Taffy
- 2018-03-29
We've evolved to see racism and religious intolerance as despicable constructs based on ignorance and hatred. Nationalism deserves the same fate.
The whole post is good and well constructed, Trumpsey. However, it's another 'ism' I sincerely hope never comes into being, it's called futurism. At the moment there are many of us who believe 'religious intolerance' is our only hope for the happiness and freedom of gays and women persecuted or enslaved by some religious groups. We need to be intolerant of truly bad people. Sadly there's gays and women around who will tolerate persecution again their own sex or persuasion simply because it is not yet affecting those individuals personally and it would be politically incorrect on this forum or other forums of existence to stand up and be counted. So we are left with a charade of agreement.
People have always needed to be members of a tribe to define who they are and to feel secure. Generally, it's no longer acceptable to define your tribe by the color of your skin and fewer and fewer individuals are comfortable identifying tribal membership as Jew or Christian or Lapsed Catholic or Muslim.
For the Western world, the new tribal identify for many is the nation-state.
I'm Canadian. I'm Polish. I'm Italian.
The same people that roam their neighborhoods feeling most disturbed by the influx of their new neighbors are precisely the people most dedicated to nationalism as an identity.
Nationalism is, than, an idealized memory of the past. Make America Great Again.
The view that nations have values rather than impenetrable regulations and laws that are in constant flux is a comforting delusion.
The fear of 'globalization' is the dread that this delusional national tribe is under attack by the 'other'.
We've evolved to see racism and religious intolerance as despicable constructs based on ignorance and hatred. Nationalism deserves the same fate.