virus: nationalism (was: Joe Bigot)

From: Walpurgis (walpurg@myrealbox.com)
Date: Mon Aug 12 2002 - 02:39:29 MDT


Walpurgis dares to step into the bilious flood.... (having deleated most of it anyway)

> I would have to contend that the US long has been and
> remains, sometimes in spite of herself, the greatest single force for
> democracy, human rights, progress and civilization in the modern
> world.

I don't understand why you think the US is the guardian of these laudable
ideologies. It sounds like nationalism.

Why? Because these ideologies that the US guards and promotes are only guarded
and promoted by *certain groups* in the US. Not the whole on the US. The US
certainly is not singular as you suggest. It is not alone. It is not unified.

Certian groups and individuals across the world defend and develop these
ideologies in theory and practice. They influence each other, communicate, form
networks, power bases (or not). I'm sure you know your US history, and the kinds of
non-US influences on US thought.

Talk of an country (not just the US) is so much nonsense. None are homogenous,
all are in constant internal struggle amongst different ideological groups.

THe US is not the guardian of these laudable ideologies, *people* who believe in
these ideologies are. It just so happens that currently, there are powerful groups in
the US that are amongst these people. It is also the case that there are groups with
different ideologies - different by degrees.

This is why no one country should be lionised, and why nationalism is an irrational
position. It is the global/historical network of ideas/action that one should align
oneself with (if at all), and what one should consider a "force for xyz".

Walpurgis

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