Is nationalism ever a force for good? | Jared Diamond | Big Think

Is nationalism ever a force for good?
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Nationalism isn't always a bad thing. When a country doesn't have self-confidence, and a collective sense of identity, that is also a problem. The optimal situation, in the case of nationalism, is that a nation's citizens have a healthy amount of it.

For instance, as Jared Diamond points out in this video, Finland seems to have a nationalism based in reality — and largely founded on their unique language. It imbues them with an innate pride but doesn't compel them to conquer the world.

Also, nationalism that is used to be inclusive, rather than exclusive, can help a nation transcend its darkest moments.
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JARED DIAMOND

Jared Diamond, a noted polymath, is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. Among his many awards are the U.S. National Medal of Science, Japan's Cosmos Prize, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of the international best-selling books Guns, Germs, and Steel; Collapse; Why Is Sex Fun?; The World Until Yesterday; and The Third Chimpanzee, and is the presenter of TV documentary series based on three of those books.
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TRANSCRIPT:

JARED DIAMOND: What about nationalism for a country? Is it good or is it harmful? Well, that's like asking about self-confidence and ego strength for a person. If a person has confidence and ego strength, is that good or bad? You can have too much of it and it's harmful if you are so full of yourself that you ignore other people. If, on the other hand, you lack confidence and you depend upon other people for your own image, then you don't have the courage, you don't have the identity, you don't have the sentiment to deal with your own issues. With nationalism today, there are countries that seem to me that have a healthy nationalism. I regard Finland, a country that I love as having a healthy nationalism based on reality.

The Finns speak the Finnish language. Nobody else in the world speaks the Finnish language. It's a beautiful, but very difficult language. It's the root of Finnish national identity. The Finns have a national epic, the Kalevala, in the Finnish language. And every Finn can recite the Kalevala, Of Americans and English people can recite Shakespeare. So the Finns have a healthy national identity focused on their language, their culture, and also their history, and what they've been able to overcome. There are countries that have excessive national identity. There are for example, people who would regard Germany during the 1930s during the Hitler era, as having had excessive national identity. Today, it seems to me that Germany has a healthy national identity.

Germany's national identity is not based on going out and conquering the world and acquiring [INAUDIBLE],, but recognizing that there are wonderful things about Germany that distinguish Germany from other countries. German's long history with the German language, the language of Martin Luther, that unifies Germans Protestants and Catholics, the government support for the arts in Germany, the emphasis on the importance of the community in Germany as opposed to the rights of individuals. In the United States and Los Angeles, anybody can build a house with any architectural plan that you like. And so there's no attractiveness to neighborhoods. In Germany, there is attractiveness in the neighborhoods. So it seems to me that Germany has a healthy national identity today. It did not in the 1930s. Chile has a healthy national identity. After Chile recovered from the trauma of a military government in 1990.

When a democratic government came back, it would have been so obvious for the democratic government to try to take revenge on the military government's leaders who had tortured and killed so many Chileans. But the first speech by Chile's new democratic government in 1990 was that he wanted to build a Chile for all Chileans, a wonderful expression. That's real national identity. A Chile for all Chileans means a country where the tortured and their relatives can live together with the torturers. It sounds terrible, but that's the only way that Chile could get out of the horrors of their military government. But that depended upon Chileans having a sense of national identity that transcended the horrible things that had happened in Chile.

[nakkivene]

Nationalism is the reason a lot of countries exist

[Xerdar]

It can be used for Good and Evil... Water can be used for life or for drowning people...

[hansemist]

Its important that every nation in Europe and the west preserve their traditions and cultural history regardless and fast!

[ossen]

*Healthy nationalism gives people identity - that union can be very powerful in country's development and the direction it's going.*

[nobelheretic]

Any group of people willing to replace themselves is spiritually sick

[carpo]

I think we really have to identify the differences between nationalism and patriotism

[TheeDrGroyper]

I don't see absolutely anything wrong with nationalism. The problem is when nationalism goes too far.

[hellooperator]

Germany seems to be swinging too far to one side as it did the other in WWII. As an outsider anyway, it seems like as a nation they let a lot of people walk over them.

[crazymangoz]

Nationalism has a negative stigma because when people hear it they automatically think about incredibly extreme examples of it. Nationalism is actually a good thing, just don’t be crazy extreme and try to eliminate every other culture off the face of the earth.

[hochmeisterulrichoffrankfu]

Nationalism isn't intrinsically evil, it's rather quite the opposite. I think it's the more extreme people giving it a bad name. Loving your country and wanting to preserve national and cultural identity is everything but evil to me. I think that's why the EU is anti-nationalist.

[elinope]

Are rage bait titles ever a force of good?

[micksp]

Nationalism is no different than people supporting a sports team - Sportisim...

Fine in moderation, dangerous in the extreme.

[heristyono]

1:47 [inaudible] = Lebensraum.


you're welcome

[studdruppo]

I would say that globalism is more of a threat to individual freedoms then Nationalism. Globalism is centralizing power while nationalism decentralizes power.

[godless]

Having pride in a set of principles - assuming those principles are good - makes sense. Having pride in a flag, geographical location, race, or religion is fucking insane and humanity would be better off if those people were ejected into space.

[nrn]

Also "healthy" and "unhealthy" sound moralistic. So nationalism is healthy when it is responsive to an external aggression but not healthy when it is expansionistic? Also Rome incorporated people from other cultures up to the highest ranks and its fierce cultural identity and expansionistic policies could be strong long before anyone came out with the concept of nationalism.

[JonathanKajanga]

Nationalism is like self love and self respect and self care. Internationalism is like pleasing others at the expense of your happiness. Nationalism is the respect of your national sovereignty and the sovereignty of others

[thumbwarriordx]

Yes. For a very long time nationalism was a unifying force against petty racial and tribal divisions.
As the modern more divisive force? I dunno. Probably not in most cases. I do have a soft spot in my heart for Scottish nationalism.

[almightytreegod]

I think this all depends on how you define nationalism... and could there be an argument for healing civil tensions without nationalism? A strong national identity isn’t necessary for me to be kind to my neighbors, personally, although I guess for some people it’s required?

[musicplaylists]

"Wrap a turd in a flag and millions wont smell it"

- T. J. Huxley