Banal Nationalism Nationalism Widespread belief in a national

“Banal” Nationalism

Nationalism • Widespread belief in a national community based on the premise that the individual's loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpasses other individual or group interests. • It’s the religion of a people worshipping itself. 2

Nationalist Identity Intuition • In-group (co-national): – Suzy is a good person. | GOOD is generalized – Suzy stepped on my toe. | BAD is particularized • Out-group (foreigner): – Suzy helped me buy flowers. | GOOD is particularized. – Suzy is a bad person. | BAD is generalized.

Weber’s “test” of Nation-ness “…that one may exact from certain groups of men a specific sentiment of solidarity in the face of other groups” (p. 172).

Nationalism: Brought to you By Nationalist Elites Weber emphasizes that, as with any doctrine, nationalism is not adopted randomly or equally across the society. Different status groups have different benefits from nationalist values: “[T]he intellectuals are to a specific degree predestined to propagate the ‘national idea, ’ just as those who wield power in the polity provoke the idea of the state” (Weber, p. 176). Elite (top-down) nationalism vs. Popular (bottom-up) nationalism

Nationalism and Women Note Weber’s stress on “woman” as “typical supporter” of nationalist development; note further the alleged centrality of “an erotic lyric addressed to a woman” (p. 178).

Nationalism is NEW – hallmark of Modernity • • As political allegiance, before the age of nationalism, was not determined by nationality, so civilization was not thought of as nationally determined. the creation of large, centralized states ruled by absolute monarchs who destroyed the old feudal allegiances; the secularization of life and of education, which fostered the vernacular languages and weakened the ties of church and sect; The growth of commerce, which demanded larger territorial units to allow scope for the dynamic spirit of the rising middle classes and their capitalistic enterprise.

Imagi-Nation state existed as an imagined community through the development of print technologies creating national networks of communication, language and power. Nations are imagined political communities with cultural roots in religion, dynasties and conceptions of time – imagined as both limited and sovereign.

• Why “Limited”? • Why “Sovereign”? • Why “Community”?

Capitalism enables Nationalist Imagination • Capitalism itself has a revolutionary vernacularizing effect that helped give rise to nationalism. • Reformation and Luther, who became bestselling author, helped to fuel print capitalism’s success. • Slow, geographically uneven spread of particular vernacular as instrument of administrative centralization by well positioned rulers.

Print Capitalism Print capitalism laid basis for nationalism by creating common language, communication and power networks. – Created unified fields of exchange and communication. – Gave new fixity to language, so that national history could be imagined very efficiently. – Created languages-of-power of a kind difference from older administrative vernaculars. – Time also became reconceived in novels and newspapers – the time of the nation.

Racism – In the context of colonialism, racism was not so much an inceptive or a push force as an enabling one. – The absolute certainty of European superiority made imperialism not only feasible, but excused it, moralized it. – The racism could be combined with religious fervor: the “white man’s burden” and mission civilisatrice. – But, much like religion—this was not so much an inceptive as for public consumption – as with French public opinion about Algeria (see Knightley).

Racial Self-Subjegation: Or, How Revolution Comes From Within • The black man’s “self-division” is a “direct result of colonialist subjugation” (p. 417). – Through language, custom, self-perception (including of corporal matters), etc. , the Black man internalizes his oppressors’ ideology. Fanon’s work became famous for arguing that true revolutionary emancipation comes not with overthrowing the colonial yolk, but overcoming the internalized inferiority within the colonized themselves; the “inborn complex” (p. 421) of the subjugated Black, the failure to demand recognition and to realize his desire for freedom, are the true obstacles.

Symbolic Interactionism • Goffman is considered a proponent of symbolic interactionism and one of the great ethnographers of all time. He draws from phenomenology to affirm the importance of intuitive experience. His reliance on interpretation finds roots in Weber’s work, though he is primarily a Durkhemian. • Mundane, routine social actions (such as gossip, gestures, grunts) are evidence of people’s constant struggle to establish an identity. • The role of symbolism is all-important: interaction rituals are defined and sustained not by formal, “overt” communication and behavior, but by implicit, often unintentional symbolic messages.

