Reading Yoram Hazony’s The Virtue of Nationalism is like a breath of fresh air. At a time when despising the notion of nationhood and condemning nationalism has become an essential element of orthodox opinion in virtually the entire Western world, Hazony has undertaken an uncompromising defense of both. And since today’s orthodoxy is aggressive and intrusive, present everywhere, in almost every public space, and even penetrating into non-public spheres, it is refreshing to hear a voice that distances itself from these dogmas.
The concept of nationalism is used by the author in the classical sense, as derived from Greco-Roman antiquity and from the Old Testament. This classical understanding tells us that there is an objective limit to the expansion of the political organism. It is an argument that we find in Plato and especially in Aristotle. The political community—these sages tell us—cannot expand indefinitely. It is limited not only functionally, but above all by strong historical characteristics such as language, religion, and common heritage. This view (common sense, one would think) is contested in modernity on the basis of the universalist slogan of the brotherhood of mankind. And so doctrines such as Marxism and liberalism have a tendency to extend the boundaries of the political order practically without end, to include, in the most daring ideological contestations, all of mankind.
In reading Hazony’s book, it is necessary to keep in mind the classical understanding of nationalism. For there is another concept in wide circulation, which is extremely negative, and which attributes biologism, radical exclusivism, contempt for others, and other similarly unpleasant characteristics to nationalism. In using the term in this way, its detractors have made it an instrument for invective, and an insult so blunt that today it is practically impossible to have a meaningful conversation on the subject of the nation and national identity.
The reader of The Virtue of Nationalism should put this whole litany of invectives aside, and instead follow the author’s reasoning, which is based on the juxtaposition of two ideal types: One is nationalism, a theory that justifies the nation-state as the basic and optimal political entity; and the other is imperialism, a theory that speaks of broader political constructs such as the empire or a multinational federation.
The attack on the nation-state has intensified, especially, in the last two decades in Europe, where attempts have been made to undermine its role in political life and even to accelerate its relegation to the dustbin of history. Earlier, such tendencies were less pronounced. After the fall of communism, when the view that liberal democracy would prevail in the Western world was a matter of consensus, many, especially in societies newly freed from communism, took it for granted that it would be a world of independent nation-states working together, whether in more or less formal ways. If the rhetoric of the ‘end of history’ made any sense at all, it only meant this: That the political imagination would now be contained within the liberal-democratic order, and so an era permitting the free development of nation-states must finally be at hand—an era made possible by this freedom-enabling political order.
However, neither political imagination nor practice followed this course. Instead, it turned out that an era of global or continental constructs had arrived. Fashionable concepts such as global governance and European governance became popular, indicating a change of political direction and suggesting plans for building suitable political structures. The most familiar, and the most relevant to my nation of Poland is, of course, the European Union, which began to assume the competences of the nation-states of Europe—sometimes by right, but more often not. The nature and operation of such supranational structures have not yet been sufficiently researched or described. Hazony rightly points out that in Europe, this federalist tendency has existed since the very beginning of European integration. He quotes, for example, a statement by Konrad Adenauer from the early 1950s, according to which peace in Europe and lasting cooperation would only be achieved through the withering away of the nation-states, a process which at that point, according to the politicians’ way of thinking, had already begun.
Today, many—even a great many—see these changes as a historical necessity, just as the so-called “community of communist states” was once seen as resulting from the logic of history. But we are not dealing with a quasi-Hegelian or quasi-Marxist determinism here. Rather, we are referring to a political project that is being realized, often quite brutally, by certain political parties, governments, multinational corporations, and international organizations. Unfortunately, the ruthlessness with which this project is being implemented in Europe has not yet been sufficiently described, nor has the knowledge of it been sufficiently disseminated.
Whatever the benefits of introducing stronger mechanisms for international cooperation, whether these be in terms of freedom of movement or free trade, the project of using EU institutions to incapacitate nation-states and dilute national identities is extremely dangerous. It is nothing less than a gigantic scheme of social engineering, which threatens to rob humanity of all the gains it has made by means of well-governed nation-states, which Hazony describes so eloquently and with such precision in his book. These gains can neither be guaranteed nor developed by grand supernational structures. They are much more likely to be squandered by them.
The state, as we read in The Virtue of Nationalism, never is and can never be neutral. Instead, each state has its own identity and its own character, which are determined by its historical and social content. Even “constitutional patriotism” is not mere loyalty to a constitution, but to everything that makes us accept a certain constitutional document as our own, and as reflecting a part of ourselves. The creation of a new global or continental patriotism is therefore a fundamentally absurd undertaking: It proposes to create something that cannot be created.
