Yoram Hazony’s "The Virtue of Nationalism" sees the world as composed of two “antithetical” types of government: universalist empires and free nation-states. The problem is that everything in the book is forced into that all-inclusive doctrinal dichotomy. The Virtue of Nationalism, by Yoram Hazony (305 pages, Basic Books, 2018) Yoram Hazony’s The Virtue of Nationalism has the [...]
The nation-state, along with a broadly Christian culture, has always been the surest foundation for a classically liberal order. America’s ideals depend not on tribal loyalty to universal propositions but on loyalty to the tribes—and little platoons—from which our ideals arise... How do you gauge the health of a civilization? There are geographic and demographic, [...]
All is not well between the nation state and empire: Centre and periphery have their rules which at times collide, as witnessed of late. Are there any possible guiding principles that could minimize the force of collision? In 1887 the optometrist Ludwik Zamenhof published the fruits of his passion for constructing an artificial language in [...]
The militant nationalism of the twentieth century made it futile to assert clear ideas, to ask honest questions, to make reasoned judgments, or to engage in truthful debate… Permit me to begin at the end. Joseph Pearce is concerned with the power of an international bureaucracy and the advent of a world government that will [...]
Had the Nationalists carried the day in 1776 and turned the Continental Congress into a national government, implied powers would have been the normal constitutional practice from the moment of independence. The American Revolution, State Sovereignty, and the American Constitutional Settlement, 1765-1800 by N. Coleman (294 pages, Lexington Books, 2016) The Articles of Confederation that Congress [...]
We should see the nations of the world as distinct and beautiful flowers in the garden of culture. It is the love of this uniqueness of each nation which should inspire all lovers of national integrity to fight against the globalized monoculture that the globalist Imperium wishes to impose… In his essay “Towards Patriotism: An [...]
Some observers ascribe racist and anti-business sentiments to proponents of a new nationalist political order, but such pejoratives distract from alternative and more plausible explanations for populism’s contemporary popularity… There is much to commend in David Mr. Brooks’ latest op-ed, “The Coming War on Business,” but his assessment goes significantly astray from appraising accurately the [...]
Nationalism has not brought and will not bring unity, if for no other reason than nationalism insists on uniformity and must always exclude those who do not conform. Yet, if there is a chance to achieve some measure of unity, patriotism might enable it. In his thoughtful response to my essay, “History as Tragedy and [...]
A genuine nationalist cannot be an imperialist. In this sense, the so-called nationalism of the nineteenth century was nothing of the sort… Mark Malvasi’s recent essay on the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century was a cogent and thought-provoking appraisal of the dangers of politically orchestrated mob-patriotism. It was not, however, an essay that [...]
In their political offensive against socialism and democracy, many European statesmen of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries found in nationalism a convenient doctrine to electrify and exploit the masses… Karl Marx famously began The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by observing that Hegel “remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world [...]
President Trump and many “conservative” Members of Congress believe that it is the duty of the federal government to see to it that every American receives healthcare, regardless of cost. Anyone opposing the healthcare entitlement must be willing, or even happy, to see people die in the streets… There is much noise coming from Washington [...]
There are many ways in which the freedoms that we have taken for granted are being taken away from us. One of the most egregious is the way in which the rise of globalism has led to the ongoing erosion of national sovereignty. Does this matter? Are nations really necessary in an increasingly globalized economy? [...]
On the morning of June 24, the world awoke to a changed Europe. With the so-called Brexit referendum, the UK voted to leave the European Union, and as such, the EU lost one of its most important member nations. Almost immediately, there were calls from France, Italy, and the Netherlands to hold similar referenda, jeopardizing [...]
“Do you realize now what you have done?” So Vladimir Putin in his U.N. address summarized his indictment of a U.S. foreign policy that has produced a series of disasters in the Middle East that we did not need the Russian leader to describe for us. Fourteen years after we invaded Afghanistan, Afghan troops are [...]