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Notes and Comments on "The Virtue of Nationalism"

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Grames

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On 7/29/2019 at 4:10 PM, Eiuol said:

just a taste:

Locke’s first readers were deeply troubled by [reducing political life to the individual's pursuit of life and property]. It moved the great British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke, for example, to declare on the floor of Parliament that of all books ever written, the Second Treatise was “one of the worst.” But the radical deficiency of Locke’s account has gradually ceased to be recognized as a problem. Western intellectuals have come to delight in it, until today we are inundated with follow-up works—from Rousseau’s On the Social Contract (1762) and Kant’s Perpetual Peace (1795) to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (1957) and John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1972)—tirelessly elaborating this dream-world, working and reworking the vision of free and equal human beings, pursuing life and property and living under obligations that arise from their own free consent.

(pp. 33-34). 

 

Just now getting to this. I don't think this is as as muddled as it seems at first read. To be sure, YH seems to be intentionally package-dealing different concepts together and begging all the relevant questions to reach the definitions and conclusions he wants. But also I haven't read the book so take this with a handful of 2046 salt. 

But this passage I think is important. To be sure, the "liberalisms" of all the mentioned philosophers are different kinds. We all know modern welfare liberalism is a perversion of classical liberalism. But I take YH's point to be that there is something that connects the 5 liberalisms together that is more fundamental and that itself is what YH wants to attack. Here's a stab at it:

1. Political authority is not due anyone by natural right.

2. Consent is required for political obligations.

3. People should have the freedom to pursue their own conceptions of the good life, and the state is designed to in some way facilitate the good life. 

Probably other ones could be corollaries, like individuals being the basic social unit, that political authority needs to be rationally justified, states can be formed based on reasoning and forethought, and maybe something about progress and the Enlightenment too. And it's clear that for these he wants to substitute some tribal and familial obligation to get at some communitarianism. It's going to be pretty hard to get any robust individual rights out of any of that.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Grames said:

Superficialities such as food or music styles are not fundamental and are not what I would be discussing here.

They aren't excluded though, and are certainly included as relevant to Hazony's conception of what unifies a nation as a nation. Using or food are not fundamental considerations for what that defines the unique political character of a culture, but they are quite critical to the loyalty and values that bind groups of people together. It's not an accident that European nationalism of the 1800s had so much involvement with the arts. They are values that resonate and provide people a concrete way of identifying a culture that they want to be a part of. You should be concerned with these "superficialities" because they serve a crucial nonpolitical purpose in unifying people into a nation. He wants to include traditions. Across all nations, all countries, all families even, food is unifying. 

It's great if you want to focus on political values of cultures, and how liberty might spring from a culture (or might fail to develop). I don't have any issues with this myself. The thing is, this position is not compatible is with Hazony. His view: Individual freedom is too weak, it is utopian to use as a guiding political principle. It's a necessary feature for a good political order, sure, but the most important principle is the unification that is formulated by is maintained by actions for the sake of the nation or collective identity (e.g. voluntarily joining the military out of a sense of duty). 

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2 hours ago, 2046 said:

What? You're mixing a lot of things together here. Who are you criticizing? Me? Journo? Rand? Why would there be cognitive dissonance? Why would there be a cost to jettisoning something that's wrong? Why would you be jettisoning something you never adopted? What part of my argument employed that? When did Journo even talk about the State of Nature? When did Rand? Aren't you making a lot of assumptions here? That's just silly.

Criticizing Journo for evading the philosophically significant critique of conventional pro-capitalist political theory.  He did not acknowledge its existence and he should have.  

When Hazony lumps Rand together with Locke and Kant as Utopians, he has a point.  Rand didn't compose a political theory beyond validating individual rights, and that meant she and the rest of us Objectivists have had to muddle along with the existing theoretical justification of government, that it derives from the consent of the governed.  That is the common element Hazony is calling out.

Government is not derived from the consent of the governed, it is derived from the compliance of the governed.  Consent is subjective, compliance is objective.  

