Nationalistic feelings ...

The philosopher Goethe once said "Nationalistic feelings are at their strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.”

I tend to agree - what do you think?

 

Was Germany circa 1930 particulary uncultured? I don't think so...

...not that strong and violent nationalistic feelings are necessarily a bad thing anyway, as Britain would have become a German province without them.

 

Adam Smith, father of Capitalism:

Again and again, Smith warned of the collusive nature of business interests, which may form cabals or monopolies, fixing the highest price "which can be squeezed out of the buyers".[75] Smith also warned that a true laissez-faire economy would quickly become a conspiracy of businesses and industry against consumers, with the former scheming to influence politics and legislation. Smith states that the interest of manufacturers and merchants "...in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public...The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention."[76]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith

Prominent interpretation, as well as criticism, of Smith's views on the societal merits of unregulated labor management by the ruling class is expressed by Noam Chomsky as follows: "He's pre-capitalist, a figure of the Enlightenment. What we would call capitalism he despised. People read snippets of Adam Smith, the few phrases they teach in school. Everybody reads the first paragraph of The Wealth of Nations where he talks about how wonderful the division of labor is. But not many people get to the point hundreds of pages later, where he says that division of labor will destroy human beings and turn people into creatures as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human being to be. And therefore in any civilized society the government is going to have to take some measures to prevent division of labor from proceeding to its limits

Excerpted from Class Warfare, 1995, pp. 19–23, 27-31 Source:

http://www.chomsky.info/books/warfare02.htm

 

disagree it depends on the nationalists, the good nationalists have high degree of culture while the bad nationalists have low degree of culture

its okay for a nation to have strong nationalistic feelings and be most violent as long as they are truly being of their culture and fighting good wars like President Obama is doing.

so it depends final answer.

 

I generally think that they prevail not necessarily when culture is at it's lowest point but when the mood of the country in general is at it's lowest point, as was the case in Europe during the post World-War I era. People become untrustworthy and try to sort each other into groups.

 

Flag waving is a device employed by elites to ensure that the poor are sufficiently enthused to die for their causes.

It helps if the poor are also kept ignorant as well as poor. It enhances their belief in the efficacy of flag waving.

The papacy, American evangelism and British imperialism are all tributes to the concept.

Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and the Bushes thrived on largely imaginary threats that monied their constituencies and engineered social collapses, now transformed into economic collapses.

Now that the flags are silent, those that waved them are wondering what they waved them for.

And are counting their dead.

 

They make medals with ribbons, and attach a citation for valor, and award the flag to the fallen comrades family, while they foreclose on their house.

 

I tend to agree. Although I am also pretty skeptical of the term "culture".

 

that is a good presentation,

the corporations used the nationalism from 9/11 as a way to risk poor lives in oil profit wars

american corporations and evangelism can be compared to british imperialism, they have learned from the past but not in a good way.

 

What "British Imperialism" do you speak of? Thatcher's little preoccupation with the Falklands hardly qualifies.

 

Good lord.

Has 300 years of giving the Scots and the Irish an English way out of the misery you inflicted on them escaped you?

 

When a nation loses national pride that nation is on the way out. So.....when nationalist (patriotism) feelings are at their lowest....the nation is at its weakest. And the culture will soon be gone.

 

Tell that to the Germans who survived the Weimar Republic.

 

I don't understand your point.

 

OK. Tell that to the Germans who survived the hollocaust of WW2.

 

And your point is?

Perhaps you can tell me how a person can defend and die for their way of life....if they have no love for it? Which is...exactly what "nationalism" is. Having love for your way of life.

 

Does this mean American culture is becoming lower and lower?

 

American "culture" is today as real as American "exceptionalism".

It died in 1980.

 

You were talking about culture.

In which the Germans excel, despite their defeats, in ways that Americans can only imagine.

 

I think it is the oppsite. The more richer degree of culture people have, the more nationalistic feelings they possess.

We can look at the anicent civilized nations, like China, Egypt....

They are nationalistic all the time.

 

What a strange idea.

The Chinese, like the Indians, have a multitude of cultures.

None of which have produced "nationalism" in any sense not defined by their dictators. In India's case, there have been none, aside from the British-inflicted Hindu-Muslim thing.

The Egyptians were ruled for thousands of years by pharoahs. The "nationalism" you speak of in relation to them has nothing to do with their culture and everything to do with being released of their latest "pharoah".

Name of Mubarak.

 

Shared traditions, similar cultures, and speak the same language help shape national identity in a group of people, the longer the history a nation have, the more nationalistic they are.

 

Nationalism is the direct road to fascism. Point.

Nationalism is absurd. No sense. Nationalist is belief in something stupid: the nation. Nation is something artificial and changes every period of time. No sense being that. And also nationalism is the best way to exclude people, to be xenophobist... As I said nationalism leads to fascism.

How much nationalist you are more fascist surely you are.

 

I would think if this were true, nationalism would be much more prominent in America today. American culture is in the gutter and only getting worse, and the only people that even like America anymore are portrayed in the media as "extremists."

 

Maybe because they are

What is American culture? What is Spanish culture? What is French culture?

Can you tell me five things that define the American culture?