalism and Patriotism"(http://raforum.info/spip.php?article2221) looks at some of the main protagonists of this viewpoint during the formative period from the middle of the nineteenth century up until the First World War. These included such anarchist luminaries as Proudhon, Herzen , Bakunin and Kropotkin.
Of particular interest in this context are the ideas of the German anarchist, Gustav Landauer. Landauer once commented that "if I want to transform patriotism then I do not proceed in the slightest against the fine fact of the nation…but against the mixing up of the nation and the state" (Charles B Maurer, Call to revolution: the mystical anarchism of Gustav Landauer, Detroit , Wayne State University Press, 1971, p.263). It was loyalty to the nation-state, not the nation as such, that was objectionable. Landauer saw the nation as a natural grouping based on shared ethnic, linguistic and cultural characteristics and embodying what he called a "geist" or "cohesive spirit" which disposed individuals to colloborate spontaneously in their common interests as an organic community. The state, by contrast, was an entirely artificial construction. Under the state, this organic community could not flourish. The state effectively served as a surrogate for the geist that had originally bound together the community, compelling individuals to cooperate when their natural instincts would have inclined them to do this in any case. Socialism, as he put it, is "a return to nature, a re-endowment with spirit, a regaining of relationships" (ibid p.96).
So, which side of these debate are you on? Do you side with the Marxists who see nationalism as a form of false consciousness that obscures class divisions and thus impedes the realisation of a classless communist society? Or do you side with the anarchists like Landauer who regarded nationalism or patriotism as a positive virtue but something totally separate from an attachment to the war mongering nation-state?
Discuss…
robbo203 wrote:All of which brings into sharp focus the role of ideas, beliefs and values in changing society[my bold]So, workers are confronted with only the choice of either regarding 'ideas, beliefs and values' as part of 'changing' things (like society and its knowledge) or of regarding 'materialism', which tells them that 'material conditions' (not 'ideas, beliefs and values') 'changes' society?Given the choice between a 'nationalism', which gives room to human input, or a 'materialism' which tells us that the rocks speak to us, I know which any thinking human will go for.And it's not 'materialism'….[the mod can delete this, too, and hide another criticism of the simplistic two-answer choice of 'idealism' or 'materialism'. Because that's exactly what the 'materialists' reduce 'nationalism' to, to a mere form of 'idealism', and so the 'materialists' are baffled as to why workers would choose an 'idealism' which goes against what the rocks are saying… 'why won't they listen to their 'material conditions'? They must be stupid…']Whatever happened to 21st century science, which can provide humans with social and historical answers?
LBird wrote:Given the choice between a 'nationalism', which gives room to human input, or a 'materialism' which tells us that the rocks speak to us, I know which any thinking human will go for.But Nationalism doesn't give room to human input: its very point is it essentialises and reifies "national characteristics" and removes them from debate. It is 'inevitable' that different nationalities will compete and struggle for dominance "good fences make good neighbours" and all that.
The statist 'marxists' have spent the past 120 years seeking the progressive in Nationalism. The result? Socialists cheering the butchery of the trenches, giving left cover to massacre of workers from Berlin to Nanjing. Sowing illusions in nationalist parties as short cuts to socialism or alibiing the bestial murderers of the 'anti imperialist' Isil/ ISIS.
Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird wrote:Given the choice between a 'nationalism', which gives room to human input, or a 'materialism' which tells us that the rocks speak to us, I know which any thinking human will go for.But Nationalism doesn't give room to human input…
'Nationalism' is a human idea, YMS.The sooner we acknowledge that 'Socialism' is a human idea, and try to develop that, and stop pretending that 'material conditions' produce ideas, that, in effect, 'rocks talk to us' (which physics and mathematics tell us is not true), then the sooner we can make a start.The choice is: do we want 'national science' or 'socialist science'?There is no 'science' which has a method which avoids politics.Whilst socialists claim to be 'materialists', the nationalists will make hay.If I were a worker ignorant of social and historical development, I too would sooner listen to nationalists, who stress my humanity and community, than listen to materialists, who stress that I should listen to the rocks.I'd know that I can't hear rocks, and would have to listen to some 'special humans' who can hear the rocks. These are the very people who are telling me that 'rocks talk'. It wouldn't take long to figure out that, in reality, rocks do not talk, and the 'special humans' are bluffers, who can't hear rocks either, but just want to bulshit me, and take control for themselves.Cadre-priests, using Latin-maths, and denouncing democracy.At least the nationalists emphasise the vernacular and the need for unity between all of the nation.As liars, the nationalists' lies work; as liars, the materialists' lies don't.