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38 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

Using or food are not fundamental considerations for what that defines the unique political character of a culture, . . . Across all nations, all countries, all families even, food is unifying. 

Even ISIS terrorists need to eat, and presumably derive some group cohesion from shared meals.  Because everyone needs to eat food, how do you find a difference that makes a difference in thinking about cross-cultural culinary comparisons?  You don't, so ignore it.

Hazony is not an Objectivist, so I'm not concerned about not tracking him exactly.  I take away what is genuinely and plausibly fundamental and philosophical.  That anarchy is actually a default political order of families and tribes and not a "state of nature" war of all individuals against all other individuals is fundamental.  That government is derived from the compliance of the governed and not the consent of the governed is fundamental.  

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11 hours ago, Eiuol said:

 

Did you read the article? All you have to do is look at the variety of music genres out there. People adopt and gravitate towards different genres, and the culture surrounding those genres. 

Right, that's on his concrete-bound level of "a cultural marketplace".

Why not add, constantly-changing clothing fashions as another symptom of 'cultural competition'?

One can't have a right to one's culture - because - "Culture is ... other people!" 

To try to preserve one's culture is "totalitarian rule".

Then he talks of the "glorious global culture". Who could suspect? He's one more globalist, who cannot mention the liberal culture of western civilisation since that would be too chauvinist, no doubt.

You surely don't take him seriously.

.

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7 hours ago, Grames said:

Criticizing Journo for evading the philosophically significant critique of conventional pro-capitalist political theory.  He did not acknowledge its existence and he should have.  

When Hazony lumps Rand together with Locke and Kant as Utopians, he has a point.  Rand didn't compose a political theory beyond validating individual rights, and that meant she and the rest of us Objectivists have had to muddle along with the existing theoretical justification of government, that it derives from the consent of the governed.  That is the common element Hazony is calling out.

Government is not derived from the consent of the governed, it is derived from the compliance of the governed.  Consent is subjective, compliance is objective.  

Politically, this principle is implemented by a man’s right to choose his own agents, i.e., those whom he authorizes to represent him in the government of his country. To represent him, in this context, means to represent his views in terms of political principles. Thus the government of a free country derives its “just powers from the consent of the governed.” (“Representation Without Authorization,” The Ayn Rand Letter, I, 21, 1)

You make it seem like Rand omitted a lot of discussion and left poor Grames out in the wilderness. But it looks like, to me, she intentionally and explicitly adopted liberal government theory. I think you'll find similar passages in VOS and her Columbia radio discussion on politics. Why would whether Rand adopted or discussed something make it easier on you? Maybe Rand is wrong, as she often is? Maybe her discussions are incomplete, as they often are? (She only wrote an introduction to her own epistemology, anyways.) 

Rand's political philosophy isn't a new justification of government. Nor is Hazony's. Of course I'm a fan of Rand and what she has to say is often interesting, illuminating, provides useful conjectures, leads, or otherwise. But it's not some complete, self-contained story.

Rand argues for a new conception of rights for liberalism. It is within a framework of liberalism. If one takes out some of those liberal elements (1-3 previously mentioned) and replaces them with Hobbesian (compliance?) ones, or communitarian ("unchosen, inherent obligations" based on "family, tribe, clan") then there's going to be some tension that needs to be resolved.

Your last paragraph is vague. Government is not derived? What does that mean? Does that mean government's authority? Obligation? Legitimacy? Its mere existence? These are all different things. Compliance is one thing. Both North Korea and the Golf Club down the street have compliance. From the liberal point of view, what makes one praiseworthy over the other is that one has legitimacy and one does not. Compliance is only a fraction of the story of government.

 

 

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20 hours ago, Grames said:

I am coming around to this viewpoint as well.  For the record, I am also in favor of American jurisprudence and legislation concerning public accommodations (that it is not the owners right to refuse service on trains, buses or hotels on the basis of irrational racial prejudice).  These are closely related areas and it is consistent to come to the same conclusion with respect to both.

