Make no mistake: tribalism is one of the strongest human drives, and this is hardly surprising. For some millions of years we lived in hunter-gatherer bands. Our ancestors who loved their own groups and outcompeted others survived, and we inherit this mentality.
Modern expressions of tribalism include nation-state nationalism, ethnic prejudice, sports fandom.
"...I have chosen the word "nationalism", but it will be seen in a moment that I am not using it in quite the ordinary sense, if only because the emotion I am speaking about does not always attach itself to what is called a nation -- that is, a single race or a geographical area. It can attach itself to a church or a class, or it may work in a merely negative sense, against something or other and without the need for any positive object of loyalty.
By "nationalism" I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled "good" or "bad." But secondly -- and this is much more important -- I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. ...
The following are the principal characteristics of nationalist thought: ...
All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage -- torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians -- which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by "our" side. ...
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. ...
Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. ...
There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when "our" side commits it. Even if one does not deny that the crime has happened, even if one knows that it is exactly the same crime as one has condemned in some other case, even if one admits in an intellectual sense that it is unjustified -- still one cannot feel that it is wrong. Loyalty is involved, and so pity ceases to function. "
-- My bold -- ed.
"This book contains the most convincing theory of nationalism I've seen, and has profound implications for anyone concerned with modern history, contemporary politics, or the possibilities of multi-culturalism. ...
N.B. This book is not to be confused with the same author's Nationalism, finished just before his death and published in 1998 by New York University Press, which is a far more compressed presentation of the same thesis."
"... the National Question -- whether the U.S. (or any of the great polities of the West) can survive as a nation-state, the political expression of a particular people."I should go on record as stating that I am broadly against the survival of "the" nation-state / nation states,
"... nobody in this new administration will ever, ever say anything at all about what Peter Brimelow calls "The National Question" -- which is actually many questions. What does it mean to be a citizen of the U.S.A.? Does our nation have a common language? A dominant religion? Common moral values ? How many new Americans do we want each year ? From where? What colors, languages, religions, political traditions would we prefer among our immigrants, in what proportions? How well educated would we like them to be? Does the first sentence of the first section of the 14th Amendment need revising? If a very large and populous nation, growing daily in wealth and power, declares itself our enemy and boasts of having nuclear missiles targeted on our cities, should U.S. citizens who have family connections in that nation be employed at top-secret U.S. weapons labs? Is there any federal concern when local school boards in receipt of federal funds, or tertiary colleges partly financed by federal taxpayers, use history textbooks that concentrate almost exclusively on the wickedest deeds of previous generations of Americans, and teach our kids that the culture to which their parents give allegiance is the most evil and degraded of all the cultures that have ever existed? If government and corporate favors are to be given out preferentially by race, what—precisely—is the working definition of "race" for these purposes? I am English by ancestry, my wife Chinese. What "race" are our children, for the purpose of seeking "affirmative action" preferences? What, exactly, is the case against giving immediate independence to Puerto Rico and the Pacific territories? That it would save us too much money?"
"The essential similarity between nationalism and conservatism is a quasi-organic view of society. Unlike liberalism and socialism, which are abstract and critical ideologies, nationalism and conservatism are characterized by fixed allegiance to particular communities. Human nature is not abstracted from society, and society is not abstracted from particular societies. Each particular society is held together by shared beliefs, customs, institutions, language, etc., hallowed by time and evolving (usually) without conscious direction.Emphasis and links are mine -- ed.
The essential difference between nationalism and conservatism is that conservatives champion "tradition" in general, while nationalists champion one very specific tradition: nationality. Nationalism thus offers a positive and coherent alternative to liberalism, which conservatism does not. ...
Historically, conservatism was born as the defense of the late feudal system that was overthrown by the American and French revolutions. For the conservative, society is hierarchical, requiring traditional authorities such as monarchy, aristocracy, and established church to maintain order and continuity. ...
The alienating and deracinating ideologies of the Left can only be countered by reminding people of certain basic truths, such as the social nature of humanity. ...
Nowadays, most conservatives rely on traditional religion (which is rationally indefensible, and of waning influence) to lend substance to mere tradition; those who don't worship God, usually worship Mammon instead. In their defense of capitalism, they come perilously close to encouraging a sort of anti-social, money-grubbing selfishness that is more libertarian than conservative. If you want to arouse the desire to belong to something bigger than yourself, you sure can't do it that way."
"This FAQ was inspired by, and uses or paraphrases some questions from, the Conservatism and alt.revolution.counter FAQs by Jim Kalb."
"Professor Robin Dunbar is an evolutionary psychologist (at the School of Biological Sciences of the University of Liverpool) with an interest in the behavioural ecology of primates – in the interrelations between primates and their environment. ...So for modern humans: Our tribes are about 150 people; Our "close friends and family" are about 12 people.
'In primate species, total group sizes may be quite large', he explains, 'but individual primates usually belong to a smaller social sub-group, on which they rely for support when conflicts break out. The number of regular grooming partners they have may be much smaller, though. For instance, chimps belong to social groups comprising about 50 individuals, but they have only two or three grooming partners.'
Robin Dunbar used the volume of the neocortex -- the ‘thinking’ part of the brain -- as his measure of brain size, because this accounts for most of the brain’s expansion within primates. He found that both measures of social complexity correlated with relative neocortex volume in primate species. ...
Thanks to his ground-breaking work, and the follow-on studies which it stimulated, numerous features of primate social behaviour can now be predicted from neocortex volume -- from the time devoted to social interaction, the level of social skills and the degree of tactical deception practiced to community and coalition size. We can also predict when social groups will split up because their size is unsustainable; Robin Dunbar’s research shows that the volume of the neocortex imposes a limit on the number of relationships that individual primates can sustain in their mental model of their social world. ...
Humans are primates, too -- so do they fit into the pattern established for monkeys and apes? ... The results were… ~150 for social group size, and ~12 for the more intimate clique size.
He subsequently discovered that modern humans operate on a hierarchy of group sizes. 'Interestingly', he says, 'the literature suggests that 150 is roughly to the number of people you could ask for a favour and expect to have it granted. Functionally, that’s quite similar to apes’ core social groups.' "
"The most striking exhibit dealt with 9/11. Here they had one of the World Trade Center support beams on show, 30-feet long but twisted like a pretzel, and an entire fire engine that had been dug out of the rubble, and all sorts of bits and pieces of personal property found among the wreckage. Going from one to another of these commonplace objects, all dusty and battered and fire-scarred, you grasp something of the horror of what happened -- of what was done to us -- that terrible bright morning. I came away filled with rage all over again. We must never forget this. We must hunt these people down if it takes decades, and find them all, and all those who shelter and support them, and kill every one of the swine, every last one, and give their bodies to be eaten by dogs."
Mr. Derbyshire and I are toward opposite ends of the political spectrum.
I have great respect for him, based on my limited exposure to his writing.
I count him as a good example of my dictum that
"right-wing" thinkers
tend to come across as intelligent but callous, while
"left-wing" tend
with unfortunate frequency,
to come across as well-intentioned but dumb.