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Is the Future Post-Nationalism ?


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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_nationalism#Canadian_post-nationalists

If you click that link you will go to the Wikipedia page on Canadian Nationalism, and go to the section on Canadian post-nationalists with exactly one name: Justin Trudeau.  What kind of leader is considered post national ?  

I really don't know the answer of whether post-nationalism will ever come to pass, ie. countries will be severely deprecated in terms of their power but I find the idea attractive for a few reasons:

- Nations are a more recent construct than people realize.  McLuhan postulated (and I believe him) that map and printing technology made it possible to homogenize a culture and language over a land and as such countries as we know them are really Renaissance-era creations.  
- As such, a central and distant government controlling a wide area is an example of economies of scale, and the trade off for common defence and economic security is resentment from the provinces (in Canada that's Alberta, Quebec, Newfoundland).
- The central leaders call forth a tribal emotionality to bring us together under a common banner in order to unify this false construct.
- That construct is repeated and used by other central powers (such as marketers) to evoke emotional responses towards those powers' goals.  ( Buy Tim Hortons or a "Canadian" Ford truck)
- There is even an idea that devotion to this higher power supersedes that to ones family, religion, or other tribal group.
- The powers that be themselves (political leaders in Canada often have multiple citizenships, the wealthy are allowed to move their power proxies - corporate persons - across national borders without passports) are not subject to the rules of fealty here any more than the Popes and Bishops followed the rules of religion they imposed on the little people

At the same time, without Nationalism we are in a foreign moralistic vacuum in many ways.  I do love Canada, its people, and its practices.  I especially the Judaic habit of constantly asking the same questions over and over again: who are we ?  where are we going ?  why ?  If there's anything that's Canadian it's asking "What is a Canadian" over and over.  If countries wither, I hope that they all become Canadian (at heart, not geographically).

Thoughts ?

Edited by Michael Hardner
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10 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_nationalism#Canadian_post-nationalists

If you click that link you will go to the Wikipedia page on Canadian Nationalism, and go to the section on Canadian post-nationalists with exactly one name: Justin Trudeau.  What kind of leader is considered post national ?  

An idiotic one? Trudeau's belief in Canada being a 'post national' state arises from the currently popular belief among many progressives that English Canada has no culture, has no values, has no common traditions and beliefs. Other than, perhaps, multiculturalism. This is done both to put a sense of superiority and swagger to their prog creds - for no good prog fails to sneer at western culture and values - and to virtue signal about ones respect, openness and inclusiveness towards immigrants and foreign cultures and values.

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- Nations are a more recent construct than people realize.  McLuhan postulated (and I believe him) that map and printing technology made it possible to homogenize a culture and language over a land and as such countries as we know them are really Renaissance-era creations.  

Yes, but the absence of nations is not unity but further division. Before there were nations there were hordes (literally) of warlords, barons, chiefs, kinglets, princelings, dukes and the like who all ruled their little territories with iron fists and warred incessantly against one another. Combining many of them into a 'nation' at least meant there were fewer, albeit bigger wars.

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 The central leaders call forth a tribal emotionality to bring us together under a common banner in order to unify this false construct.

We will always have leaders, and they will always do the same thing, on whatever scale.

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At the same time, without Nationalism we are in a foreign moralistic vacuum in many ways.  I do love Canada, its people, and its practices.  I especially the Judaic habit of constantly asking the same questions over and over again: who are we ?  where are we going ?  why ?  If there's anything that's Canadian it's asking "What is a Canadian" over and over.  If countries wither, I hope that they all become Canadian (at heart, not geographically).

Asking 'what is Canada' is not something conservatives generally do so much as lamenting the loss of a unified canada with its generalized traditions which brought us together and gave us a sense of shared understanding. For example, I saw a youtube video of the US Air Force band doing a 'flash mob' thing at a museum. There they unapologetically played Christmas carols to enthusiastic applause. I don't believe any federally operated institution would ever allow this in Canada now, for if it did it would fear receiving all manner of outraged complaints from the Left and from paid-to-be-outraged ethnic group representatives. Non Christians, be they Jews, Muslims, athiests, Hindus, Sikhs, or whatever, are not to be unexpectedly subjected to such 'non inclusive' music for fear they might be offended. Blah. Meh.