Hazony shows that the disadvantages of supernational federalism or imperialism, which are the opposites of nationalism, are not only the result of a structural, but also, to use John Paul II’s well-known term, of an “anthropological error.” Man is a social being, a family being, who develops through strong bonds with his relatives and loved ones—but also with those who share his sense of belonging, and feel, together with him, a commonality of place, history, symbolism, cult, and conviction. In other words, man tends to seek his own. To quote a famous comment of Aristotle, “He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.”
Today’s world offers many ways to relativize or hide this truth about man. Technological developments, new forms of communication and socialization, global social networks—all these can create the illusion that, to quote Zygmunt Bauman, we live in a fluid world and can configure our environment at will. There is, of course, some truth to the claim that technological development affects the way we think and the structure of the society in which we live. This has always been the case. But the road from this observation to the thesis that we can now safely replace the nation-state with broader supernational structures is long and winding.
Diluting identities and loyalties does not increase the growth potential of individuals or political structures. I would like to emphasize the term virtue, which Hazony also put in the title of his book. The author uses this term primarily in the sense of something positive, or, as was once said, of an “advantage,” that is gained by ordering political life around the nation-state. But it is also worth remembering another meaning of this term that dates back to antiquity. It refers to the moral and political qualities of human beings that result from participation in collective life and from the internalization of good habits that regulate our behavior. It is also worth recalling Aristotle and his view of participation in community life as a condition for the formation of virtue.
Of course, there are many other elements involved in the formation of virtue, often accidental and difficult to identify and reproduce. But there is no doubt that a nation-state provides a better environment for the inculcation of virtue than a supernational structure. In the European Union, for example, the formation of virtue in the traditional sense is not possible, not only because the EU is too large and impersonal, but, above all, because it lacks the element of accountability to a community to whom one belongs in a strong sense.
This, too, is the result of the “anthropological error.” Making decisions about countries one does not even know, about which one is indifferent, and by which one is not held accountable, can in no way improve the quality of political life. It must inevitably lower it. Therefore, whoever looks with hope to the European Union’s beneficent influence on the quality of life in member states is quite mistaken. The data that destroys any such hope is already available and all too abundant.
The Virtue of Nationalism is primarily a defense of a political concept. But it also contains historical themes—for example, concerning religion. It is difficult to see how it could be otherwise, since a nation is, by nature, an entity that exists in history and derives its strengths and weaknesses from it. The author posits that in the Christian world, Catholicism tended to sanction imperial structures, while nation-states were established thanks to the Reformation, or rather, thanks to the post-Westphalian order that followed the end of the Thirty Years’ War.
On the one hand, Hazony is right that Christianitas ensured relative unity thanks to Catholicism. Of course, this was not an empire or a federation. But it did move human minds toward some form of unity, not only spiritual and doctrinal, but also political. There is a rich body of literature in the Catholic tradition on the relationship between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the World. As a result of the Reformation, national churches emerged that strengthened, or perhaps accelerated, the formation of nation-states.
However, there was a paradox in this process. The political theories developed in Protestant countries such as England created the concept of a social contract, and thus a political order that was stripped of all historical content and based upon the calculation of individual interests and the logic of personal choice. In this way, the Protestant revolution introduced into Western politics the constructivist concept of the state, which led to the idea that the state could be formed according to the rules of an implicit contract. This, of course, involved a complete negation of the nation as a historical community.
On the other hand, in the post-Westphalian era, Catholicism proved to be an effective force for the preservation of national traditions. This was because, in contrast to Protestant fideism and the principle of sola scriptura, the Catholic Church always emphasized the role of tradition, not only as something close to the natural inclinations of man, but also as a transmitter of wisdom. Thus, Catholics who defended their Church defended not only their religion, the Pope, and Christianitas, but also their national community with which that religion was united. Poland is a striking example of this. In its history, the defense of the nation and its sovereignty has always been linked to the defense of the Catholic faith. It was in Catholic churches that patriots found shelter and support.
The defenders of today’s imperialism or supernational federalism claim that in weakening our national and religious ties, we are doing something like getting rid of the artificial costumes we have been made to wear; and that by doing so, we gain entry into a world of people freely exercising their rights, a world of true unhindered diversity.
In essence, however, this means a great standardization. Nations and religions have made the world rich, full of diversity, drawing on the wealth of human experience that has been accumulated throughout history. If the imperialists and federalists’ strategy were to be realized, it would mean that we would slide into a de facto homogeneous, mono-ideological, and rationalized reality. This is no dream but a great danger, which ushers in the construction of a ‘brave new world.’
Thanks to authors like Yoram Hazony and books like The Virtue of Nationalism, we can see this danger more clearly. But above all, we also see how much we owe to the nation-state, and how deceptive are the arguments of those who condemn it either to extinction by the verdict of history, or to extermination by means of a brutal imperial policy.
