Nationalism and religion are different things, and it seems to me that comparing them, or the experience of them, though perhaps entertaining, is more or less meaningless.
In the present context what is compared here is that both nationalism and religion involve some form of adherance or alignment of self with certain ideas, symbols, and people. However these are also characteristic of friendship, the choice of a mate, or association with a profession, a preferred sport or recreational activity.
Such alignments vary a great deal among individuals - some are recognizable as beneficial and healthy, others not. If there is a meaningful question here, I suispect it is in the character of the alignments one makes.
I read a few of the Krishnamurti pieces in the link above. He suggests we drop all such alignments and live as peaceful, harmless observers of passing thoughts and events. While this may be a useful model for one's inner life, it is not particularly useful in the society of others - as everything we know about human history and behavior amply confirms.
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Chumly
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Fri 24 Mar, 2006 02:19 am
J. Krishnamurti wrote:
So peace cannot possibly exist on this earth if there are nationalities, which, as we said, is glorified tribalism. Nationalities give certain security, man needs security and he invests in nationalism, or in a particular ideology or belief.
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Chumly
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Fri 24 Mar, 2006 02:26 am
Hi Georgeob1,
Irrelative how little or much congruency you see in nationalim v. religion certainly others do not share your viewpoint.
It would generally be the case that meaningless comparisons impute an entire deficit of commonality. Even then I would argue that totally dissimilar things can have meritable comparison.
So, why is comparing nationalism and religion "more or less meaningless"?
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Eorl
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Fri 24 Mar, 2006 02:32 am
georgeob1 wrote:
Nationalism and religion are different things, and it seems to me that comparing them, or the experience of them, though perhaps entertaining, is more or less meaningless.
George, it would be my guess that for some people nationalism and religion are exactly the same thing (Palestine leaps to mind as a possible example) while for others they are totally different things, but I think the question is more about wether the same aspects of human nature bring about both nationalism and religion, and wether nationalism shares many of the attributes of religion, which I would suggest it does.
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Chumly
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Fri 24 Mar, 2006 02:38 am
Bull's eye Eorl!
It's precisely why I put this thread in S&R. Walter and Georgeb1 (respectfully) have missed the target.
Chumly wrote:
It seems clear that nationalism, in the broader sense, has many if not all the hallmarks of popular religions, and as such despite protestation to the contrary, not only can there never be a separation of church and state but most to the point nationalism and it's artifices are the equivalent of a religion.
I decided to put this in Spirituality & Religion as I wanted to see how it would pan out if given the infamous S&R viewpoints, instead of the more shopworn political perspectives.
Chumly wrote:
I brought this up in part because some of the religious posters that I have chatted appear to use similar oblique rationalizations to justify their nationalist stance as they do to justify their religious stance. I expanded on that observation to say that nationalism, in the broader sense has a certain equivalency to a religion.
I do not mean the governmental formalized nationalistic perspective as much as I mean people's emotionalism, beliefs and rationalizations towards nationalism and religion being cut from the same cloth.
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georgeob1
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Fri 24 Mar, 2006 02:46 am
I'm not saying that nationalism and religion have nothing in common. On the contrary they share the essential characteristics of affiliation and preference. However so do the choices we make for friends, mates, professions, recreational activities, etc. Shall we compare them with religion as well?
I agree that a comparison can be made and that there are important elements in common. I just don't think the exercise is particularly illuminating.
If, on the other hand, one goes the whole distance and becomes an adherent of Krishnamurti, rejecting all such distinctions and affiliations (although his words and images strongly suggest to me that he had not fully done this himself) then perhaps one can look back on it all as more or less the same thing. Short of that, I don't see any consistent meaning in it.
I do readily concede that on a practical level both religion and nationalism have similarly identified, aggregated, and defined people and groups, and both have inflamed conflicts among people
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Eorl
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Fri 24 Mar, 2006 03:42 am
Question: If people understood exactly what nationalism was and why they experienced it, would it lose some of it's power to cause irrational and counterproductive behavior?