Edited by Argus
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4 minutes ago, Argus said:

An idiotic one? Trudeau's belief in Canada being a 'post national' state arises from the currently popular belief among many progressives that English Canada has no culture, has no values, has no common traditions and beliefs. Other than, perhaps, multiculturalism. This is done both to put a sense of superiority and swagger to their prog creds - for no good prog fails to sneer at western culture and values - and to virtue signal about ones respect, openness and inclusiveness towards immigrants and foreign cultures and values.

...

Yes, but the absence of nations is not unity but further division. Before there were nations there were hordes (literally) of warlords, barons, chiefs, kinglets, princelings, dukes and the like who all ruled their little territories with iron fists and warred incessantly against one another. Combining many of them into a 'nation' at least meant there were fewer, albeit bigger wars.

Well, there are two alternatives to in the case of absence of nations... either thousands of really small independent jurisdictions (i.e. city states), or a single one world government which claims to represent all of humankind. Presumably, progressives who believe in "post-nationalism" envision a utopian future where all humans live under a single world government, as often portrayed in science fiction. When I was a teen, that sounded like a great idea, why shouldn't all mankind be united under common laws and a common purpose? Obviously, I've since come to not like the idea so much. Even a loose association like the EU is continually on the brink of failure, and those nations all share many common interests, cultures, history, etc. Placing even more disparate nations under the same governance would only cause more problems. 

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5 hours ago, Argus said:

An idiotic one? Trudeau's belief in Canada being a 'post national' state arises from the currently popular belief among many progressives that English Canada has no culture, has no values, has no common traditions and beliefs. Other than, perhaps, multiculturalism. This is done both to put a sense of superiority and swagger to their prog creds - for no good prog fails to sneer at western culture and values - and to virtue signal about ones respect, openness and inclusiveness towards immigrants and foreign cultures and values.

You just made a fruit basket of liberal swipes.  Nicely done.

Anyway, it is kind of dumb to call a nation a post-nation nation.

5 hours ago, Argus said:

Yes, but the absence of nations is not unity but further division. Before there were nations there were hordes (literally) of warlords, barons, chiefs, kinglets, princelings, dukes and the like who all ruled their little territories with iron fists and warred incessantly against one another. Combining many of them into a 'nation' at least meant there were fewer, albeit bigger wars.

That sounds good, if you were born in 1800.  Not so much if you were born in 1900.  

 

5 hours ago, Argus said:

We will always have leaders, and they will always do the same thing, on whatever scale.

So they may be leaders of the block, or of the world ?  What ?

 

5 hours ago, Argus said:

Asking 'what is Canada' is not something conservatives generally do so much as lamenting the loss of a unified canada with its generalized traditions which brought us together and gave us a sense of shared understanding. For example, I saw a youtube video of the US Air Force band doing a 'flash mob' thing at a museum. There they unapologetically played Christmas carols to enthusiastic applause. I don't believe any federally operated institution would ever allow this in Canada now, for if it did it would fear receiving all manner of outraged complaints from the Left and from paid-to-be-outraged ethnic group representatives. Non Christians, be they Jews, Muslims, athiests, Hindus, Sikhs, or whatever, are not to be unexpectedly subjected to such 'non inclusive' music for fear they might be offended. Blah. Meh.

I was just at a Christmas party thrown by a Muslim.  Nobody exploded.

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5 hours ago, Argus said:

lamenting the loss of a unified canada with its generalized traditions

This strikes me as Canadianally funny.  'Generalized traditions' sounds like a way to cover up having no traditions.  Of course that's not true but on the other hand, are there more provincial and local traditions than national ones ?  Likely.

 

https://twitter.com/MadelnCanada/status/934112677063933952

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6 hours ago, Bonam said:

Well, there are two alternatives to in the case of absence of nations... either thousands of really small independent jurisdictions (i.e. city states), or a single one world government which claims to represent all of humankind.

It could just mean a bunch of countries run differently with different ideologies & laws, and so you can move to whichever one you prefer based on that or on jobs etc but not nothing to do with national identity.

