(Reply)

Re: Steve McIntosh’s essay on nationalism and globalism. I usually find SM’s take on cultural issues enlightening. Not this time. The essay is very disappointing. No definition of ‘nationalism’ or ‘globalism,’ rendering the chart comparing the two just about useless. There is almost nothing positive to say about nationalism, usually understood as an attitude of positive regard towards one’s own nation-state to the exclusion of others. Expressed in a fan’s rooting for a country’s team in the Olympics, nationalism is harmless enough, I suppose. But in any form – moderate to extreme, nationalism is irrational; or as integralists prefer to say, prerational. It is a form of ethnocentrism, by definition narrow and exclusive, too easily given to hostility towards other nations and ethnicities, often tainted by racism and/or religious bias.
Nationalism today is particularly irrational since most nation states are multicultural. What exactly is the national identity of a Caucasian citizen of the United States, a Muslim immigrant, a Latino, a Member of the (black) Nation of Islam, a Trump voter who yearns for the return of the Confederacy? National identity is a delusion.
If globalism (undefined, recall) means more than global integration of communication and banking systems and regional trade deals – what I call ‘globalization’ – if it means instead a postmodern embrace of the entire planet and its inhabitants as the ultimate locus of ethical concern, then nationalism and globalism are not an “interdependent polarity.” Their relationship is hierarchical, as any integralist of SM’s stature should realize. Globalism in this sense transcends nationalism but, of course, includes it in the way all postmodern phenomena include the modern. That is not interdependence. Nationalism can thrive quite nicely without globalism, as the current upsurge in right-wing populism worldwide demonstrates. But the reverse is not true. Globalism requires nationalism as the earlier stage out of which it has itself developed. It includes by accepting the stage structure of the nation state (LR quadrant) but rejects the exclusionary, ethnocentric psychology (UL) and culture (LL) that it inevitably produces among developing human beings.
At its worst, nationalism is a political ideology that, as philosopher A.C. Grayling observes, “is a recipe for disaster…..of more use to demagogues and separatists than anyone else.”