It depends on whether the business is privately or publicly funded or managed. A private hotel should have the right to refuse service, even on irrational grounds. A public business, like city buses, must obey publicly mandated service rules or laws, which are determined by public will, not rights.

I should also point out that while conservatives want to violate property/free association rights in the name of "free speech," liberals want to violate property/ownership rights in the name of "equality" or "fairness" or "social justice," etc. This was on full display again last night during the Democratic debate. They desperately want to figure out a way to loot taxpayers in the name of our "right" to health care.

So I think Rand's distinction between the conservatives and liberals still essentially holds true. Look at the liberal focus today. It's all about controlling the body through controlling the health care industry and other aspects of the economy. Whereas the conservatives want to control the spirit by taking over the media, including punishing social media companies for banning conservative ideas.

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5 hours ago, whYNOT said:

To try to preserve one's culture is "totalitarian rule".

Then he talks of the "glorious global culture". Who could suspect? He's one more globalist, who cannot mention the liberal culture of western civilisation since that would be too chauvinist, no doubt.

Please read the article more carefully. It doesn't argue that preserving one's culture is totalitarian. It argues that *ensuring* the preservation of your culture is totalitarian. You know, government defense of a culture (keep in mind that I've been saying liberty isn't a culture). Do you think he's saying that cultural competition is bad or something? He probably didn't mention fashion because it wasn't necessary when he said examples of what makes up a culture.

Could it have been written better? Probably. But it's easy to see what he means.

They’re free to keep living the Old Ways, but have no right to make anyone else follow in their footsteps.  If younger cohorts make radically different choices – as they have – then my parents are obliged to allow their beloved culture to vanish.  Sure, they’re free to complain.  They’re free to try to persuade us that we’re making a terrible mistake.  But if they turn to the government for cultural regulation, they aren’t “defending their rights”; they’re violating the rights of others.

By now it feels like I'm holding your hand through interpreting the article. Sentence by sentence.
 

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11 hours ago, Grames said:

Because everyone needs to eat food, how do you find a difference that makes a difference in thinking about cross-cultural culinary comparisons? 

Not simply eating food or the food itself, but the cultural practices surrounding eating food. Consider communal eating as done in some of China, where you have your own little rice bowl but actively scoop rice and other ingredients into your bowl as you eat. Very different from fine dining that's primarily French, where each individual is served one course directly. We might have Spanish cooking which is very communal when it comes to tapas and paella, but even the process of cooking distinguishes how people relate to one another - you might make paella over a fire outside. Or we take the typical American barbecue, with hotdogs and hamburgers, being able to cook while at the same time being physically near the people you are cooking for. These aren't pragmatic differences, it really reflects and supports the way people view others within a culture. They enshrine different ways that a culture values things like power, status, hierarchy, respect, equality, community, individuality. 

The best example I can give is the restaurant scene at the and of the Godfather. It's not only two Italian guys working and fighting out the disagreement between their clans/crime families. The restaurant is important because it sets up the cultural relationship, it expresses a sense of political views (that the one being served food and eating in the middle of the restaurant is the guy in charge and who you should kneel to). The lackey asks "how's the Italian food in this restaurant?". The response: "Try the veal, it's the best in the city." This is a ritual of obedience, dependent on the cultural traditions surrounding meals.

I know you aren't trying to track Hazony exactly. Yet the things you take away entail contradiction to Objectivism. His premise involves a lot of altruism in the Randian sense, particularly a sense of duty. Duty binds people into a nation; this is the nationalism he speaks of. If people used self-interest, there would be loss of cohesion, and resemble a business that is merely transactional. This is what he's working from. What you've done is retain the least controversial parts of his theory (that nations grow from communities, that individual freedom is nice) while ignoring the fundamental features (duty is essential, classical liberalism [Rand's ideas too] is utopian and unrealistic). You've retained nonessentials of his theory that weren't controversial to begin with. 