But they don't emphasise your humanity, nationalism denies humanity, and instead interposes nation, and denies humanity to other nations. It also emphaises the idea that the world cannot change, since the nation is an organic whole as it is and is unchangeable. The fact is, it is science that punctures the lies of nationalism, and demonstrates that us talking rocks are all basically the same the world over.
BTW, regarding the thread title: "Nationalism – a failure of Marxist theory?".It needs to be read as "Nationalism – a failure of Engelsist theory?".Then we can get back to employing Marx's 'idealism-materialism', which places human 'theory and practice' (ie. critical ideas and creative change) at the centre of our philosophical assumptions.Whilst 'Marxism' is identified as 'Materialism', this can't be done, as many socialists have said since at least the 1920s.And why the SPGB, a party which claims to emphasise both the need for the conscious development of all workers and the need for democratic methods, adheres to a bourgeois science (which bourgeois thinkers have already broken) that undermines consciousness as 'idealism' and undermines democracy in favour of 'elite experts', then it will continue to attract 'individuals' who claim to know better than their comrades (these 'individuals' won't accept democracy in their own learning) and who claim to have a philosophy, 'materialism', which denies the power of workers' ideas for their criticism and creativity.At least nationalism lauds ideas and community, not rocks and individuals.
This is very revealing, nationalism seeks to make humans into rocks. Of course, Marx flirted with Tremaux, until (it seems from correspondence) saved by Engels, on the very connexion between rocks and people.
YMS wrote:The fact is, it is science that punctures the lies of nationalism, and demonstrates that us talking rocks are all basically the same the world over.That is 'materialism'. An ideology that denies ideas.In fact, we know that our human knowledge of 'rocks' is social and historical, and so is not 'basically the same the world over'.You're either ignorant or a bluffer, YMS. I'd warn workers off you.You won't have criticism and creativity in your understanding of rocks, and insist that, in a conservative fashion, that once known, rocks are known forever, and thus stop human progress.As socialists, we have to have a critical, creative and democratic method to understand and change our world.Once knowledge is fixed, as the materialists allege, then it can't be criticised or changed.The 'materialists' claim to know the mind of god. It is a religion.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Of course, Marx flirted with Tremaux, until (it seems from correspondence) saved by Engels, on the very connexion between rocks and people.Completely correct.Which shows that Engels was confused (compare his critical views then, with his later 'materialist' nonsense), and that Marx could be wrong (which he seems to have accepted, and dropped the ideas of Tremaux).That's why we workers, today and tomorrow, have to think for ourselves, and stop putting any people on a pedestal.I put my faith in all humans using democracy, rather than an elite pretending to have a 'neutral method'.
If humans are not basically the same the world over, how can they be expected to have any equality of say in running society? Let's not forget, that nationalism doesn't "just happen" it is the product of a vast process of material production, from mass media, to civic performance. The material culture of sports helps produce, reproduce and reify nationalist ideas. It's not a coincidence that a lot of effrot went into nationalism as a direct counter to the workers mvoement and its internationalism.
YMS wrote:If humans are not basically the same the world over, how can they be expected to have any equality of say in running society?The usual ahistorical and asocial estimation of 'humans the world over'.Have you never heard of Karl Marx, and his theory of 'modes of production'?'Humans' are actually 'social products', and so different societies will produce different 'individuals'. Unhappily for your bourgeois liberalism, which insists to you that 'you are an individual', Marx's ideas insist that if you had been born in a different society, you would be a different person. And you wouldn't regard yourself as 'an individual'.And societies 'change'.Your ideology disagrees with this view, and so you can ask questions about 'expectations' in a universalist fashion, whereas Marx would have situated any 'equality of say' within a social context, different from the one we live in, now.'Equality of say' would be a product of a class conscious proletariat, in its attempts to build for Communism. This 'equality of say' will apply to all products of their society, including scientific knowledge.
