Two nationalisms

Eric Voegelin (see earlier posts) somewhere mentions that nationalism was the spiritually inferior successor to medieval Christianity. Other conservatives (or people now thought of as conservative) have also seen nationalism as an evil to be transcended by some form of internationalism. Ortega y Gasset, for example, says somewhere that the creation of a European union is the major historical task facing the Europeans of his time. The German conservative writer Hermann Rauschning—about whom more later—held similarly that nationalist conservatism could no longer be a constructive political influence:

There is no room any longer for a nationalist Conservatism, only a European one. One of the fundamental changes in Conservatism is this release from narrow nationalist patriotism, since the civilization that has to be rescued and conserved is the common possession of the West. In this sense the idea of the Third Reich ["Third Realm"], before the National Socialist usurpation, was a Conservative idea. In Moeller van den Bruck's original conception it was not a German idea, it had no nationalist limitation; it was a political idea of European scope . . . .

(Germany's Revolution of Destruction, 1939, p. 121.) By contrast, contemporary conservatives tend to view the European Union, the fruit of postwar internationalist sentiments held by both Left and Right, with fear and loathing, as the embryo of a new left-wing totalitarian tyranny under which dissenting voices will be silenced and all initiative crushed in the name of "tolerance" and "equality". Many conservatives now also regard the EU project as a mortal threat to the survival of national identity.

Were the prewar conservatives then simply wrong? The key point here, I think, is that the term "nationalism" can refer to different things. As Voegelin mentions, the traditional nationalisms of the major modern European nations, such as Britain and France, and adopted by Germany in the nineteenth century, were of a virulent form. A formerly united Christian moral community was divided into compatriots and foreigners ("wogs begin at Calais"), and the good of one's own national community was regarded as the summum bonum. National churches tended to displace international Catholicism, even in the remaining Catholic countries. One's own nation was chauvinistically considered to be the centre of civilization. Remnants of this nationalistic self-importance still persist in France, for example, despite that country's reduced cultural and political standing. Such an attitude was perhaps a precondition of the fratricidal First World War among the European powers. The experiences of the twentieth century justly discredited this kind nationalism in the eyes of Europe, or perhaps one should say of the European élites.

There is another, healthy kind of nationalism, though, which is also threatened by ill-conceived internationalizing movements. This might be called the nationalism of small countries—because small countries, unless they are very exceptional, cannot reasonably regard themselves as the centre of the moral or cultural universe. Probably no Welsh person regards Wales as the source of all that is good in modern civilization. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of such countries can deeply love them. If their nation has a genuinely distinct culture, they may also see that it has, as a national unit rather than as an aggregate of individuals, something to contribute to a wider (for example, Western) culture. British conservatives of the early 20th century used to call this the "national vocation". Smaller nations can more readily regard themselves as culturally unique and therefore significant without being supremacist. Once larger nations lose their supremacist inclinations, they may be ready to adopt this moderate kind of nationalism too. It would probably be a positive sign if an English nationalism, for example, regarded some variety of Celtic nationalism as its model (despite the excesses to which Irish nationalism has been prone). Another good sign would be for nationalists from different countries to genuinely respect one another, rather than merely make tactical alliances against homogenizing internationalism.

On a political level, any form of centralized government tends to unduly suppress local variety and autonomy. In the classical liberal view, culture is properly not a project of government at all, but of individuals and voluntary associations. Cultural unity on a European scale (for example) requires not extensive political control from Brussels, but the absence of military threats within Europe, together with the freedom of movement and communication across national borders. A NATO-type military alliance, as a means of securing peace among European countries, might well be a more appropriate foundation for a healthy European culture, composed of thriving national elements, than a federal union aiming explicitly at the creation of a common European culture.

Unfortunately, the danger remains that a moderate nationalism may be sharpened into the older chauvinist variety, for the reason that our own age is spiritually deprived, and therefore liable to ruin any good thing by turning it into an idol. (This has happened, for example, to "human rights".)