The Nationalist Catechism

[Moody]

I am firmly in the Nationalist camp - I believe in the effectiveness and rightness of Nationalism as a philosophy and an ideology.
I even believe that Nationalism is Sacred.

I shall now quote something that many here may have already seen, but hope that some may comment on its tenets from the philosophical/ideological standpoint;

The Nationalist Catechism

1) Nations together include all humans.
1:a There is no human who does not belong to a nation.

2) No one can validly claim not to belong to a nation.

3) Nations are the natural units of humanity.

4) Everyone 'naturally' belongs to a nation [not only by choice].

5) Nations exist, therefore they should.
5:a Nations have a great historical continuity and should be continued.
5:b Because nations have shaped the lives of those who now live in them, they should continue to exist.
5:c Migrations may be restricted to preserve a pattern of location (residence) in nations.
5:d National cultures have value, therefore nations must exist to produce and preserve them.

6) Nations (peoples) have a monopoly of state formation.
6:a No entity which is not a nation (a Folk) may hold territory to form a state.
6:b No non-national entity may gain territory, for instance by discovery.

7) No (habitable) territory may be held by states other than nation states.

8) Nations are sacred.
8:a Nations have a status no other group or collectivity can have.
8:b Nations deserve supreme respect, beyond that for other groups.

9) Antiquity confers special status.

10) Nations may not be ended, singly or collectively.
10:a No process which ends nations is legitimate.
10:b A world order of nation states may not be terminated.
10:c Nations may not be eroded without an equivalent successor.

[from Nation Planet, by Paul Treanor]

[Jack]

I am firmly in the Nationalist camp - I believe in the effectiveness and rightness of Nationalism as a philosophy and an ideology.
I even believe that Nationalism is Sacred.

I disagree that Nationalism is sacred. I believe it is a disease. I'll explain this below.

I shall now quote something that many here may have already seen, but hope that some may comment on its tenets from the philosophical/ideological standpoint;

Go for it.

1) Nations together include all humans.
1:a There is no human who does not belong to a nation.

You're going to have a hard time explaining the existance of 'Anarchs' (i.e. those who do not bow to contemporary culture and hold no inward alliegence to any existing community) then.

2) No one can validly claim not to belong to a nation.

Ernst Jünger did a pretty good job of it.

3) Nations are the natural units of humanity.

Nations are the result of a de-culturalisation and mechanisation of a society. Nationalism corresponds with the conscious identification of the interests of one's particular People with the recognised struture invested with the authority to impose violence over a particular section of territory, on which one's people lives. Nationalism is the total mobilization of a people behind an Administration-State, and a fundamental shift in personal consciousness towards identification with an Administration-State and a 'community' of which one cannot personally comprehend. This shift is unnessecary, and, I argue, harmful, because it leads (quite quickly) to the disempowerment of local communities and a rapid hierarchialisation of individual relations and the loss of self-determination on an individual and community level to the point of not being able to see, or relate, to the ultimate decision maker, followed by a psychological problem called alienation. Nationalism is a disease.

4) Everyone 'naturally' belongs to a nation [not only by choice].

Haha.

5) Nations exist, therefore they should.

Analogy: Homosexuality exists, therefore it should. No - peoples exist, they provide grounding for the personal development and psychological wellbeing of individuals, and therefore they ought to continue. But a Nation is not equivalent with a People. Indeed, a Nation, without an Administration-State, will seek to produce an Administration-State, but a People is perfectly capable of existance (via small scale democratic, Government-State regions with militias for the purposes of defence) without regimentation and regulation by an impersonal Administration-State. Switzerland, prime example.

5:a Nations have a great historical continuity and should be continued.

The 'Nation' is at most five hundred years old. Peoples have great historical continuity.

5:b Because nations have shaped the lives of those who now live in them, they should continue to exist.

I believe this is more of an argument against Nationalism than for it.

5:c Migrations may be restricted to preserve a pattern of location (residence) in nations.

Right. Moody wants to put history on hold. I that is not going to happen. More to the point, the most we can (and should) hope (and work towards) for is a ressurection of consciousness amongst European Peoples.

5:d National cultures have value, therefore nations must exist to produce and preserve them.

Nations do not produce cultures. Individuals do. Individuals within peoples.

6) Nations (peoples) have a monopoly of state formation.
6:a No entity which is not a nation (a Folk) may hold territory to form a state.
6:b No non-national entity may gain territory, for instance by discovery.

Brilliance. Moody makes the mistake of confusing the People with the Nation.

7) No (habitable) territory may be held by states other than nation states.

That's absurd. Define 'State'.

8) Nations are sacred.
8:a Nations have a status no other group or collectivity can have.

This 'status' is based on nothing but power.

8:b Nations deserve supreme respect, beyond that for other groups.