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

Please read the article more carefully. It doesn't argue that preserving one's culture is totalitarian. It argues that *ensuring* the preservation of your culture is totalitarian. You know, government defense of a culture (keep in mind that I've been saying liberty isn't a culture). Do you think he's saying that cultural competition is bad or something? He probably didn't mention fashion because it wasn't necessary when he the said examples of what makes up a culture.

Could it have been written better? Probably. But it's easy to see what he means.

They’re free to keep living the Old Ways, but have no right to make anyone else follow in their footsteps.  If younger cohorts make radically different choices – as they have – then my parents are obliged to allow their beloved culture to vanish.  Sure, they’re free to complain.  They’re free to try to persuade us that we’re making a terrible mistake.  But if they turn to the government for cultural regulation, they aren’t “defending their rights”; they’re violating the rights of others.

By now it feels like I'm holding your hand through interpreting the article. Sentence by sentence.
 

"The predominant ideas" - like liberty - is not included in your pantheon of a culture?

"Ensuring" is a nit pick. Please look at his entire meaning.

This writer can't see the abstractions within "culture". Second, is a relativist of value about any and all cultures. Who knows what is best? one is as good as another: The people must decide, because culture IS "other people".

"Old Ways", directly implies "new ways". That in turn, approaches culture like it's a popular fad, and that is up for grabs for a majority of each new generation i.e., the "market" to decide. He thinks. In other words, not a "totalitarian rule" by government - but one by the "people".

We know *obviously* that superficial concretes, more rapidly and then less superficial things gradually, (and so on )are always changing in a culture. On down, to the abstract ideas of many individuals which have prevailed over time. 

Put quite clearly for a change, is a Leftist's, globalist, determinist, anti-intellectual, stance. It is of course also collectivist: Not the individual and 'man' -- but, the collective and the mass of men.

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6 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

The people must decide, because culture IS "other people".

Well yeah, individuals decide the culture they want.

8 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

That in turn, approaches culture like it's a popular fad, and that is up for grabs for a majority of each new generation i.e., the "market" to decide. He thinks. In other words, not a "totalitarian rule" by government - but one by the "people".

By individuals, for themselves. That's what a market means. Look at the website it's on.

 

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Ha, I give up. Do you or do you not ascribe to Rand's explanation of "culture"? 

Not that you must, but at least I will know what you're on about, Eioul, and you can recognise the cause of our different views.

Even pre-Rand, I recall I had a definite sense of the culture of America (e.g.) - and that included all the popular culturism of the US at the time - and also, and most critically, the "sense" of the personal freedoms which made the rest possible.

Quite frankly, that which I think many Americans are taking for granted.

Yes, the individual chooses; what he eats, wears, reads, listens to, etc.etc. but you are missing the fundamentals of a cultural identity.

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I don't even know what you're talking about. I agree with Rand of how to define the culture of a nation. But the quote says nothing of cultures within cultures. It also acknowledges competition among ideas (which necessarily includes other cultures). So yeah, she wasn't precise enough in that quote. It doesn't capture the sense of culture here that we're discussing, which include all kinds of traditions and norms and aesthetic values. "Cultures of all kinds compete, so is there a way that we can have a national culture even with that?" Yes, there is. And she would probably say that culture isn't a right.

You are arguing against the article as if it were in by a socialist. It was almost certainly written by a libertarian who doesn't like collectivism. 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

I don't even know what you're talking about. I agree with Rand of how to define the culture of a nation. But the quote says nothing of cultures within cultures. It also acknowledges competition among ideas (which necessarily includes other cultures). So yeah, she wasn't precise enough in that quote. It doesn't capture the sense of culture here that we're discussing, which include all kinds of traditions and norms and aesthetic values. "Cultures of all kinds compete, so is there a way that we can have a national culture even with that?" Yes, there is. And she would probably say that culture isn't a right.

You are arguing against the article as if it were in by a socialist. It was almost certainly written by a libertarian who doesn't like collectivism. 

