What is the definition of “Nationalism”? The answers vary from “advocates of genocidal ethno-states” to “the last bastion against the globalist elite cabal run by the Stonecutters”. Most people, however, fall well within these two histrionic extremes, yet even then there is a general divide in opinion and categorization. To wit: ‘Twould seem that the biggest difference in definition of what “Nationalism” is is the question of if one defines “Nationalism” as being of the “common” or of being of the “collective”; in other words, it is defined by individuals with commonalities, or is it defined by a collective from which the individual is defined.
This is a question that has been gestating for some time, and a question over which people with differing opinions about the definition of “Nationalism” have been attacking and speaking past each other because they are attacking each other over completely antithetical definitions of the core word about which the antagonistic disagreement occurred.
Perhaps this conflagration of definitions has lost any common mooring in the English language, but the following facepalm worthy “explanation” has led to the point where we all need to step back and agree on definition lest a rectification of name be upon us.
To be generous, one could say that Ms. Owens is ignorant of the doctrines and subsequent actions of the NATIONAL Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), or that she adheres to a libertarian notion of Nationalism that embraces the “non-aggression principle”. But it is without question that just as the NSDAP was indeed socialist and that fascism was the twin whelp of Communism from the same Hegelian dialectical bitch, that both National Socialism and more classical Fascism held Nationalism as a core doctrinal truth.
Fascism, and National Socialism (both Strasserite and Hitlerite) were Nationalists of the “collective” vein. What does this mean? Mussolini (give or take a ghost-writer) explained this.
Fascism saw the collective being as not an oppressed class as under Communism, but of the entirety of a nation, whereby the Nation was not defined by the commonality of the people, but whereby the individual was defined, and received not only meaning, but definitional existence, from the collective Nation.
“In the Fascist conception of history, man is man only by virtue of the spiritual process to which he contributes as a member of the family, the social group, the nation, and in function of history to which all nations bring their contribution.”
This, of course, is in contradiction of the idea that “Nationalism” is defined by people who bind together based what they have in common and in common hold special the mores, folkways, traditions, and heritage that transcends mere blood and soil limitations. In this sense, “Nationalism” is synonymous with “Patriotism”, at least in the American vein whereby an immigrant who happily embraces America is far more American than some elitist whose ancestors were listed amongst the “first families” of one English colony or another who now support U.N. governance over their spiffy little townhouse.
Many, if not most, people who champion the label of “Nationalist”, including presumably Candice Owens, would reject this collectivist definition. But then, how many people either championing this label or denouncing the same have actually thought about it?