Nation is either an abstraction. Which is precisely why it is so dangerous. One cannot have a personal relation with an abstraction.

9) Antiquity confers special status.

Not really. Power confers status.

10) Nations may not be ended, singly or collectively.
10:a No process which ends nations is legitimate.
10:b A world order of nation states may not be terminated.
10:c Nations may not be eroded without an equivalent successor.

Utopianism. Fact is, they do end. Same thing goes for 10:a, and 10:b is pure delusion, perhaps Paul Treanor didn't pay much attention to the events that followed the end of World War 1, where Administration-States were split apart and so were Nations, or after World War 2, when Nations were split apart on a map with numbers like '90%' and '10%'. As for 10:c, Nations are in fact eroded, and often collapse back into Peoples.

[Siegfried]

I suppose a definition of 'People' (with a capital P), 'Nation', and 'State' is in order. It seems Aloysha is not using the same definition of Nation as I do; to me, Nation is synonymous with 'ethnos' (which I defined in the thread 'Race and Ethnos').
And I think a distinction should be made between nationalism which focuses on the demos and nationalism which focuses on the ethnos. I support the latter, and detest the former.

edit: as for the State, I think a distinction should be made between the impersonal, bureaucratic structure that serves as an oppressive mechanism (ie. the modern or totalitarian State), and the organic State, which reflects the natural tendency of groups to organize themselves and to create some system of rank. An organic State is necessarily meritocratic, and grows out of an ethnos. If a State does not grow out of an ethnos, it will become mechanistic and must oppress a part of the population (as the 'world-feeling' of the population is not similar enough). Thus, an organic State is hierarchical, and perhaps even authoritarian (to some degree), without becoming totalitarian. Evola wrote some interesting things about the differences between an organic State and a totalitarian State in his Men Among the Ruins (though I do not completely agree with him on this matter).

[Jack]

I suppose a definition of 'People' (with a capital P), 'Nation', and 'State' is in order. It seems Aloysha is not using the same definition of Nation as I do; to me, Nation is synonymous with 'ethnos' (which I defined in the thread 'Race and Ethnos').
And I think a distinction should be made between nationalism which focuses on the demos and nationalism which focuses on the ethnos. I support the latter, and detest the former.

edit: as for the State, I think a distinction should be made between the impersonal, bureaucratic structure that serves as an oppressive mechanism (ie. the modern or totalitarian State), and the organic State, which reflects the natural tendency of groups to organize themselves and to create some system of rank. An organic State is necessarily meritocratic, and grows out of an ethnos. If a State does not grow out of an ethnos, it will become mechanistic and must oppress a part of the population (as the 'world-feeling' of the population is not similar enough). Thus, an organic State is hierarchical, and perhaps even authoritarian (to some degree), without becoming totalitarian. Evola wrote some interesting things about the differences between an organic State and a totalitarian State in his Men Among the Ruins (though I do not completely agree with him on this matter).

I'm going to have to revise my above post in order to include the distinctions I'm making in the present definitions, but here goes.

Nation (definition copied from my above post): The conscious identification of the interests of one's particular People with the recognised struture invested with the authority to impose violence over a particular section of territory, on which one's people lives. Nationalism is the total mobilization of a people behind a State, and a fundamental shift in personal consciousness towards identification with a State and a 'community' of which one cannot personally comprehend. A Nation without an Administration-State will tend to produce one, and a Nation with a Government-State will tend to turn it into an Administration-State.

People: An ethnic community which is seperate from the State socially and economically, but depends on the Government-State (organisation with recognised power to impose violence over a section of territory) for security in exchange for support.

Government-State: Organisation with recognised power to impose violence over a particular section of territory, constructed by elements of a People for its own protection.

Administration-State: Same as Government-State but with the added recognised ability to acquire and distribute resources and the efforts of the People over which it presides.

[Siegfried]

a People is perfectly capable of existance (via small scale democratic, Government-State regions with militias for the purposes of defence) without regimentation and regulation by an impersonal Administration-State. Switzerland, prime example

I take it then that's the kind of society you want? Do you think that's fully compatible with the kind of society you described in another thread, where the workers owned the factories? It seems to me worker ownership of the means of production would have to be enforced by an Administration-State, as the means of production otherwise tend to end up in the hands of managers, not workers.

On a side note: National-Anarchists often call themselves a strain of nationalists, yet do not support State-like structures.

[Jack]

I take it then that's the kind of society you want? Do you think that's fully compatible with the kind of society you described in another thread, where the workers owned the factories? It seems to me worker ownership of the means of production would have to be enforced by an Administration-State, as the means of production otherwise tend to end up in the hands of managers, not workers.

On a side note: National-Anarchists often call themselves a strain of nationalists, yet do not support State-like structures.

