What is a nation?
The other day I came across a discussion on TigerHawk's blog, "Notes on American nationalism." He was reading a book by a couple of Pew pollsters. In their book, they pointed to an article written in 2003 -- scholars are like bloggers, we keep passing the baton back and forth, but the difference is they (Pei, Kohut) are getting paid to think.
Now, what caught my attention was the scribblings of CEIP's Minxin Pei. He's a scholar, but his writing (which I've critiqued prior to joining the blogsphere) is too much cut & paste editorialism, heavy with polls, light on substance. Pei worships Polls, for he's a Rousseau "will of the people" thinker that believes that politics are science. Ideal gas laws work with molecules, so Ideal people laws must work too. Think of Asimov's Psychohistorians, that's what Kohut and Pei believe in; they want to be 2nd Foundationers.
Me, I'll stick with Professor Charles Beard's assessment of polls, they're not very reliable for they fail to capture the passion of the opinions held. Pollsters try to get past this known deficiency by asking questions that are to be answered by do you "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree".
Pew would ask, "Madame Defarge, do you 'strongly agree', 'agree', 'disagree', or 'strongly disagree' that King Louie should be beheaded?" After she got through pricking out both his eyes with her knitting needles, she'd cackle and say, "Could you repeat my choices?"
That's the sad reality of our political discourse; Legion wasn't banished to herded pigs, they ran off to determine the "will of the people."
For a host of different reasons, Pei's comments are pointless, for it's all about America being like other countries -- they're the norm because so many of them agree, and we're the statistical outlier. Pei's comments presupposes the way of others is superior to our own ways.
Pei like so many others are unmindful of two truths about people and by extension the nation they choose to form.
First, Plato taught us "likes attract likes." The importance of this should not be overlooked. We hear about anti-Americanism all the time. AAism is The STD of the 21st Century. We're carriers and we're infecting everyone. Europeans and Pei's like-minded kind are not like us, so they don't like us. They believe the way we live our lives is wrong because we do not live like they do. They believe if we lived our lives like others then the world be peachy and keen.
Second, Cicero taught us "As with men, so with nations." Leaving aside the Darwin- Spencer-Spengler organism theories of the human kind, our country reflects who we are. And our differences from other countries are so pronounced they are easily overlooked. After the last presidential election, Thomas Friedman -- it was before he was walled off from his adoring audience -- woke up and found he lived in a Red State nation, yet again. 'Sniff was livid and flummoxed by this not-so singular oddity. "How can this be?" he asked himself. He couldn't grasp it. For Friedman, the electorate's view of America was inconsistent with the self-evident truths he had painstakingly taught us so well. Thus we were unfit for his Blue State world, and he was determined not to live in a Red State nation. Truth be told, 'Sniff was relieved when TimesSelect walls were cast to keep out the barbarians.
Nowadays, so many people are talking to folks just like themselves they are surprised to find out there are folks out there that do not share their deeply held beliefs. Strangely, the internet has made some folks more insular than they were before.
Our nationalism is a reflection of who we are. Just because I don't live like others that doesn't mean the way I live my life is wrong, it just means I'm different. By extension, just because Americans see the world differently than Europeans that doesn't mean the way we see the world is wrong, it just means we are different.
In 1882, Ernest Renan gave a speech: What is a nation? (emphasis added)
Now, what caught my attention was the scribblings of CEIP's Minxin Pei. He's a scholar, but his writing (which I've critiqued prior to joining the blogsphere) is too much cut & paste editorialism, heavy with polls, light on substance. Pei worships Polls, for he's a Rousseau "will of the people" thinker that believes that politics are science. Ideal gas laws work with molecules, so Ideal people laws must work too. Think of Asimov's Psychohistorians, that's what Kohut and Pei believe in; they want to be 2nd Foundationers.
Me, I'll stick with Professor Charles Beard's assessment of polls, they're not very reliable for they fail to capture the passion of the opinions held. Pollsters try to get past this known deficiency by asking questions that are to be answered by do you "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree".
Pew would ask, "Madame Defarge, do you 'strongly agree', 'agree', 'disagree', or 'strongly disagree' that King Louie should be beheaded?" After she got through pricking out both his eyes with her knitting needles, she'd cackle and say, "Could you repeat my choices?"
That's the sad reality of our political discourse; Legion wasn't banished to herded pigs, they ran off to determine the "will of the people."
For a host of different reasons, Pei's comments are pointless, for it's all about America being like other countries -- they're the norm because so many of them agree, and we're the statistical outlier. Pei's comments presupposes the way of others is superior to our own ways.
Pei like so many others are unmindful of two truths about people and by extension the nation they choose to form.
First, Plato taught us "likes attract likes." The importance of this should not be overlooked. We hear about anti-Americanism all the time. AAism is The STD of the 21st Century. We're carriers and we're infecting everyone. Europeans and Pei's like-minded kind are not like us, so they don't like us. They believe the way we live our lives is wrong because we do not live like they do. They believe if we lived our lives like others then the world be peachy and keen.
Second, Cicero taught us "As with men, so with nations." Leaving aside the Darwin- Spencer-Spengler organism theories of the human kind, our country reflects who we are. And our differences from other countries are so pronounced they are easily overlooked. After the last presidential election, Thomas Friedman -- it was before he was walled off from his adoring audience -- woke up and found he lived in a Red State nation, yet again. 'Sniff was livid and flummoxed by this not-so singular oddity. "How can this be?" he asked himself. He couldn't grasp it. For Friedman, the electorate's view of America was inconsistent with the self-evident truths he had painstakingly taught us so well. Thus we were unfit for his Blue State world, and he was determined not to live in a Red State nation. Truth be told, 'Sniff was relieved when TimesSelect walls were cast to keep out the barbarians.
Nowadays, so many people are talking to folks just like themselves they are surprised to find out there are folks out there that do not share their deeply held beliefs. Strangely, the internet has made some folks more insular than they were before.
Our nationalism is a reflection of who we are. Just because I don't live like others that doesn't mean the way I live my life is wrong, it just means I'm different. By extension, just because Americans see the world differently than Europeans that doesn't mean the way we see the world is wrong, it just means we are different.
In 1882, Ernest Renan gave a speech: What is a nation? (emphasis added)
A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form. Man, Gentlemen, does not improvise. The nation, like the individual, is the culmination of a long past of endeavours, sacrifice, and devotion. Of all cults, that of the ancestor is the most legitimate, for the ancestors have made us what we are.
posted by Tony Harrison at 4:45 PM
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