Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. But secondly - and this is much more important - I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. I believe Orwell’s analysis to be not only insightful in thinking about the social and political phenomena of his era (1920s-40s), but also prescient, particularly in connection with both the pervasive Social Justice (or Identity Politics) ideology and the rising National Populism in many countries:īy ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The ordinary meaning of “nationalism” is, for example, fierce promotion of the interests one’s own nation state, over the interests of others, or perhaps over the interests of citizens from other nations.īy “nationalism” Orwell meant something more general: a social psychological phenomenon connected to tribalism, unshakable self-righteous loyalities and polarization. In 1945, George Orwell published a quite well-known essay, “ Notes on Nationalism”, in the journal Polemic.īy the word “nationalism”, he did not mean its conventional meaning: an often quite strong allegiance to one’s official nation of birth or perhaps of naturalization.
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