That's the sort of society I'd want, yes. Workers can still own the factories and the managers can still run them. The Mondragnon model (syndicalism operating within a capitalist society - see here for details: http://www.ping.be/jvwit/Mondragon.html. A Basque corporation runs on this model and does well in the Spanish capitalist economy) works quite well and this is what I meant to advocate. In the society I described in another thread (correct me if I'm wrong) I said I'm not against capitalism as a whole system (in a white society), but I'd rather have a mixed economy. Guild socialism for the freelance technicians and manual workers, syndicalism for the industrial workers, and capitalism for the rest. Without Govt interferance.

National Anarchists are something different altogether - freaks lol. Actually, I'd say National Anarchists are for the People and against the Nation-Administrative-State. So they aren't really Nationalists at all, though it's a convenient term. National Anarchists are pretty similar to the pro-Monarchist populist-socialist-anarchists (no contradiction - do away with the State to bring the Czar back closer to his people, hand the land from the landlords to the peasants) of the Russian Empire called the Narodniks before they were taken over by the Communists.

[Moody]

"I disagree that Nationalism is sacred. I believe it is a disease".

The sacred is the inviolable and the indefeasible.
According to Burkert the ancient Greek word [hieros] had a "delimiting, defining function ..." " ... sacred, 'hieros', may be predicated of a city like Troy, a natural phenomena like the day, the mountains, the rivers ..." (Burkert, Greek Religion)
So it is quite proper - classical even - to describe Nationalism as sacred.
As for a "disease" - it was Herakleitos who described religion as a "sacred disease" in the 6th century BC, so I'm in good company there.

"You're going to have a hard time explaining the existance of 'Anarchs' then".

No, the onus is on those who derogate the name 'Anarch' to themselves to explain their OWN aberrations. As Treanor says;
"People who declare themselves 'opponents of nationalism' usually support the continued existence of nation states. They are therefore nationalists: what other word is appropriate?".
Clearly, those weekend Anarchists who go on the rampage to destroy capitalism are in many cases slaves [and tacit supporters] of the system they pretend to oppose.

"Nations are the result of a de-culturalisation and mechanisation of a society... and a fundamental shift in personal consciousness towards identification with an Administration-State and a 'community' of which one cannot personally comprehend. This... leads () to the disempowerment of local communities ... followed by a psychological problem called alienation".

That is outmoded Communist propaganda.
There are two basic models of nationalism; The Western model, where power is seen to rest in the people - this is the 'political nation' of Rousseau.
And the Central/Eastern model, where the nation is defined by common ties of history, culture, blood and land. This is the 'cultural nation' of Germanic political philosophy.
It is the internationalist forms of governance [whether of Left or Right] that have led to 'de-culturalisation', 'alienation' and the rest of it.

"Analogy:Homosexuality exists, therefore it should".

Homosexuals DO make that argument, saying that homosexuality has always existed in human societies, and that it even exists elsewhere in the animal kingdom. The argument against homosexuality centres on whether it is or isn't harmful to the Race. If this can be shown, then the argument of ubiquity is over-thrown.
Making the analogy with nationalism; nations exist and are ubiquitous. They have a moral right to continued existence because they protect, nuture and project the Race.

"No - peoples exist, they provide grounding for the personal development and psychological wellbeing of individuals, and therefore they ought to continue".

HA! You use the same argument - you say 'peoples exist, therefore they should'!
To quote Treanor again;
"At the most basic level nationalism refers to the belief that the state and the nation should coincide as: 'people = nation = state'.
When the nation and the state do not coincide [as in a multi-national dynastic empire like that of the Habsburgs] the nationalist wants to bring about the nation state against internal and external threats and to assert national greatness".

"But a Nation is not equivalent with a People. Indeed, a Nation, without an Administration-State, will seek to produce an Administration-State, but a People is perfectly capable of existance (via small scale democratic, Government-State regions with militias for the purposes of defence) without regimentation and regulation by an impersonal Administration-State. Switzerland, prime example".

Switzerland is a Nation State - with Administration Apparatus - a multicultural one at that. It is also one of the most regimented states in Europe, with compulsory National Service.
The Nation is a political expression of a people.

"The 'Nation' is at most five hundred years old. Peoples have great historical continuity".

The classical writers called Scandinavia a 'womb of nations'. 'Natio' is from the Latin and refers to peoples of common lineage.

"I believe [the fact that nations have shaped the lives of peoples] is more of an argument against Nationalism than for it ...And [stemming migration] is to put history on hold...that is not going to happen."

Who said 'on hold'? It is a moral right for Nations to control and even to stop the migration of peoples whenever possible!
As for the shaping aspect of nations, nations should aim at a stable population as an arena for the development of a particular culture.
Treanor again;
"The goal of a nation is primarily its continued existence: to project a segment of the past into the future. Nations are past-orientated, in contrast to possible Utopian states, orientated to a future goal".

