Theories of Nationalism and National Identity: An Introduction 

Hahaha , i always did this when i was lazy to make the essay

What did you get grade wise

That's very kind of you to say - Thank you!

While I do not disagree fully with the idea of primordialism, it seems to me that it actually functions more on the basis of human nature to subscribe to socialization in general rather than a specific ethnicity or culture... at least in an "essentialist" kind of way. Someone raised since childhood in a foreign culture will eventually adopt the customs (including language) of that specific culture rather than retaining his "ancestors'". Also, describe what in the heck is an ethnicity. It often has a very broad meaning, and in many times what defines the difference between an ethnicity and another has changed A LOT throughout history as reasons for unification and desunification have come and gone in many different shapes over time. This whole "symbolic" unification factor for a nation-state honestly feels as concrete as any rando religion... So what does ethnicity even mean in this context to justify ethnonacionalism as a form of absolute unit for states? Does it include race? Does it include culture? A combination of both? I'd like the specifics.

Good comment.

Thank you! I use Adobe Premiere and After Effects

Huge fan as well! Always have been curious where do you find the footage for your videos?

I was going to say the same thing. Awesome video editing.

@@shqiptariidukagjinit5650 Exactly. Pride is ones nation is not a meaningless pursuit of vainglory, that interpretation assumes that everyone's perspective is limited to their individual interests when, in fact, these are inalienable and inseparable from ethnic interests in the mind of healthy person. People who have pride in their nation, and by that I mean their people and their land, not their football team, actually seek to benefit the wellbeing of their national kin. Schopenhauer was too willing to conflate the state and the nation when he made that statement, a good nationalist never seeks to limit the advancement of their nation or embrace something that harms their people. What a good nationalist might not do is foolishly welcome open season on their people. Yes, their may be faults and follies in how members of your nation are treating members of other nations (such as if the wellbeing of the ethnos is already secured, and you're inflicting unnecessary hardship on those outside your national or ethnic group), but you can not allow for critique to remain asymmetric or you will lose out, your people will become the oppressed. Historical precedent proves this.

Says doomer

@@Cheretruck_ lol thats what he's talking about

Could you possibly share it with me? I have to write an assignment on nationalism as well

@@deepalijoshi4631 if you do any further essays on nationalism, perhaps consider its pros. The nation, born of nationalism, is the required entity for modern democracies. Our democratic states would be unimaginable without the history of nationalising. Also, consider criticisms of anti-nationalism. In Banal Nationalism, Billig differentiates between hot and cold nationalism and says that most anti-nationalism is against hot nationalism while serving to hide cold nationalism. We also have to remember the history of Empires, such as the British Empire, who criticised struggles for national emancipation of countries such as Ireland.

How brave of you. You have convinced yourself of the veracity of the dominant view and will now be part of the order that upholds its hegemony. If anyone took the opposite interpretation to you, especially in regard to favourable interpretation of white (incl, ethnic) nationalisms, they would be punished: dismissed, socially nuked, even arrested. That much is probably a significant reason as to why you're so vehemently opposed to nationalism! Your access to alternative perspectives has never been complete, you have always been kept ignorant by the socio-political and technological factors that limit critique of prevailing orthodoxies.

I like the Ethnosymbolist approach. It can be classed as perrenialist. It suggests that nations are modern (though the model may have its roots in premodern proto-Nations, e.g. ancient Israel) and that these nations base themselves upon premodern ethnies.

​@@robertgould1345 Modernists address this as well to a degree. Anderson sees modern national identity as partly being constructed by selectively emphasizing stories and symbols from the past to create a national narrative.

Agree. I lived in Russia for 14 years, traveling during holidays, but never staying somewhere for too long, but then i went to school in Britain and in uni and now when i am back home i feel like i'm in a zombieland.

Me too I was born in a country but lived all my childhood in another one and now I am living in a third

Same here. I was born in one country, my lineage originates for another and finally I grew up in a completely different country

Somewhat relatable experience here. Except instead of living throughout different countries, I just simply remained anti-social for most of my life and have no connections to anybody because of a national flag.

@@asmodean7239 I wonder if you feel like that even more these days?

and christianity is slowly dying, and Islam to is kept alive more so in opposition to the west, against it, rather that for its own merit. The US is a lone bastion of faith in the west. In europe, especially central europe, noone goes to church anymore. Only the old christians remain, but there will be noone toreplace them. The richer a nation gets, the less it tends to believe in higher ideals. For such a world, a world in which the though of a god has been reduced to doubts by science, nationalism might be an adequate replacement for religion, so that there may be a shaded identity of the people to unite them

Brilliant

no no they’re just saying bc of the decline of religion caused by the copernican revolution and industrialization, nationalism became the ideal alternative to creating imagined communities. so u can say religion has a stronger hold of keeping people together but that wouldn’t be the case if generally less people believe in a form of a god ://

@@pia1945 Yes, well, I can't disagree with the presentation above. I'm just saying that, especially in the recent case of Takfirism (or Muslim extremism), religious fanatism goes beyond and deeper than nationalism.

