I wonder if the rise of ethnic nationalism in recent years is simply a reversion to what was historically normal up until the Cold War.
This history is extreme in its horrors. Ethnic nationalist conflict in the first half of the 20th century included World Wars and genocides that killed tens of millions. For centuries before that, colonial empires enslaved and committed genocides against native peoples. The greatest slaughter occurred under governments whose ideologies were those of peoples with one blood -- the Third Reich, the Belgian monarchy, the British Empire, and everyone who sent their young men to die in the trenches of World War I.
With the Cold War came more universal, abstract ideologies. One might fight for communism against capitalism, or for democracy against dictatorship. These ideologies suited the purposes of decision-makers in Moscow and Washington, and made for better advertising to Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans who were rising in power after the end of colonialism. For obvious reasons, developing-country folk were an implausible market for Russian or American nationalism. But you could get them interested in communism or democracy.
When the Cold War ended and its banners were put away, the strongest political units in the world were still national rather than international. So it was easy for the old flags of ethnic nationalism to come out again, for whatever reasons people had flown them before. That's what we're seeing now.
Will new versions of the old horrors come back with them? This may be the great and terrible question of our time. I hope that global economic changes will help to dampen conflict -- for example, the rise in prosperity after the end of colonialism and the necessity of international cooperation in the modern economy. But there are reasons for pessimism too, as technology lets us harm each other much more easily than we could before, whether through war or climate change. And if the past is any guide, we can fall very far.
My role models for such times tend to be the old scientists -- in philosophy, I guess the flavor would be sort of Vienna Circle. They enjoyed the clever weird ideas of their smart friends from different countries, and faced their collapsing world more with public-spirited Enlightenment optimism than cynical postmodern world-weariness. I think their sort of liberal internationalism wins in the end -- well, there's optimism for you. But win or lose, those are the people I identify with in times like these.
This history is extreme in its horrors. Ethnic nationalist conflict in the first half of the 20th century included World Wars and genocides that killed tens of millions. For centuries before that, colonial empires enslaved and committed genocides against native peoples. The greatest slaughter occurred under governments whose ideologies were those of peoples with one blood -- the Third Reich, the Belgian monarchy, the British Empire, and everyone who sent their young men to die in the trenches of World War I.
With the Cold War came more universal, abstract ideologies. One might fight for communism against capitalism, or for democracy against dictatorship. These ideologies suited the purposes of decision-makers in Moscow and Washington, and made for better advertising to Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans who were rising in power after the end of colonialism. For obvious reasons, developing-country folk were an implausible market for Russian or American nationalism. But you could get them interested in communism or democracy.
When the Cold War ended and its banners were put away, the strongest political units in the world were still national rather than international. So it was easy for the old flags of ethnic nationalism to come out again, for whatever reasons people had flown them before. That's what we're seeing now.
Will new versions of the old horrors come back with them? This may be the great and terrible question of our time. I hope that global economic changes will help to dampen conflict -- for example, the rise in prosperity after the end of colonialism and the necessity of international cooperation in the modern economy. But there are reasons for pessimism too, as technology lets us harm each other much more easily than we could before, whether through war or climate change. And if the past is any guide, we can fall very far.
My role models for such times tend to be the old scientists -- in philosophy, I guess the flavor would be sort of Vienna Circle. They enjoyed the clever weird ideas of their smart friends from different countries, and faced their collapsing world more with public-spirited Enlightenment optimism than cynical postmodern world-weariness. I think their sort of liberal internationalism wins in the end -- well, there's optimism for you. But win or lose, those are the people I identify with in times like these.