 

 

 

I have to re-emphasize Rand's " predominant ideas"-

- that's the fundamental ideas beneath any and all cultural concretes one can see and touch. And Rand *identifies* culture briefly, here, she didn't advise on "how to define the culture of a nation". 

Obviously and simply, some cultures are ~objectively~ superior to others. (The cultural relativist like Caplan dislikes hearing that fact). The greater the degree of individual freedom within it, the greater the culture. When or if a people in a free-er nation decide that 'the market of cultures' rules, one is never going to get a better culture. You will have what the majority of an era feel like, on whim. Then you have a subjectivist, mutable culture built on nothing firm and without sustainability (mere cosmopolitanism: exotic foods etc.).

Whatever he claims to be, Caplan's siding with the intentions of Progressivists, under the thin guise of a 'capitalist free market' rendering it acceptable to capitalists.

But the market of ideas does prevail. What ideas a majority of people 'invest in', creates demand. Depending on IF, and how, most people think and what they VALUE, there can be bad or good outcomes. To throw out past and present, objectively true and valuable, ideas in the name of "progress", inviting in any random culture for the sake of change or because it feels good, is suicidal, self-sacrificial. You still don't know what I'm talking about?

 

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2 hours ago, 2046 said:

That's a good article.  I'm not much interested in the particular corrective measures Hazony has called for because I'm not a conservative.

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4 hours ago, Eiuol said:

 

I know you aren't trying to track Hazony exactly. Yet the things you take away entail contradiction to Objectivism. His premise involves a lot of altruism in the Randian sense, particularly a sense of duty. Duty binds people into a nation; this is the nationalism he speaks of. If people used self-interest, there would be loss of cohesion, and resemble a business that is merely transactional. This is what he's working from. What you've done is retain the least controversial parts of his theory (that nations grow from communities, that individual freedom is nice) while ignoring the fundamental features (duty is essential, classical liberalism [Rand's ideas too] is utopian and unrealistic). You've retained nonessentials of his theory that weren't controversial to begin with. 

He wrote his chapter nine in terms of "extension of the sense of self" and how values come to be shared in common.  It is NOT altruism or altruistic, not philosophically or psychologically.  This is congruent with Rand's statements about being willing to die for her husband, or in her fiction of characters musing about protecting a city with their bodies.  It is not necessary, and in fact incorrect, to interpret his chapter nine as a peaen to a Kantian sense of duty.

Classical political liberal theory IS utopian and unrealistic, both communist and libertarian.  The Kantian categorical imperative sense of duty is NOT essential, merely a sense of responsibility that underlies parents care for their children and what ought to create a sense of gratitude and some degree of obligation in those children when the relationship is healthy (an obligation certainly far short of any version of Confucian filial piety construed as total obedience).  That governments do not derive from the consent of the governed is not uncontroversial.  That loyalty and mutual loyalty is actually a thing that exists and is important to political theory is not uncontroversial, not here anyway.

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4 hours ago, 2046 said:

As far as corrective measures go, I don't like government schools.  But one good thing that has come out of this hubbub around a potential "national conservatism" faction is that a proposal has been advanced to defund the universities of government money.  There is a growing realization that the primary vector encouraging the growth of wild eyed communism decades after the death of the Soviet Union are the universities.  Censorship is not legally possible, but we should stop subsidizing our own destruction.

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24 minutes ago, Grames said:

He wrote his chapter nine in terms of "extension of the sense of self" and how values come to be shared in common. 

For these and other reasons, strong institutions are established where the individuals involved identify the interests and the aims of the institution as their own. Think, for instance, of a soldier who takes up a rifle in the hope of establishing the independence of his people after a long history of persecution. Such individuals do not need to be coerced to fight, or to be well compensated for their services. The fact that they are fighting for the benefit of their people is enough for them to be willing to throw their lives into the balance for the sake of a collective such as a tribe or a nation, stirring up an ardor in their breasts that moves them to acts of bravery and self-sacrifice that no intimidation or promise of pay could elicit.

