LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
T
he difference between patriotism and nationalism is the difference between the love a father has for his family and the love a Godfather has for his “family” – the Bonanno family, the Colombo family, the Gambino family, the Genovese family, the Lucchese family... Patriotism is a warm and personal business. Nationalism is another business entirely. It’s the kind of business Salvatore Tessio talks to Tom Hagen about after Tessio’s betrayal of Michael Corleone. Tessio: “Tell Mike it was just business.” In 1945, George Orwell wrote an excellent essay, “Notes on Nationalism,” for the British magazine Polemic . The essay is too long to reprint here and too detailed in its analysis of Nazi, Stalinist, and Trotskyite political ideas that were put out with the trash long ago (although sometimes, unfortunately, recycled). But – in severe condensation – what Orwell had to say is: Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism... By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a
on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other [ideological, theological, racial, etc.] unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality. Sinking your own individuality into anything is not a prescription for happiness. Even if what you’re sinking it into is beer. (Maybe especially if it’s beer.) But being a White Nationalist – or Black Nationalist or Hindu Nationalist or Islamic Nationalist or Gay Nationalist or Whatever Nationalist – is worse than being drunk. At least if you’re drunk, you’re not part of a mass movement. Although I have seen something close to that at O’Rourke family Irish wakes. But too many O’Rourke’s fall down or pass out, so it ends up being more mass than movement. (And speaking of mass, we have to sober up and go to one the next day). What makes me unhappy about mass movements is just what Orwell points out. You lose your individuality in the “unit.” When you lose your individuality, other people – who aren’t part of your mass movement, who aren’t nationalists in your “nation” – lose their individuality to you. They cease to be people and become “Other People.” When that happens, you don’t see these others as individuals. It becomes easy to be afraid of them, hate them, regard them in a jealous way, and want to exert power over them. As Orwell goes on to say:
particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people... Nationalism, “ Sinking your own individuality into anything is not a prescription for happiness. Even if what you’re sinking it into is beer.
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July 2019
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