I think it's possible to know objectively what nationalism is and yet indulge in it by choice....I'm not so sure about religion.
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snood
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Fri 24 Mar, 2006 05:11 am
Eorl wrote:
Question: If people understood exactly what nationalism was and why they experienced it, would it lose some of it's power to cause irrational and counterproductive behavior?
I think it's possible to know objectively what nationalism is and yet indulge in it by choice....I'm not so sure about religion.
It's an interesting question you pose about the inverse proportion between objective observation and fanaticism, but I happen to believe from experience that the biggest fanatics are stupid people, to whom powers of objective observation are foreign.
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coluber2001
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Tue 28 Mar, 2006 02:03 pm
It seems that the most conservative religions become very similar to nationalism, and even meld with them; they reinforce each other. In the conservative Islam nations the political and religious leaders are one and the same. Islam law becomes political law. We see the same trend now in this country, and the blending of religious and political aims is prevented only by the constitution.
The fundamentalist interprets the religious images, symbols, and myths literally, and they attain a separrate reality, separate from our own experience. Likewise, for the conservative in politics, the idea of "nation" though abstract, becomes more important and often obtains a separate reality from the actual physical country, i.e., land, water, wildlife, and people.
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Chumly
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Tue 28 Mar, 2006 02:33 pm
snood wrote:
Eorl wrote:
Question: If people understood exactly what nationalism was and why they experienced it, would it lose some of it's power to cause irrational and counterproductive behavior?
I think it's possible to know objectively what nationalism is and yet indulge in it by choice....I'm not so sure about religion.
It's an interesting question you pose about the inverse proportion between objective observation and fanaticism, but I happen to believe from experience that the biggest fanatics are stupid people, to whom powers of objective observation are foreign.
How do you qualify and quantify objective observation? How do you differentiate between objective observation and subjectivity? How do you qualify and quantify "stupid people"?
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Ashers
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Tue 28 Mar, 2006 05:40 pm
Religion in the U.K? Well I don't know where it stands here anymore to be totally honest, it's taken quite the beating over the past so many years. Certainly nationalism is ripe though and is something constantly on the agenda for numerous reasons. The comparisons between the two are interesting but I think you have to ask, where are the two intended to take people in order to give the question more meaning.
Nationalism surely finds it's roots in the annals of humanity as being an extension of people forming ever larger groups. The purpose? Safety in numbers, more efficiency, better lives, common goals being accomplished on larger scales mean grander goals and progression.
What of religion though? Can it's purpose be so easily described, when it's use has been so numerous. Certainly it's been used to control masses, to form common ideals and the extension here would be goals, hmm, sounding familiar. I think though, as maybe George pointed out, it's to the individual you really need to look, since we can apply these choices of alignment to a great deal of things in life, the important point is why those alignments are adopted. Be it between religions, nations, friends, hobbies...
Is the individual embracing his nationalism for the same, similar or radically different reasons as to why he embraces his religion? Interesting to think about, nice topic.
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Eorl
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Tue 28 Mar, 2006 07:45 pm
Historically, at least in some areas of the world, is it possible nationalism actually grew out of religion? (I'm thinkin' feudalism here). In places like Afganistan it's probably the same thing? Actually, I've heard plenty of people refer to the US as a Christian state, which of course it isn't (yet)
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georgeob1
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Tue 28 Mar, 2006 08:20 pm
Many historians make distinctions among the terms civilization, culture and nation. Numerous examples can be found of their relationships; ranging from the Roman civilization, which embraced several distinct ciltures and even a few rather stiff-necked nations; to the Germanic culture which until 1872 was spread across numerous political entities, some like Prussia which styled themselves as nations and others like Bavaria which maintained a distinct political identity within the Habsburg Empire. The French nation and culture have been relatively unified for a long time, but that is the exception more than the rule. The nation of the former Yugoslavia in fact embraced several distinct and competing cultures and political aspirations. As we have seen its citizens identified themselves far more strongly as Croats, Serbs, Moslems, Orthodox Christians and Catholics than they dis to their presumed common nationality.
