June
22nd 2011
Posted under Survival of the West & Western Civilization
We have covered the BNP some here at CHT. Here is a very interesting article by Colin Liddell at Alternative Right. He argues that Nick Griffin has become a drag on the Party and must go. I don’t profess to know nearly enough about the issue to have an informed opinion about it, but the article is informative.
I agree very much with the comments of Nightwatchstate. British nationalism is always going to be artificial because Britishness is artificial. What is needed is an English National Party, a Scottish National Party, a Welsh National Party, etc. that are rightist. I recognize that there is already a Welsh Party and a Scottish Party, but they are leftist in character.
Aaron on 22 Jun 2011 at 12:50 pm #
British nationalism is artificial only if you insist on calling it British nationalism. Of course Britain is not a nation, it’s a typical example of a multinational state. We all know that. So if you take the label nationalism seriously, “British nationalism” doesn’t make sense.
What does British nationalism really mean? From my outside viewpoint – the view of someone who’s not even interested enough to read the article you linked to – British nationalism looks like a combination of two things: loyalty to the racially British residents of Britain, and loyalty to the state and polity of Britain. In other words, it’s a combination of racialism (defined as loyalty to the race) and patriotism (defined as loyalty to the state and polity). I don’t think either racialism or patriotism is any more artificial than true nationalism, e.g., loyalty to the Welsh or Scottish nation. They’re all natural and they’re all artificial.
Bede on 23 Jun 2011 at 2:16 am #
I don’t know if I completely agree that Britishness is artificial. Bryan Sykes (in Blood of the Isles) shows that the British Isles as a whole are fairly homogenous at least in terms of ancestry. The various tribes are much more closely related than they previously might have thought.
But as you allude, the left-wing secessionist parties of the isles are useless. What’s the point of separating from London if you replace London with Brussels? Better London, than Brussels, I would think.
Aaron on 23 Jun 2011 at 3:58 am #
Dunno if this reply will get through the filter, but: The point of replacing London with Brussels is that Brussels will be much more sympathetic to your expression of Scottish or Welsh national identity. Brussels will not see it as the threat that London does.
Statehood is in some ways the enemy of nations, and the “European community” is in some ways the friend of nations.
Aaron on 23 Jun 2011 at 3:59 am #
Hey, it got posted! Red Phillips, I think my original comment in this thread is waiting in your queue.
Aaron on 23 Jun 2011 at 4:02 am #
Or maybe I just made a mistake posting my original comment. Anyway, to say it again more briefly: British nationalism looks artificial only if you take the word “nationalism” too seriously. Of course Britain is not a nation; it’s a multinational state. What “British nationalism” is, apparently, is a combination of racialism (loyalty to the “British race”) and patriotism (loyalty to the British state [against Europe] and polity). Racialism and patriotism, like true nationalism, are both artificial and natural.
Matt Weber on 23 Jun 2011 at 5:38 pm #
British nationalism makes sense…it’s based on there being something ‘british’ about the people on the isles. Or at least, it makes as much sense as it does to say there’s an ‘Americanness’ exhibited by all Americans. It’s not a matter of ancestry though, especially since it came about in the days of the empire, but has to do with cultural markers. I guess you could say that Britain is something of an artifact…the empire is dead and Britain is no longer a first rate power that has an interest in manipulating world events.
I really know nothing about the BNP though.
Bede on 23 Jun 2011 at 6:02 pm #
“has to do with cultural markers”
Culture has to do with how people customarily behave. To say the British are a particular way because they are that way is circular. Why do they share a particular system of folkways? At least part of the answer is sociobiological. William Graham Sumner’s classic study Folkways attempts to answer these questions. But, as John Derbyshire has noted, to say that a particular people are a particular way because of “culture” is almost a meaningless statement because it doesn’t address WHY they have the particular folkways they do.
Regarding the cultural and political endowments of the British, Gregory Clark provides considerable evidence to show that the basis for them is genetic.
Matt Weber on 23 Jun 2011 at 6:32 pm #
I’m not sure what you’re on about. I never claimed that ‘a people were a particular way because of culture’ I said that Britishness refers primarily to cultural markers, and does not describe an ancestry per se. In practice, cultural markers will line up generally along ancestral lines because most people live their whole lives in one place. But there’s nothing necessarily genetic about it, obviously because ‘Americanness’ is exhibited by various ethnic groups and their descendants.