Social Life as Theatre • “Performance, ” “Impression management, ” “Face, ” “Poise, ” “Framing, “Front, ” “Setting, ” “Appearance, ” “Manner, ” are the foundations of the dramaturgical approach to social interaction. • Goffman views social interaction as a "performance, " shaped by environment and audience, constructed to provide others with "impressions" that are consonant with the intentions of the actor. • Establishing social identity, then, requires the presentation of a "front, " which acts as the a vehicle of standardization, allowing for others to understand the individual on the basis of projected character traits. As a "collective representation, " the front establishes proper "setting, " "appearance, " and "manner" for the social role assumed by the actor. • What Goffman calls “dramatic realization” entails "impression management, " the control (or lack of control) and communication of information through the performance. Believability, as a result, is constructed in terms of verbal signification, which is used by the actor to establish intent, and non-verbal signification, which is used by the audience to verify the honesty of statements made by the individual.

Mead’s Social Behaviorism • Three tenants: • (1) meaning is social, depends on human capacity to react to others’ reactions to their gestures. • (2) the “field of mind” emerges from the “field of language. ” • (3) the only way to understand “the self” is in the context of social experience.

“I” vs. “Me” Consider how one talks to oneself: one often assumes an imaginary social “other. ” The “me” is the reactive part of oneself, learned through interaction with others and the environment. It is socially-trained, sensitive to what others think one is. The “me” represents your actions, social roles, public persona, etc. Who you are in the eyes of others (and hence to yourself). The “I” is the pro-active response of the individual to the attitude of the community. The “I” represents your existential being, meaningmaking and personal values. Who you are regardless of others. The “I” acts creatively within the constraints imposed by the “me. ” The “me” disciplines and constrains the “I” so that the latter does not break society’s laws and norms.

Brubaker & Cooper: Stop the Identity-Talk Argues that ‘identity’ is a term that has been overused – theorists do not need to use ‘identity’ to describe the types of ‘work’ they are referring to – and provides alternatives to using ‘identity’ in social analysis.

1996 Bad Writing Contest “Total presence breaks on the univocal predication of the exterior absolute the absolute existent (of that of which it is not possible to univocally predicate an outside, while the equivocal predication of the outside of the absolute exterior is possible of that of which the reality so predicated is not the reality, viz. , of the dark/of the self, the identity of which is not outside the absolute identity of the outside, which is to say that the equivocal predication of identity is possible of the selfidentity which is not identity, while identity is univocally predicated of the limit to the darkness, of the limit of the reality of the self). This is the real exteriority of the absolute outside: the reality of the absolutely unconditioned absolute outside univocally predicated of the dark: the light univocally predicated of the darkness: the shining of the light univocally predicated of the limit of the darkness: actuality univocally predicated of the other of self-identity: existence univocally predicated of the absolutely unconditioned other of the self. The precision of the shining of the light breaking the dark is the other-identity of the light. The precision of the absolutely minimum transcendence of the dark is the light itself/the absolutely unconditioned exteriority of existence for the first time/the absolutely facial identity of existence/the proportion of the new creation sans depth/the light itself ex nihilo: the dark itself univocally identified, i. e. , not self-identity itself equivocally, not the dark itself equivocally, in “self-alienation, ” not “self-identity, itself in selfalienation” “released” in and by “otherness, ” and “actual other, ” “itself, ” not the abysmal inversion of the light, the reality of the darkness equivocally, absolute identity equivocally predicated of the self/selfhood equivocally predicated of the dark (the reality of this darkness the other-self-covering of identity which is the identification person-self). ” – D. G. Leahy, Biologist & Philosopher

Against Definitional Confusion • Often, definitions are – too strong, – too weak, or – too ambiguous to mean anything • Contemporary uses are often incongruous and contradictory • Whether we realize it or not, we often use terms like “nationality, ” “race, ” “ethnicity” and related identitarian words as reified.

Alternatives to “Identity” (1) Identification and categorization • ‘Identification’ draws attention to the differing processes of characterization within different contexts and by different agents • identification = process; identity = condition • allows differentiation b/t self-identification and that imposed by others, including the state • • (2) Self-understanding and social location Useful to explain non-instrumental bases for action, through selfunderstanding as ‘situated’ identity Analytically limited b/c of its self-referential nature Privileges cognitive over affective processes of understanding Ignores the objectivity of strong understandings of identity (3) Commonality, connectedness, groupness • For referencing the collective identities, particularly involving ingroup sameness and out-group distinction