What does any of this mean? Is exclusion always a bad thing? Is it "exclusionary" that only believing Catholics in a state of grace can receive Holy Communion? Is it "exclusionary" that only men can be ordained? Is it "exclusionary" that Catholic marriage only exists between a man and a woman?
Is it "exclusionary" that national sentiment is directed towards our countrymen and women, rather than the rest of the world? Doesn't everybody in the world have their own nation, whether or not that nation has its own state?
What is nationalism? There are plenty of definitions out there, but to me it's simply belief in the institution of the nation and a desire for this institution to survive. This doesn't seem controversial or radical to me.
It seems especially odd that recent Popes have been so hostile to nationalism, when nationalists are generally supportive of social conservatism, religion, and the sanctity of life. Globalists, on the other hand, usually oppose all these things.
I'm particularly baffled by the Holy Father's use of the word "now": "The exclusionary mentality that, tragically, we now see manifesting itself in political nationalisms."
Is it really the case, as so many commentators (including Pope Leo) seem to assume, that the wave of populist nationalism passing through the developed world is something new? Is it not, rather, a delayed reaction to the thing that is really new: the project of globalism, which includes demographic change on a scale never seen before? I don't think the populations of Europe and the Americas have suddenly become nationalist. I think they always were (at least in a latent way) but they have only now woken up to the project of their ruling elites.
These are well-rehearsed arguments on this blog. I apologise to regular readers who may be bored by them. But they come to mind again in the light of Pope Leo's words.
It would be helpful if Pope Leo were to release an encyclical or other document on the place of the nation in the modern world, and particularly on how the plurality of human cultures are to be protected without the nation and nationalism. Until then, with all due respect to the Supreme Pontiff, I remain a nationalist-- a cultural nationalist primarily, but a political nationalist as well.
As an American, I am going to venture a guess that Pope Leo is directing his speech at what is currently taking place here and not thinking about the broader application, that it could be seen as a call to destroy everything unique about each individual culture. I highly doubt as someone who is from Chicago and has worked in Peru that he wants Peruvian distinctness or even Chicagoland distinctness to vanish, but perhaps as someone raised in America he probably doesn't grasp this threat to individual cultures. Very few Americans do and very few Americans, even those on the right, discuss the importance of cultural integrity. Instead many do tend to "other" immigrants in wrong ways. It is a growing concern on the intellectual right, but it is not mainstream in American discourse. Too much talk on the American right is about American exceptionalism and that exceptionalism being why we need to limit immigration, rather than mass immigration being harmful for both cultures, it destabilizes the areas immigrants are leaving and hollows out the culture. As Ireland experienced, having a vast number of people leave hollows out the culture in a very real way. I agree with a point you made in a post a while back that cultural diversity is good for its own sake, and it is not to say that all cultures are equal in every regard, but that the world is more interesting due to a multiplicity of cultures.
ReplyDeleteI honestly think very few people who aren't sympathetic to populist nationalism have grasped the danger to particular cultures; they seem to believe they will continue no matter what. Of course, they might be right, but I find it very hard to believe.
DeleteYes, I do think it's a shame that, instead of concentrating on the preservation of cultural distinctiveness, the populist right (or far right or whatever) tends to rely on arguments like crime, Islamification, or Haitians eating dogs and cats. I suspect it's because these seem more tangible and empirical.
The UK government has now officially said that cultural nationalism is a form of ;right-wing extremism; that can merit a person being investigated for radicalism and terrorism. Chilling.
ReplyDeleteNot only is it chilling, but it seems to be in contradiction to Keir Starmer's recent "island of strangers" speech.
DeleteI felt this strongly during the Francis years. He didn't like do called trad-caths. But then I asked myself: who turns up to Mass every Sunday? Who puts money in the dish to support the priests? Who turns out to support threatened churches and statues? The story of the modern hierarchy in a nutshell. Love everybody. But take your own foot-soldiers for granted, when you are not scorning them.
ReplyDeleteThat's very true. I've heard that the effect of Francis's lectures was a noticeable decline from American donors-- and that this might have influenced the cardinals' choice this time around.
DeleteAt the same time, Traditionalists are sometimes anti-nationalist themselves, since they are nostalgic for the ancien regime and the time of principalities and duchies and the like.