Genetic reductionism and blank slatism are both fallacies that ought to be abandoned
Bede on 23 Jun 2011 at 6:43 pm #
Basically, a state can be a real nation (based in common ancestry, as the etymology for ‘nation’ implies) or an ideological construct (often an empire). “Americaness” in 1960, when according to that census the US was 90% European American, might have meant something. But today it has become, if it was not already before, an ideological construct. Perhaps not unlike the USSR or Yugoslavia.
Culture influences genes and genes influence culture. The two are intertwined. But to say that it’s only culture is Boasian nonsense.
” there’s nothing necessarily genetic about it”
What’s your evidence? This Boasian line (that culture primarily defines a people) is becoming less and less believable.
As Gregory Clark points out, there is overwhelming evidence that a genetic uniqueness underlies Britishness. To make your point, I think you would have to refute the evidence that Clark brings to the table.
Sempronius on 23 Jun 2011 at 7:16 pm #
“British nationalism makes sense…it’s based on there being something ‘british’ about the people on the isles.”
British nationalism makes about as much sense today as Hellenistic Greeks dividing themselves along, say, Dorian and Ionian lines. Or Italians during the Dominate making a fuss over being Latins or Umbro-Sabellians. Though I wouldn’t expect a Brit or an American Anglomaniac to comprehend it. (I personally would love to see England EXPELLED from the EU; they would starve, and be cured of nationalism and Euroscepticism for all time.)
P.S. See here:
http://www.europeanaction.com/id9.html
P.P.S. The Caracalla of Chronicles Mag has finally scored a hit! And what he said bears some relation to what is being dicussed here:
“There is not point in calling for an end to American adventurism, because that is not going to happen. Such appeals are almost as fatuous as Secretary Gates’s recent whining that the Europeans are not paying their fair share of the cost of ruling the world. I did not think that a rank amateur would have to point this out to the poor fellow, but since WWII we have take it upon ourselves to rule as much of the world as we can. If you want to rule the world, you have to pay your way and not expect your subjects to pony up. If the Europeans are going to develop serious military establishments, we shall not long remain the world’s only remaining superpower (if we are in fact still that.), because our allies will share power with us. If we don’t want to share imperial responsibility, then there is no alternative to paying much more than our fair share.
Fish or cut bait. Either fight these wars to win and take the territory and assets of our victims or keep out. Either accept our role as imperial hegemon and pay for the privilege or share power with our NATO allies.”
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2011/06/23/obamas-retreat/
Matt Weber on 23 Jun 2011 at 7:17 pm #
“But to say that it’s only culture is Boasian nonsense.”
Fantastic, but no one actually said that. What you seem to have misunderstood is that I was commenting on what Britishness is defined as, not what actually causes the behaviors general to the people of the British Isles. If the cause was wholly genetic, then one would of course be making an indirect ethnic reference when talking of Britishness.
I take it as obvious though that genetics is not a sufficient explanation for cultural differences. To say otherwise is to say that behavior is not caused by people actually making real decisions between real alternatives but rather by them stupidly following a hardcoded genetic program. If that’s what you want to think then have at it, but I’ll stay off that bandwagon.
C Bowen on 23 Jun 2011 at 8:13 pm #
It’s worth recalling that the BNP had/has? a strong contingent of Ulster-Scots: “Ulster will remain British” – there was some tactical method to their presentation of a British nationalism.
I’ll skip other parts of the history of the party, but I want to mention , Raimindo a year back, dumped on the BNP with the usual bromides as they had crossed his blindspot, but this was short-sighted and went against the purpose of antiwar.com.
The BNP, and really, Griffin, are anti-war (sure, these wars) and have been vocal critics of the wars in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan which are not in the interest of his people.
Sean Scallon on 24 Jun 2011 at 2:02 pm #
“What is needed is an English National Party”
Agreed. Once you get past trying recreate Britannia, which is impossible, then you can move on towards the future which would be a small scale English Nationalist party, fighting against a transnationalist elite, giving people more power over their daily lives.