Thus the term "nationalism" which may well have a clear meaning when applied (say) to the relations among the British, French and Germans in the years leading up to WWI, it is not always clear at all in other situations. Many people in the world have a much stronger lowalty to their culture than their nation (this may be true of China to a degree).
It is for this reason that I doubt our ability to create meaningful general statements about the similarities of religion and nationalism. It has become a bit fashionable to discredit both. I believe that is usually a particularly sophomoric attitude, and I fear the comparison will simply degenerate into an exercise in that sort of (to me) meaningless carping.
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Eorl
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Tue 28 Mar, 2006 08:43 pm
george, if you had replaced all the place names in the above with different religions, sects of religions and branches of various churches it would still have made perfect sense. I think this is the point.
Meanwhile, the word nationalism can be applied outside the boundaries of an official nation. Were there any Yugoslav nationalists? Perhaps there were just Serbian nationalists, Croatian nationalists, etc.
I think the question is important when we must deal with "nations" that have no clear distinctions between their nationalism and their religion. How often have muslims accused the USA of being a Christian nation?
george, what bothers you about the idea exactly? You wouldn't happen to be religious would you?
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georgeob1
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Tue 28 Mar, 2006 09:01 pm
Eorl wrote:
george, if you had replaced all the place names in the above with different religions, sects of religions and branches of various churches it would still have made perfect sense. I think this is the point.
No, I think you have demonstrated that you missed the point.
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Meanwhile, the word nationalism can be applied outside the boundaries of an official nation. Were there any Yugoslav nationalists? Perhaps there were just Serbian nationalists, Croatian nationalists, etc.
True, but each such usage means something different. Thus my point.
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I think the question is important when we must deal with "nations" that have no clear distinctions between their nationalism and their religion. How often have muslims accused the USA of being a Christian nation?
I believe you have confused important aspects of the situation. Islam is a religion that itself uniquely rejects the idea of a state or nation distinct from itself (There is no "render unto Caesar ..." among them). Many of the Islamists who threaten Nation states in the Middle East (and elsewhere) seek the reestablishment of the Caliphate (which the British and French abolished in 1921) and the dar al Islam, which is their idealization of the reality preceded it. In their view the rest of the world is the dar el harb (=region of struggle) The nations of the Middle East which we deal with are largely secular, though they cohabit precariously with their islamist citizens.
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george, what bothers you about the idea exactly? You wouldn't happen to be religious would you?
Whether I am or not is not relevant to your evident confusion.
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Eorl
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Tue 28 Mar, 2006 09:32 pm
I think I understand your point and I don't see my confusion (if it exists).
The question is ...are there similarities, relationships, common causes, etc. to the two phenomena - nationalism and religion.
I say yes, despite the differences between individuals and despite different definitions of the two.
You say no, or rather maybe, but the comparison is meaningless and/or pointless due to the above differences, correct?
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georgeob1
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Tue 28 Mar, 2006 09:58 pm
From the start I acknowledged the existence of common elements in nationalism and religion - most importantly the one of preferential affiliation which Chumley stated. However, I also noted that this element is also common to a wide range of other human activities, ranging from friendship, to the choice of a mate or even membership in a club or professional association. With this in mind, and considering the very loose customary use of the term 'nationalisn' (which you yourself have exemplified), I suggested that any such comparison wouldn't be particularly meaningful -- unless you considered a comparison of religion or nationalism to (say) marriage as being meaningful.
I know well that there are a number of more or less prefabricated such comparisons out there, but they strike me as mostly noise and without much meaning.
I think the distinctions among civilization, culture and nation, and the different and varied contradictions among them are much more interesting, illuminating and meaningful in today's world.
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Eorl
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Tue 28 Mar, 2006 11:31 pm
I'll think it over georgeob1.
My initial feeling is that I simply disagree. I think they are more closely related than you would like to accept.
It's like you are saying soccer and rugby share the same comparability as soccer and marriage.
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Chumly
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Wed 29 Mar, 2006 12:10 am
The question is are we talking about different real world underlying impetuses, or simply more a question of artifices allowing one to argue constructs.
