Nationalism became enemy number one among elites after World War II. Today’s nationalism, however, has nothing to do with the aggressive nationalism of that time, but is rather a resistance to globalism and multiculturalism. From The Zman, on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:
If you were of an intellectual after the Great War, you would have formed your thoughts and opinions in the shadow of what was the most horrific cataclysm to strike the civilized world since the collapse of the Roman Empire. J.R.R. Tolkien, for example, fought at the Somme in the Great War. The images of which were in his mind as he wrote his legendary work, The Lord of the Rings. Not only would the images of the war be always on your mind, the causes of the war would also be at the center of your thinking.
If you were an intellectual in France after the Second World War, you would have developed your moral philosophy in the shadow of two massive industrial wars that very nearly extinguished civilization. It is nearly impossible for modern people to imagine what life was like for Europeans, and to a lesser degree Americans, following two civilization wrecking wars. It was not the physical devastation that haunted the minds of Europeans. It was what caused it that haunted the people of the West.
After the Great War, people on both sides of the conflict blamed their leaders for the bloodbath. Germans soldiers thought their leaders had stabbed them in the back and brought shame on Germany. The French soldiers largely agreed with them, even though France came out as the victor. If you had fought in the war, it was hard to find a reason for it and benefit to it, regardless of which side you were on in the fight. Winning looked a lot like losing. Intellectuals blamed the people in charge for the disaster.
After the Second World War, it was no longer possible to just blame the leaders. The people in charge in the Second World War had lived through the Great War. Many had fought in the trenches. Many had dedicated their lives to preventing such a thing from happening again. Neville Chamberlain is vilified today, but he was not alone in thinking that any peace was better than war. Yet, within a generation, Europe was in rubble after another industrial war that killed millions. There had to be a reason.
The thinking classes settled upon nationalism. For the last half century the belief among the ruling classes is that national identity always ends in conflict. In a world with nuclear weapons, national conflict is annihilation. Therefore, blunting national identity and nationalism has been the the raison d’être of Western ruling classes for half a century. It is what has driven the integration of Europe into a single political entity. It is what is behind things like the World Bank, global trade deals and the IMF.
It has become an article of faith that open borders and unlimited migration are the ultimate solution to the problem of nationalism. If people are free to move around as they please and homogeneous communities are diluted by foreigners with no allegiance to local customs, there can be no national identity and therefore no threat of nationalism. It is why European leaders cling to mass migration in the face of local opposition. They see the opposition as the problem they are trying to solve.
To continue reading: National Populism
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