(p. 63)

Human beings constantly desire and actively pursue the health and prosperity of the family, clan, tribe, or nation to which they are tied by bonds of mutual loyalty: We have an intense need to seek the material success of the collective. We work to strengthen its internal integrity by ensuring that its members are loyal to one another in adversity, honor their elders and leaders, and conduct the inevitable competitions among them peaceably. And we toil to hand down the cultural inheritance of the collective, its language and religion, its laws and traditions, its historical perspective, and the unique manner in which it understands the world, to a new generation. 

 (p. 74).

 

His extension of self is one where the collective (the nation) is more important than the individual. It is altruistic in the Randian sense.

34 minutes ago, Grames said:

Classical political liberal theory IS utopian and unrealistic, both communist and libertarian.

I agree that it is utopian, but not through and through dangerous and bad; some classical liberal theory is essential to Rand (in particular a lot of concern for individual rights). Let's make it more accurate: collectivism is essential to Hazony's theory, where the stability of the nation requires collectivism. 

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1 hour ago, Grames said:

Classical political liberal theory IS utopian and unrealistic, both communist and libertarian.  The Kantian categorical imperative sense of duty is NOT essential, merely a sense of responsibility that underlies parents care for their children and what ought to create a sense of gratitude and some degree of obligation in those children when the relationship is healthy (an obligation certainly far short of any version of Confucian filial piety construed as total obedience).  That governments do not derive from the consent of the governed is not uncontroversial.  That loyalty and mutual loyalty is actually a thing that exists and is important to political theory is not uncontroversial, not here anyway.

I have no idea what classical political liberal theory is. There's classical political theory, which sounds more like something you're proposing, which rests on obligations to one's polis. There's modern political theory, which includes things like liberalism of various kinds, and socialism of various kinds. 

So you say they're not Kantian duties. So that means there not ______ duties ? Given all the switching and moving of goalposts I have no idea what you mean by that. When you say, in your notes, they are duties to "clans, tribes, and nations" and they are "inheritance as a consequence of being born into a collective" and they are "intrinsic," "inherited," and they "establish demands that do not arise as a result of consent," but they're not Kantian, well okay maybe they're more Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss than Kant. We're not talk here about "send your mum a card on mother's day because after all you should have some gratitude," we're talking about political duties and obligations.

As far as utopian, well yes of course, a basic requirement should be that a political theory must be realistic, it must recognize a concept of human nature, and it must recognize the basic laws that operate in society and use these to establish a political order appropriate to man's nature. This is a fundamental modernist, Enlightenment project I trust I don't have to belabor that point. And in fact the classical political theories tended to emphasize utopian projects. And liberal thinkers would point that out and criticize them all the time. Take this famous line from Spinoza's Tractatus Politicus for example:

"For they [the philosophers] conceive of men, not as they are, but as they themselves would like them to be. The result is that they have generally written satire instead of ethics, and have never conceived a theory of politics which could be put in practice; but have have produced either obvious fantasies, or schemes that can only be out to effect in Utopia, or in that golden age of the poets when, to be sure, there was no need of them at all." (TP I, 1)

And yet it was liberals and liberalism that helped develop those very sciences and institutions that looked to help study and improve the human condition, from psychology to economics, and from free speech, religious tolerance, and peace. If you think a "back to the polis" style politics can help us, I'd say the burden is on you to show how and why. So far I have no idea what you even are trying to theoretically achieve. You obviously see some problems with some of liberal theory (consent of the governed), but taken in what sense? We don't know. And replace it with what? Compliance. Submission. Obligation to family.

Well okay, but obviously liberalism doesn't oppose obligations to family, just that such an obligation is ill-suited to be a political principle in its framework since the action in question presupposes an environment where moral conduct is possible, and liberalism address itself to that space and not to producing virtue, as the polis does. You might want to clear up your thinking by reading such conservative and communitarian thinkers like Alistair MacIntyre, John Gray, and Charles Taylor and their critiques of liberalism. Then you might find that you just want to abandon liberalism in the first place.

