Why I’m a Nationalist
On the Utility of the Nation-State
Patriotism varies, from a noble devotion to a moral lunacy. — William Ralph Inge
As a Libertarian in the Lockean tradition, I’m not against the state per se. Rather, the state is justifiable insofar as it contributes to the common good, which itself is the maximal preservation of Mankind, who are God’s property. The state is a tool in which I believe we can utilize to this end, but as a libertarian, I believe the tool is best used minimally.
One utility I believe the nation-state does have, which I have much more conservative support for, rather then support from liberals and most other libertarians, is in conserving unity through national identity, to the extent of giving preference to the language, customs and people of the nation. Or, to reformulate the definition of a nationalist (in the sense I use the term),
Some person P is a nationalist if they believe we should give preference to people who share our customs, history, and language through national identity, up to the point of violating the natural rights of those who don’t share our customs, history, and language through national identity, unless not doing so would mean the violation the rights of those who do share customs, history, and language through national identity.
Some people might carry their nationalism up to the point of defending abhorrent ideas, taking away the rights of others, and promoting a general sense xenophobia. However, this more minimal definition of nationalism will be all that I’m defending. Here I will give two arguments in favor of this position.
The Familial Argument
When it comes to giving people who are closer to us preference, it’s already not out of the ordinary, nor is it seen as abhorrent. Consider the following scenarios,
A trolley is heading towards your son, you can move it, but the result will be that pushing it will cost the lives of five other people. What do you do?
My intuition would be to that preferring my own to five strangers would not be wrong. This is an intuition not only held by me, in fact when looking at what we could do with our money, we’d much prefer to give our children more than the children of much poorer nations, who would gain more benefit from it. This is a point brought forward rather well by Steven Weinberg during the moving naturalism forward conference.
As Steven Weinberg astutely observes,
I could probably increase the total amount of happiness by making my family live on rice and beans, in a one bedroom apartment, and just barely keep enough money to keep us alive and healthy and send all the rest of the money to poor parts of the world where it would do more good than it does to me, I’m not going to do that..I’m not confessing immorality, my moral feelings are telling me to be loyal to my family [1]
However, if we look at a nation, it is analogous to a family. Here I want to define both in terms of their social functions and emotional bond. Families often are thought of having a genetic component, which has traditionally been the case, where most members have some genetic relationship. For example, it involves a father and mother giving birth to offspring. Or, at least one parent being related. But there could be purely adopted children being taken care of by two non-sexually related parties. So long as there are people splinting duties and providing unique care to one another out of strong emotional attachment, that’s all that’s necessary.
The nation-state likewise has a function, although, its ends are there to provide laws and governance to a select group of people with a similar enough custom, language, and history, in order to provide for their general welfare. This does not exclude immigrants, they should be treated like adopted members of the family who take up the custom, language, and history of the already existing people. As a second generation Lebanese-Canadian, I would have done just that. It also, to a lesser extent, builds a strong emotional attachment in terms of identity.
Given the commonality between the two, what is it about the family that has any particular or greater justification of preference than a nation-state? It would seem, by way of analogizing their common properties, we need a greater reason why the preference for those who share our national background is less justified (lest we say our commitments to our families are also unjustified).
The Pragmatic Argument
This next argument comes from the American philosopher Richard Rorty. As Carol Nicholson sums it up,
National pride, he argues, is analogous to self-respect and is as necessary for self-improvement. Both self-respect and patriotism are virtues found in an Aristotelian Golden Mean between the vices of excess and deficiency. Just as too much self-respect results in arrogance, and too little can lead to moral cowardice, an excess of patriotism can produce imperialism and bellicosity, and a lack of patriotism prohibits imaginative and effective political debate and deliberation about national policy. Patriotism is instilled by means of inspirational images and stories about a nation’s past, which help citizens to form a sense of moral identity [2]
Granted, Rorty is arguing for national pride, not nationalism (what I outlined). However, I can justify the nationalistic commitments I formulated under similar lines. A lack of national commitment means that the people outside the nation have just about as much claim to national resources as anyone else. Too much would lead to a sense of imperialism; however, to suggest a nationalistic preference, would lead to a citizen’s first approach in terms of the distribution of national resources and moral focus.
Conclusion
Nationalism is not something we should let xenophobes take away from us, because it has the power to accomplish great things. Much like the family, it keeps us from being dispassionate about any person. It also has good pragmatic use for members of the nation-state in terms of how we should distribute our resources to our own citizen’s first, and secondly to everyone else.
End Notes
[1] Weinberg, Moving Naturalism Forward: Day 2, Morning, 1st Session, Link
[2]Nicholson, Richard Rorty’s Pragmatic Patriotism, Link