YMS wrote:It's not a coincidence that a lot of effrot went into nationalism…But, according to your materialism and scientism, this 'effort' is not required by the mass of workers, because either 'the rocks put in the effort, as the active component in knowledge', or the 'elite-experts put in the effort, which can't be expected of the mass of thick workers'.You won't have democracy, YMS, because you see yourself (and academics) as 'special individuals', who, because they have acess to a 'neutral scientific method', don't require, and can ignore, the views of the 'mass'. You won't have a vote on your 'Truth'.Unless workers challenge philosophers and scientists on the level of ideas, they will always be in thrall to 'elite-experts'.At least Adolf and Benito openly claimed to be the one 'elite-expert'. In that particular sense, they spoke more truly to workers than your bourgeois science does.
YMS wrote:If humans are not basically the same the world over…Further to my previous post, it's this ahistoric and asocial attitude to 'the world' which is 'basically the same' for all 'humans', that simply can't understand why other, non-bourgeois societies, like Native Australians, Americans and Canadians, turn to drink when confronted with 'The Bourgeois Truth' about 'reality'. These pre-capitalist societies simply don't understand 'rocks' in the same way, and so regard what they are told, and how they are told to live and understand the world, as simply 'madness', and so descend into social chaos, and their societies fragment, relationships break up, involving drunkeness, etc.Unless 'science' is located in historical and social context, and its products, like 'knowledge of a rock' are regarded as social (not The Truth), and so are criticiseable and changeable, then drunkeness will seem like the best option to many, who regard bourgeois science as a form of madness.I myself have drawn this herioc conclusion…
Quote:'Humans' are actually 'social products', and so different societies will produce different 'individuals'. Unhappily for your bourgeois liberalism, which insists to you that 'you are an individual', Marx's ideas insist that if you had been born in a different society, you would be a different person. And you wouldn't regard yourself as 'an individual'.There seems to be an echo in here, since that was exactly what I was saying, that humans are basically identical, and the offspring of one "nation" transplanted into another would grow up exactly the same as their fellows. All humans have basically the same bodies and the same brains, and will react to the same circumstances and material conditions in roughly the same ways, so that social being will determine social consciousness, or something like that.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Quote:'Humans' are actually 'social products', and so different societies will produce different 'individuals'. Unhappily for your bourgeois liberalism, which insists to you that 'you are an individual', Marx's ideas insist that if you had been born in a different society, you would be a different person. And you wouldn't regard yourself as 'an individual'.There seems to be an echo in here, since that was exactly what I was saying, that humans are basically identical, and the offspring of one "nation" transplanted into another would grow up exactly the same as their fellows. All humans have basically the same bodies and the same brains, and will react to the same circumstances and material conditions in roughly the same ways, so that social being will determine social consciousness, or something like that.
[my bold]You must live in a different universe, YMS, never mind in a different ideology, if you think we're 'saying the same thing'.As for the much misunderstood "social being will determine social consciousness", the first term is 'social being', not simply 'being', as the materialists read it.So, your notion that "All humans have basically the same bodies and the same brains, and will react to the same circumstances and material conditions in roughly the same ways" is complete bollocks.In fact, humans 'react to the same circumstances and material conditions' in totally different ways, because those 'humans' live in different societies and thus have different 'social beings'.You're basically claiming, YMS, that 'the rocks talk to humans', and we must listen to them and obey them.Bourgeois science at its very best. You can predict 'human behaviour' from 'material conditions'. And bollocks to ideology, ethics, beliefs and the social production of understanding.And any affront to this 'materialist ideology' is damned as 'Idealism'. Because it involves 'ideas'.Marx, the original idealist-materialist, would weep.
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