 

Edited by 2046
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I think a collective effort should not be construed as "collectivism", or any action "for the sake of others and/or nation" - for "altruism". The distinctions are critical. When an individual and his values voluntarily combines with others with the same values - for any ends, the security of their largely free nation, let's say - he is of course, acting rationally by sound, selfish, principles. His 'duty' or 'obligation' - aka, integrity - is always to his rational principles and his hierarchy of objective values: the continuing freedom of his country is key to his (and 'his others' ) liberty.

But still, he does not "owe" anything to his country. The nation which requires sacrifice is not free.

Rational self-interest defeats the conventional "duty" - and the categorical imperative. Primacy of the individual - the individual's life, reason and choice - through the acts of millions of such individuals, which has this-far preserved a nation's integrity, would be seen as the subsequent, dominant, national culture. At the immediate value-level, his chosen "loyalty" and "obligation" could e.g. be, to his family, or other chosen 'groups' and valued individuals.. 

All the comparative political theories, posited by political theorists whom I've not read or studied, means that others' expertise here is useful. At risk of stating the obvious, any outstanding system builders must begin with man's nature and a deep, objective understanding of that. I'd think top-down theories must be congruent with bottom-up, or Utopian-rationalism results.

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On 8/1/2019 at 1:15 PM, whYNOT said:

Rational self-interest defeats the conventional "duty" - and the categorical imperative. Primacy of the individual - the individual's life, reason and choice - through the acts of millions of such individuals, which has this-far preserved a nation's integrity, would be seen as the subsequent, dominant, national culture

Are you trying to offer a way to interpret Hazony in a way compatible with individualism? Or just explaining your beliefs?

I don't disagree with your post. But let's not think Hazony is an ally of individualism or promotes this liberty oriented nationalism you're trying to describe.

https://www.aier.org/article/conservative-nationalism-not-about-liberty

I know it's Ebeling again, but since he criticized Hazony's book, his essay here gives a good sense of an alternative theory.

Edited by Eiuol
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"A daring experiment expectantly or distrustfully, watched by the whole of Western mankind.

American “nationalism,” if we are to call it this, is neither identity-politics socialism nor this newly proclaimed “conservative” national socialism. It was, and should be, an allegiance to individual liberty and unlimited economic freedom of trade and association for all things peaceful. The American nation is and should be a country of free individuals bound together by a belief in a society of liberty, not a collective mythology of tribes, races, or “classes” to which the individual is subservient and for which he may be sacrificed and subjugated."

[Ebeling]

I'm mightily agreeable to his essay leading up to a good summation, here. Even if one has to endure [quoted] "nationalism" - a unique, American identity -  it fits my p.o.v. (rather, mine fits his). 

Neither this, nor that. 

That "belief" in liberty by all or most citizens of a country of free individuals, actualized by individual rights and rule of law, can and will doubtless cater, by implication, to all kinds of subordinate beliefs and 'groups' present and forseeable - of whose individuals, none can have the least purchase with government. And who will understand that. That many e.g. continue to believe in "family, faith and nation", who would stop them or wish to, as likewise they can't 'stop' you?

There's much rationality in self-determination, independence, security, stability, continuity, physical boundaries. For one: so people can plan ahead, with certainty.

While the top, perceptible, cultural layers will be in flux due to such an extremely dynamic society, the base of this individualist-"nationalist" culture (implied by the author) will be set in rock. For "culture" in the former sense, the other writer Caplan is quite right and I was unfair. You don't have a "right" to your culture, to expect the superficials not to change around you, in your time. This seems a variant of subjectivity. Things and people and man-made institutions will and must change due to a free market and movements of people. Where it's untrue is the fundamental sense, you *do* have a right to the culture of individualism . 

Edited by whYNOT
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Yes. 

Next.

You're the one who spreads racialist bile every time he/she visits, no? You pick your timing with great sensitivity.

Anyone who believes that a few, intermittent killers represent a population of 350 mi people is not worth replying to.

No less than I think you're representative of whichever place you're from. That's all you will get from me.

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