@@freeriding666 yea but again that doesn't matter if less and less people adopt the religion HAHAHA but if u're just stating a fact then it's all good

Why?

Because a historical, genetical, lingustical, cultured, and logical image of realitiy - it is like this. :) By the facts. In the History of Humans the phrase "isolated human population" sounds almost like a nonsense.

@@Pilum1000 Do you think that isolated human populations not exist?

Sure. And even on Easter Island isn't like that; And don't tell me about it - because if they really exist you wouldn't know about them... :)

@@Pilum1000 But Basque Country and Sentinel Island what are?

you might like the ethnosymbolist approach to nationalism. It's a middle path between primordialism and modernism.

@@robertgould1345 Well actually I kind of surprised that he didn't mention it in this video. Arguably the best theory and most simple, yet it has a strong baseline and evidence in explaining nationalism.

American individualism only masquerades as nationalism. However to them America isn't really a nation, but a representation of their ideology. They only love America because they percieve it to be liberal individualism incarnate, and would cease to love it if that were to change. That isn't nationalism that's ideological tribalism(ironic)

Get a job then. Begging for money on RU-vid isn't going to work.

I loved the speed... any faster and I can't take mental notes/think on concepts.

But then you have to define _what is ethinicity._ Because it's such a vague and broad term that it can encompass just about any set of costumes and thoughts unless you're going for the extra specific and just use ""race"" as the main defining factor for ethnicity (please, tell me you don't use such superficial thing to defend national union. It is so wrong on so many levels and history itself proved that).

@@mekingtiger9095 Anthony D Smith, the main theorist of ethno-symbolism, defines an ethnie (ethnic group) as “a named human population with myths of common ancestry, shared historical memories, one or more elements of common culture, a link with a homeland and a sense of solidarity among at least some of its mem- bers.” His books go into more depth on what is and isn't an ethnic group. Ethno-symbolism does not refer to biological race to define either nations or ethnies. Like most theories of nations and nationalism, it accepts the part played by racism and race theory in nations and nationalism. Ethnosymbolism isn't pro-nationalist. It's a theory of how nations come to be and how they operate. For example, the imagined community of the nation of Serbia contains memories and symbols from a pre-modern ethnic group. These memories and symbols fuelled some of the atrocities of the Yugoslav wars. Also, I'm not pro-nationalist. I'm critical of nations and nationalisms. Ethno-symbolism appeals to me because it explains the symbolic differences between nations, the similarities of nations, and the influence of history, of elites, and of myths.

@@mekingtiger9095 As for the term ethnicity. Social studies of ethnic groups (my masters largely covered ethnic conflict) can be either broadly or narrowly defined.

@@robertgould1345 That sounds very, very interesting. Though I have lacked the references to search for, for quite some time now I've been quite a bit obsessed about learning and searching for answers about what forms and drives nations and how the creation of my own prison came to be... I'm also very, very critical of nations and nationalism, though my motives and base are quite different. I'm not driven by the discourse of "nations separate us" that most cosmopolitan leftists you see out there in this kind of discussion use. Instead, I'm on the very opposite end of it: Nations chain us, individuals, against our wills. I'm very libertarian leaning, and individualism and the claim for self determination down to each one of us is my go to path. I never asked to be part of the nation I was born and raised into. I never _wanted_ to be part of a nation to begin with. And yet here I am, being "defined" as "someone from nation X" because a bunch of political movements in the past said that we're stuck and chained to these... "national essences". And that's how deep down I am seen by both ingroups and outgroups. I wanted to be free to set my own path. Free to set my identity. I want to yell "I do not belong to a nation. Nor am I a 'citizen of the world'. _I am my own nation!"._ But nationalism just won't let me. When a nationalist says that it is human condition to always hang out with their "national peers", they are essentially saying that I have no choice but to be trapped and forever stuck with a bunch of people that I distaste so much. People who are just as strangers to me as anyone else. Nationalism doesn't divide us: It traps us! And from there you can also say it motivates the atrocities it has motivated throughout history by making people feel like they're somehow bound by fate to this phenomenon without a choice of their own, following the will of others and not their own... Human existence is a continuous struggle between the self, the individual and the collective, the struggle to create its own identity and to find a meaning or a purpose to his own life, and the way I see it, nationalism nothing more than a globalism applied on a smaller scale. If you don't mind, could you please cite the books that inspire you so much? This "ethno-symbolism" theory seems to try to answer many of the same questions that I have asked for so long.

You're welcome :)

In the description

Bah hambug!

The myth of the Nation didn't exist back then, only the republic. The Nation in Europe is a product of 17th century totalitarianism, and 18th century reformist republican movements.

You're confusing communitarianism with nationalism. The modern nation-state with it's ideas of sovereignty and identity didn't exist during classical antiquity. There was a shared conception of being 'Greek' however, but this was by no means a unifying conception; the Greeks were broken into various city-states (which for Aristotle was the highest form of community). Geller correctly points out it wasn't until the early industrial age that the notions of sovereignty, equal citizenship and national identity began to arise.

Furthermore, there are Neo-Aristotlelian philosophers, such as Alasdair MacIntyre who reject the modernist nation-state.