Personally, since we live in a world of nation-states, I don't want to be the guinea pig for this project. It could be brilliant, it could be an epic disaster.  I would like to think Canada should have a unifying national identity that binds us all together.  I don't see how a healthy state can exist without a unifying national force...I could see that resulting in sub-national identities like Quebecois or Chinese-Canadians etc. wanting more of their own sovereignty & their own nation-state to protect their own culture, leading to the country breaking up aka Balkanization.

This is a very dangerous idea Justin is too naive and uneducated to realize.

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1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

The future.  After nations.  It's already happening.

I don't really see it. While it is true that the world is more connected now than before, and more people travel from nation to nation, and cultures mix more across nations than they once did, still national governments are also increasingly asserting themselves all around the world. Where a few decades ago there was essentially two supra-national alignments, one was either in the orbit of the USA or the USSR, today dozens of nations around the world are expressing their nationalism, consolidating their power and their culture, etc. 

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9 hours ago, Bonam said:

I don't really see it. While it is true that the world is more connected now than before, and more people travel from nation to nation, and cultures mix more across nations than they once did, still national governments are also increasingly asserting themselves all around the world. Where a few decades ago there was essentially two supra-national alignments, one was either in the orbit of the USA or the USSR, today dozens of nations around the world are expressing their nationalism, consolidating their power and their culture, etc. 

So you gave 4 points there - 3 to support my side, and one (weaker one IMO) to support yours.  Can't we say that governments asserting themselves across borders is a sign of the melting and therefore dissipation of countries as bordered, one-peopled entities ?

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11 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

You just made a fruit basket of liberal swipes.  Nicely done.

Thanks. But was it untrue?

11 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Anyway, it is kind of dumb to call a nation a post-nation nation.

That sounds good, if you were born in 1800.  Not so much if you were born in 1900.  

If you were born in 1800 you probably had a lot more knowledge/education in history than if you were born in 1980.

11 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

So they may be leaders of the block, or of the world ?  What ?

There will always be larger entities. That's the way we think now. The more small government you have the less likely anything gets done on a larger scale. Take the native problem. How do you negotiate with 600 'nations'?

11 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

I was just at a Christmas party thrown by a Muslim.  Nobody exploded.

I don't think most of the Muslims/Jews/Hindus would object. It would be progressives who would object, along with self-styled ethnic leaders. The Toronto District School board just removed police from schools even though the overwhelming majority of people believed they should stay or were ambivilent. They responded to about 10% who were indignant that police were there and 'felt threatened'. Politicians, particularly the craven set we now have in office at all levels, respond in spineless fashion, to the loudest voices.

If a Canadian air force band started playing Christmas carols (carols, not music) in the our air museum the NDP would be fuming about how this favored one religion over another and might have offended others.

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11 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

This strikes me as Canadianally funny.  'Generalized traditions' sounds like a way to cover up having no traditions.  Of course that's not true but on the other hand, are there more provincial and local traditions than national ones ?  Likely.

https://twitter.com/MadelnCanada/status/934112677063933952

I was speaking defensively. Because sure as shit if you talk about Canadian traditions someone is going to say "We never did that!" But that doesn't mean hockey and Christmas and summers at the cottage and fireworks and barbques and a whole host of other things aren't Canadian traditions. And nations build unity on shared traditions and values.

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Michael, you're partially right about the Renaissance era: the modern European-style "nation state" is a result of the Peace of Westphalia, I am informed. However, I doubt that we will enter any kind of post-national world any time soon. Politicians are beholden to their voters, who have to worry about their political survival, and their political survival depends on their constituents--not those of other nation-states.

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4 hours ago, JamesHackerMP said:

 Politicians are beholden to their voters, who have to worry about their political survival, and their political survival depends on their constituents--not those of other nation-states.

WE now have an international union of journalists who are uniting in a global investigation against the robber barons (Yes, I said it !) that skip borders in order to withhold tax revenues.  The ICIJ is investigating the Panama Papers and people should know.  See the podcast below.

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Gerard Ryle is the director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, who are behind the Paradise Papers, the Panama Papers and other similar investigations.

Major revelations are continuing to come out of the Paradise Papers in Canada and around the world.

http://www.canadalandshow.com/podcast/man-behind-paradise-papers/

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