Posted under Europe & Globalism & Political Philosophy
… now that devolution’s there …
But here’s one commentator who isn’t happy that old empires are being replaced by human-scaled political formations. As the super-sized nation-state totters and reels, historical cultural affinities are spontaneously reviving themselves:
In its place comes a vast phalanx of somewhat ill-defined racial types, clamouring for recognition — from Catalonia, the Basque region, Flanders and the two Galicias, from Transylvania, from Friesland, Brittany, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, ad infinitum.
The author, Rod Liddle, tries to delegitimize the revival of historical identities as “tribal stuff” which he dismisses as “the most atavistic and baseless of principles.” But why, if identification with one’s extended family is baseless, has it defined human history so profoundly, and, more important, why does it continue to shape current events (including today’s never-ending presidential campaign)?
Mr. Liddle indulges in the nihilism and extreme sceptisicm that multicult/globalists often resort to in claiming that races don’t exist because, so they claim, it’s impossible to put anything into a category — especially people:
Which brings us to what is meant by ‘English’, that race represented by a patron saint from Cappadocia or maybe Palestine, which converses in a modern derivative of low German, was created by an invasion from France and whose gene pool is hopelessly mingled with that of our Celtic neighbours and that of any number of influxes from France, from the Jewish diaspora, from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
This kind of thinking can be shot down with but a whiff o’ logic. Aristotle’s categories are just as appropriate for human categories as they are for anything else. Folks like Mr. Biddle assume that an other-worldly ideal must be the starting point for any system of knowledge; since all attempts to pack reality into those ideals fail, then knowledge is impossible.
Pshaw! Let’s instead work with what’s real and build our ideas around that. A nation, just like an individual, arises from a whirlwind of apparently disparate and accidental causes. What’s more, both nation and individual never stop adapting. That’s the real world philosophical idealists can’t explain, and therefore dismiss as not quite real. However, Aristotle’s categories of substance, relation, place, and time correpond well with our understanding of genetic history, family ties, nationality, and history. Richard Weaver provided one of the best explanations of how categories are essential to human knowledge. In his essay, Status and Function, he wrote:
… we see things maintaining their identity while changing. Things both are and are becoming. They are because the idea or general configuration of them persists; and they are becoming because with the flowing of time, they inevitably slough off old substance and take on new. The paradox of both being and becoming is thus continuously enacted. We say that there is a “nature of things,” but this nature ever appears in a changing embodiment, so that if we attended only to the latter, we should no sooner say of a thing that “it is” than we should be obliged to say “it was” or “it is now something else.” It is an ancient observation that “no man steps in the same river twice,” yet we continue to conceive it as a river and to call it by one name. At one and the same moment permanence holds us enchanted and change urges us on. Visions of Order, p. 23.
Existence, argues Weaver, is identified by both status and function, that is, by what a person or thing is and what he or it does. There is something essential that lives on despite the changes a thing, person, or culture experiences. The same applies to nations, says Weaver:
The same process is visible even when we look at the political state. It persists under one name, and it may even affirm in its organic law that it is indestructible. But its old leaders pass on or are removed, and new ones appear. But while these individual particles are being shuffled and replaced, “the state” goes on, maintaining some character and identity through all these changes. The most conservative state must yield something to the pressure of historical increment, and the most “progressive” one conserves something that it considers its special form and spirit.” Visions of Order, p. 24
With that in mind, notice that Mr. Liddle eventually stumbles upon the answer to his own objections:
But when I examine precisely what it is to which I feel allegiance, I find that it is that bleak and discredited notion, the nation state: Great Britain. It is Britain, not England, with which I feel a shared identity and, try as I might, I cannot separate the southern province from the rest simply because we say ‘now’ instead of ‘noo’ or ‘noy’ …
And isn’t that the whole point? We’re in an age of redefining who we are. When I was younger, it was the Free World vs. the Soviet Bloc. “We” included Americans, Danes, and others, such as Vietnamese south of the 17th parallel, while “they” were Russians, Chinese, and Vietnamese north of the 17th parallel. Despite the “universalism” of their Marxist-Leninist ideology, ancient loyalties split the Russians and Chinese and united the Vietnamese.
The massive influx of legal and illegal immigrants from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean that Liddle tries to list as just one more component of British identity is actually corrosive to it. That’s why floodtide immigration is simultaneously dissolving the idea of “Britishness” while focusing attention on the actual and historical meaning of “Englishness.”
Meanwhile, in the last days of the republic once known as “America” …
jamesvkruse on 24 Apr 2008 at 5:57 pm #
If this guy is saying that England was created by the Norman conquest in 1066, he’s sorely mistaken. It was already a nation for hundreds of years, created by the immigration of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Celts. Perhaps he should read the book, “How the Irish Saved Civilization.”
James on 24 Apr 2008 at 7:12 pm #
Its very interesting to me that when Europeans and the decendants of Europeans (ie. white people) become interested in asserting their regional, ethnic and racial identities the Left describes it as “atavistic and baseless of principle.” But, when non-white, non-Europeans become more attached to their identities its wonderful and great.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 24 Apr 2008 at 7:21 pm #
jamesvkruse,
A very good point, and an excellent book recommendation. It is an eye-opening read.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 24 Apr 2008 at 7:24 pm #
James,
Yeah, you noticed, huh? Isn’t it strange how they do that?
