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The nonsense of nationalism

Arrant

Arrant

Senior Registered
Once one accepts reincarnation as a truth, can one really cling to national ideals or indentity? After all, the American shop girl may reincarnate as a Russian diplomat, or the British scientist as a Patagonian sheep herder. It also makes war between nations seem even more of an abomination. And religous wars more absurd, to boot!

Yet many religons acknowledge reincarnation, particularly eastern ones, so the dissemination of that wisdom should, in theory, preclude the repugnant absuridy of war. Yet it dosen't. It that because, in the age old battle between good and evil, the latter is currently in the ascendant?

Any thoughts or musings welcome.
 
I think it's a duality, one may perceive culture as an identity and comfort, but yet accept at the same time that we're all part of a larger order of beings.


So in that sense, I think it would be up to the individual. One may prefer variety, while another may prefer more familiar surroundings.


Concurrently, I would also think that a younger soul would be more mired down in identity while more mature souls wouldn't be.
 
I've often wondered about this too and I think it can be a pretty deep topic. I'm American; my great-grandfather immigrated through Ellis Island from Italy. My family is very Italian....our food, behavior, etc. I embrace it because that's who I am today. My DNA and flesh and blood is Italian-American, but I guess you could say my soul is not since my last life I was Jewish and before that English, Cuban, Japanese, Russian, etc. There are aspects of all those cultures that appeal to me and those that don't.


Just my 2cents.
 
Nationalsim is not nonsense. It's part of our idenitites as we go through life. To treat it as any less is to decry, for example, being brunette as nonsense, or having the family name of Smith as nonsense, or even liking dogs as nonsense. If you are born in a particular nation and like it, great! Patriotism is often a positive thing. If you don't like the nation you were born in, you can either try to correct it through the proper channels or you can move to a nation more to your liking.


Nationalism taken to an extreme, however, is frightening and idiotic. It's fine for me to say "I love the United States." If you love your nation, great! I'd like to hear about it! At no point, however, should either of us follow it up with "... and your nation sucks" unless we're looking for a fight. At worst, you get people who believe that all non-nationals should get out or die (or get out and die), but they are, I believe, the minority and are certainly no reason to condemn an entire philosophy.
 
As most people know, Americans can be fanatically nationalistic at times. Yet, there are few nations as ethnically mixed as the United States. In fact, when I was in the Army a few decades ago, many who served with me were not even born in the United States, and they were far more nationalistic than me! Many also gave their lives for my country, and some of them were not even citizens. So, apparently nationalism doesn't seem to have that much to do with ancestry, so much as it seems to be related more to ideology and loyalty.


Of course, we are usually most loyal to whatever belief system our family adheres to, and it is natural to protect our family along with their beliefs at the point of a sword or the muzzle of a gun. My family -- right or wrong. Extend this analog to community, then country...we find ourselves locked into extended wars in which neither side can back down until one side or both are obliterated.


Fortunately, the history of every nation is saturated with a litany of enemies, most of which have become friends at one time or another. So, too...the history of our incarnations can be saturated with a litany of many different nationalities, races and ideologies.


Nationalism is about loyalty, which is not a bad quality to have regardless of background. Sometimes it takes a united nation to stop a madman in his tracks, and God knows, there have been plenty of them. However, blind nationalism -- like blind religious faith -- can lead us all into the depths of Hell on Earth, as it has so often in the past. But, the culprit here is not nationalism...rather blind faith! Not loyalty...but dependence.
 