@@freeriding666 the word nation comes from natio which was the word used back then. The greeks lived in city states but these citystates are functionally nations. Nationalism is all over the ancient world it just isn't explicitly defined by the word nationalism. This communitarianism thing is nonesene, an intellectual slight of hand to try and make nationalism into an evil thing recently made up.

They need to.

I think ALL countries she preserve their own religions and cultures. They should not allow other religions in their countries. Saudi Arabia doesn't allow Christianity in their Muslim country. We in America should not allow Islam, or Judaism(?)in Christian America! Cultures should not change or be influenced by other cultures. Religious and Cultural Isolationism. King Jesus! ⛪🇺🇸😎😇

You mean paganism? Cause Christianity is Jewish lol

@@mattai2354 I think they were pointing out that Christianity has Jewish roots (the Old Testament is entirely Jewish and Jesus was a Jew).

@@БогданРезнік yes, paganism

How will that happen when you don't breed?

Why? How? European nations have never been essential or stable. National identities shift and change because populations of people, language, and cultural practices shift and change. On what basis should national identity be preserved? And how? It’s not possible boil people down to some essential state and then freeze them in place.

What's wrong with Napoleon?

Except... what exactly constitutes this ""kind""???

@@mekingtiger9095 that's only a question in ur deluded mind

@@grimwulf8547 And yet I live in a country with one of the biggest ethnic and cultural miscigenations across the globe due to a heavy influx of immigrants from many different places throughout history without barely anyone actively caring about separatism or buying into the idea of regional identity pride based on such things, so any "borders" you can try to draw between the individuals in here based on a specific social criterion are ultimately pointless because cultural assimilation is a real phenomenon and you can't just simply deny it. So tell me with this other question: Do you think these are universal values? Also, spoiler alert, but I do not buy into globalism either.

@@mekingtiger9095 kick em out

@@grimwulf8547 Well, I appreciate that you acknowledge my right to hate the people of my own country (which I do), but there's a little wittle detail I left out from the explicit radar: Said immigrants have already come over here generations and generations ago and now there's no going back as their descendants all assimilated into one same giant blob of a nation and they all identify themselves as sharing the same flag. Congrats, you've discovered that New World Colonial nations and countries outside of the US exist. Come to Brazil! And before you point out the violence, none of it has anything to do with ethnic tensions and instead it has more to do with people being scumbags in general. _At worst_ you'll see some considerable amount of police violence (even then it doesn't devolve into nationalistic separatism from any of the parties), but even the police itself isn't actually pure white european as you'd think they are. Go search their family tree and you'll find out... Soo, yeah, it's just a bunch of latinos beating down other latinos even though they're all latinos who formed different communities based on social classes, ideologies, politics and superficial phenotypes instead of actual shared ancestry (a considerable chunck of the population descents from Italians at some point in the bloodline, some regions even reaching more than a third or even half of it, and yet no one identifies themselves as Italian just so you can get an idea. This includes me aswell). . . Again, I do not play in favor of globalism. I hate my nation, but there isn't any group to pick apart here since each individual person is "random" in both ethnicity/race and culture practiced. There just isn't... Being brazilian is a civic phenomenon and not really a cultural one. And people just "go" with it despite everything. Unfortunately... For me, nationalism is nothing more than a globalism applied on a smaller scale.

I can recommend a couple of books. Theories of Nationalism by Umut Ozkirimli and another introductory book by Anthony D Smith. Smith is the father of the Ethnosymbolist approach and Ozkirimli is a big critic of Smith (I recommend Ozkirimli's paper 'Is the nation an artichoke?'.

DC ethnic identity creates an ideological mind . A mind traped within its past assumptions therefore an individual that cannot be within the present. He self creates or self replicates the very authoritarian institutions he hates. But now they manifest themselves as idea constructs. Finally unable to break out of ones very minds due to the lack of tools for ideological freedom he must resort to myths to tales of the subconscious. Its the ultimate trade. The man trades all his problems for one singular problems. One big sjw if u will.

Nani The Chaman Ethnic identity is what combats ideology. For example prioritizing blood over ideology prevents the extremes of ideology taking root. For example Armenian communists and anti-communists came together to fight Muslims. Obviously prioritizing blood over ideology allowed them to defend against this evil. The Soviet Union atrocities would not have happened if ethnic Russians were in charge. 85% were Jewish and the rest like Lenin were mostly either half Jews or married to Jews. Without Jews the gulags would have never occurred. The Soviet Union only started to change when the last non-Russian - Stalin- died and Russians came into control. Heidegger makes a similar argument in Being and Time about how for the truth to be revealed the individual must be placed in the context of an ethnic group and history etc. History has shown awareness of ones ethnicity and racial consciousness is the surest defense against authoritarian structures.

The obsession with​ ethnic identity is merely the obsession of a manufactured myth.

'Groups that embrace tribal identity will always conquer societies that are universalist.' Unless you are Nazi Germany

Jetpack Rorschach Ethnic identity is a biological drive as natural as the need to develop myths to reveal biological archetypes. What you call obsession is intellectual integrity to biological imperative - a dedication to use myth to reveal truths about our nature.