I remember reading an article in my hometown paper about Chinese children in Charlotte whose white adoptive parents decided to get together. One of the little girls was quoted as saying, “It was just wonderful to see a room full of people just like me!”
Do you think they’d publish a story about white kids discovering their lost heritage in such glowing terms?
roho on 24 Apr 2008 at 8:58 pm #
I like the fact that the new leader of France has made a decision to rally nationalism, and embrace their Frenchness. And I respect their right to do so. Perhaps “Mongrelism” will cease to be posh again someday.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 24 Apr 2008 at 9:19 pm #
roho,
I like Charlene Spretnak’s characterization of the rise of affection for one’s land and heritage: “The Resurgence of the Real.”
RonL on 24 Apr 2008 at 10:04 pm #
I thingk you misunderstand what is going on. It is not about ethnic groups regaining identity or any form of nationalism. It is merely a mixture of grievence politics and ethnic squabbles over redistribution of income within Eurabia.
The traditional nation-states are dead, and what we are seeing is identity politics like those in the US.
It is the antithesis of anything conservative.
Look how the BNP opposes immigration reform while supporting Labor in deconstructing Great Britain.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 24 Apr 2008 at 10:39 pm #
RonL said,
“It is the antithesis of anything conservative.”
As opposed to the forced multiculturalism the governments of Britain and the US are imposing on their subject populations?
If opposing “immigration reform” (expanding the government’s Open Borders policy”) isn’t conservative, then what is? If we are made a minority in our own lands, what’s left to conserve?
Weaver on 25 Apr 2008 at 6:52 am #
RonL writes:
In what way is the BNP helping to deconstruct GB? You refer to the decentralisation policies? Why are these bad?
The fear I have is but that the Celts will come to hate the “English” (as if there were much difference among the nationalities – they’re all intermixed now according to what genetic data I’ve seen) and will focus hatred on them while allowing in mass immigration and remaining dependent on the EU. However, as HarrisonBergeron2 says, there is no historical “British” nation. Britain is a supranation.
Only a united Britain could be easily free of the EU, even if “united” means highly decentralised, but a renewed nationalism could potentially reinvigorate an otherwise dead nation.
Weaver on 25 Apr 2008 at 6:57 am #
RonL writes:
This is very true when looking at how various faux-nationalist parties support mass immigration and other far left policies. Just as in America how everything is blamed on whites, especially old stock whites, in Britain much is blamed on the English, and they have a better work ethic than the Scots.
However, unlike in America these are rooted nationalities roaring, with real blood and soil and history to build upon and guide. It’s a shame that hatred is so often the driving force of nationalism, but tis nationalism all the same. In America we’re but united by fear and hate of al Qaeda, as well as fear and blame of white people (among American ethnic nationalisms) of course.
I think if any sort of American or Southern nationalism is to be renewed it should be through love of something, not hate. Movements founded on hatred are perhaps too easily captured and redirected as well as being artificial in that they’re lacking a real center, as well as lacking tenacity.
roho on 25 Apr 2008 at 1:06 pm #
I now see the GWB and UBL relationship much like the relationship between Howard Cossel and Cassius Clay. (They created, promoted, nurtured, and needed each other.)
HarrisonBergeron2 on 25 Apr 2008 at 1:36 pm #
roho,
Good one! Although I think W’s done more for UBL’s agenda lately.
Marvin Gardens on 25 Apr 2008 at 8:31 pm #
That Free World stuff only served to destroy identification with one’s own nation. I’m glad that crazy age of Cold War is over, and that genuine love of country is returning. It’s driving the Neocons nuts, and that’s why they’re trying to find a new enemy to scare us into another false sense of unity.
This post is correct. The people who work with me from London have English, not British flag decals or plates on their cars.
Good post, Mr. Bergeron2!
roho on 25 Apr 2008 at 9:08 pm #
My roots go all the way to Sherwood Forest 1679…………..”Tally Ho”!
RonL on 26 Apr 2008 at 12:01 am #
HarrisonBergeron2 wrote:
“As opposed to the forced multiculturalism the governments of Britain and the US are imposing on their subject populations?
If opposing “immigration reform†(expanding the government’s Open Borders policyâ€) isn’t conservative, then what is? If we are made a minority in our own lands, what’s left to conserve?”
I did not make myself clear and I made a serious typo. I ment “SNP”, Scottish Nationalist Party, not the “BNP”, or British Nationalist Party. The SNP isn’t nationalist so much as revanchist.
It British terms, immigration reform is restriction.
The Scottish Nation Party opposes immigration restriction because it is destroying Britishness.
It is similar to IRA thugs kneecapping immigration restrictionist in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland.
As for the BNP, they have not distanced themselves sufficiently from their actual Nazi-supporting roots for my liking.
Weaver on 26 Apr 2008 at 5:08 pm #
RonL,
that sounds apt for what the leading non BNP nationalist parties push for.
They hate Britain, including every nation within, and push for a break up, a joining of the EU, and an opening of the borders.
Andrew T. on 26 Apr 2008 at 5:19 pm #
Weaver,
The BNP are welfarist social democrats. With policies like theirs, who needs Nazi connections in order to suck?