Arrant said:
Once one accepts reincarnation as a truth, can one really cling to national ideals or indentity? After all, the American shop girl may reincarnate as a Russian diplomat, or the British scientist as a Patagonian sheep herder. It also makes war between nations seem even more of an abomination. And religous wars more absurd, to boot!
Any thoughts or musings welcome.
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In addition to that, I had a bizarre thought after I accepted reincarnation: the pointlessness of the generation gap. Think of all those WWII veterans who couldn't understand why those "**** hippie" children of theirs didn't want to serve their country like THEY did. Well, what if those "**** hippies" had been their reincarnated comrades who weren't as lucky as they were to come back from the war? Wouldn't they feel rather resentful of war in general?
 
pixarfan said:
Well, what if those "**** hippies" had been their reincarnated comrades who weren't as lucky as they were to come back from the war? Wouldn't they feel rather resentful of war in general?
Click to expand...
Forgive me for jumping in again, but this assumption of what happened to the children of WWII Veterans is very close to home for me, because my relationship with my WWII Veteran father was a poignant microcosm of what went on during that time, and I can tell everyone that our arguments had nothing to do with having been deceased comrades. It had to do with the nature of our involvement in a war which was intended only to maintain the status quo. Our parents had been involved in a war that seemed unavoidable and the welfare of the entire world was at stake. Whereas, our involvement in Vietnam seemed counter to the very ideals that our parents instilled in us. Many of us came back from Vietnam with first-hand knowledge that what we were doing was wrong and our fathers called us traitors for our belief, even though we, ourselves, were wounded, maimed and grieving over the loss of many friends, ourselves.


As for the other children of the 60's it wasn't so much our lack of nationalism that made our parents angry, but a complacency that set in after WWII. Our parents thought that after that war, we had the bomb and we would never have to face that kind of war again. The generation of the 60's, however, knew better and saw a future in which our arrogance and complacency would be our undoing. And, they were right! Since that time 40 years ago, most of our parents have either apologized or quietly realized that they were wrong. At the same time, those hippies of the 60's have mostly become conservatives themselves, who believe in military strength and resolve -- just like their parents.
 
Oh, I'm well aware of the history and ideals of both the 1940s vs. the 1960s, and you are absolutely right in regards to the world situations being completely different. I also believe WWII was inescapable and Vietnam, on the other hand, was cruelly pointless. I was merely offering an additional thought, as it seems I had a past life in both eras (one of which was as a soldier killed in WWII). And it is ironic indeed how history tends to repeat itself, despite our best intentions.


Interestingly, in my (present life) family, the situation was oddly switched. My grandpa, a WWII veteran, was well aware of the horrors of war and did not want his son to suffer through Vietnam. His son (my dad), said he'd go to Vietnam proudly if he was drafted. Fortunately for my existence, he wasn't.
 
Probably stepping in out my league here, but another theory I've seen about the differences between the two generations involves over-compensation for lives disrupted by WW2. The parents who went through WW2 raised the kids of the 50's with all of the expected "privileges" and pampered them a bit much, a natural feeling after such thing as a world war. By the time the 60's came around, many kids were essentially spolied rotten and were used to getting what they wanted and getting it now. Many never knew the deprivation that their parents went through, and the folks wanted to make sure they never did. So when sacrifice was asked of them, it was like "What?!? Me?!?"


Not my own theory, but it was one I'd heard. I'm sure it's true for at least some of that generation.
 
I think nationalism is just like religion: fine in very small doses for the positive aspects but otherwise absolutely ridiculous. It seems to me that most people don't (or can't) seem to understand the reason they are the way they are is SOLELY because of where they were born or how they were brought up. For example, if I was a woman in a Middle Eastern country instead of a man in Eastern Canada, I would obviously be a radically different person.


This is another reason why I often prefer talking to children over adults. You don't hear them talk in these divisive terms until it is instilled (or to put it bluntly, brainwashed) into them. I could go on for hours on this topic but let me just state that the present system of nations we see in our world was not an entirely natural process and definitely was NOT set up for our benefit.
 
When we, as a society, begin to see things from a spiritual level and feel safer in our society, nationalism, territorialism, etc. will all take on a much less significant role in our thoughts and lives.


Another way of looking at it is that nations, except for the United States, formed under the idea of tribal identification. Each tribe/nation spoke a particular language, had a particular culture, ate a particular sort of food and believed a particular religion...and survived under the protection and safety of the ruler/government of that particular tribe/nation.


The United States broke down the need for tribal connections and replaced them with a looser set of requirements which still provided the protection and safety of the governance. As the need for protection wanes the feeling of need for nationalistic safety and protection will also wane.
 
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