"Nations do not produce cultures. Individuals do. Individuals within peoples".

Nations are Cultures. Every individual carries the culture of some Nation - there are no 'individual cultures', or 'private languages' [or if so, they are artificial and invented against the background of a natural culture].

"You're confusing the People with the Nation ... Define 'State' ".

No you are; as Treanor says above; 'people = nation = state'.
The 'catechism' is making a MORAL CASE, and stating that only nations can legitimately hold territory. The fact that entities other than Nation States DO hold territory is seen as illegitimate by nationalists!
The State is obviously a political entity - we are not concerned here with the State as such [as there can be multinational/communist/multicultural etc., states], but with the Nation State.

"This 'status' is based on nothing but power".

No, it is based on a moral legitimation - that's why Treanor calls this a catechism. The status is due to tradition, antiquity, common heritage/culture/blood and popular/national will.
The catechism does not mean to say that it is not possible to end nations etc., [as in point 10], but that it is immoral to do so!
Similarly, 'Thou shalt not Kill' should not be met with the response - "Ah, people get killed all the time!". The meaning is that killing is morally wrong!
This is why point 10 says, "Nations may not be ended singly or collectively".
Comprende?

"[The] Nation is ... an abstraction. Which is precisely why it is so dangerous. One cannot have a personal relation with an abstraction".

Another Leftist response. There is nothing abstract about a people and its language, its history and its land - these are all concrete things. True, there is also an 'imaginary' aspect to Nationalism, particularly in the emphasis on National Glory and National ambition - but was 'imagination' "dangerous" to anyone other than a Communist?

[Siegfried]

Clearly, those weekend Anarchists who go on the rampage to destroy capitalism are in many cases slaves [and tacit supporters] of the system they pretend to oppose.

An Anarch and an Anarchist are not one and the same.

[Jack]

Aloysha; "I disagree that Nationalism is sacred. I believe it is a disease".

Moody Lawless; The sacred is the inviolable and the indefeasible.
According to Burkert the ancient Greek word [hieros] had a "delimiting, defining function ..." " ... sacred, 'hieros', may be predicated of a city like Troy, a natural phenomena like the day, the mountains, the rivers ..." (Burkert, Greek Religion)
So it is quite proper - classical even - to describe Nationalism as sacred.
As for a "disease" - it was Herakleitos who described religion as a "sacred disease" in the 6th century BC, so I'm in good company there.

Only you don't view it as a disease.

Aloysha; "You're going to have a hard time explaining the existance of 'Anarchs' then".

ML; No, the onus is on those who derogate the name 'Anarch' to themselves to explain their OWN aberrations. As Treanor says;
"People who declare themselves 'opponents of nationalism' usually support the continued existence of nation states. They are therefore nationalists: what other word is appropriate?".
Clearly, those weekend Anarchists who go on the rampage to destroy capitalism are in many cases slaves [and tacit supporters] of the system they pretend to oppose.

What makes you think being an Anarch is improper? Siegfried has answered this stupid assertion. Most anarchists are not Anarchs, but closet totalitarians. Most anti-nationalists are proponents of the State - not nessecarily the Nation (Administration-) State. The Nation-State still carries an ethnic basis to it, it is this basis that anti-nationalists want to destroy.

Aloysha; "Nations are the result of a de-culturalisation and mechanisation of a society... and a fundamental shift in personal consciousness towards identification with an Administration-State and a 'community' of which one cannot personally comprehend. This... leads () to the disempowerment of local communities ... followed by a psychological problem called alienation".

ML; That is oumoded Communist propaganda.
There are two basic models of nationalism; The Western model, where power is seen to rest in the people - this is the 'political nation' of Rousseau.
And the Central/Eastern model, where the nation is defined by common ties of history, culture, blood and land. This is the 'cultural nation' of Germanic political philosophy.
It is the INTERNATIONALIST forms of governance [whether of Left or Right] that have led to 'de-culturalisation', 'alienation' and the rest of it.

I'd rather say it's the mixture of the first and second option that lead to deculturalisation and alienation. The first is naturally orientated to regiment the People behind the State (forming the Nation, a psycho-social-ethnic construct), and the second - because history, culture, blood and land are common - provides a political basis to control cultural and social development. My argument only seems like 'outmoded Communist propaganda' because you don't accept the definitions I'm using. And even if I were using your definitions, it wouldn't be 'outmoded Communist propaganda' because the Third Internationale recognised national self determination as a (supposedly) strong barrier against international capitalism.

ML: Homosexuals DO make that argument, saying that homosexuality has always existed in human societies, and that it even exists elsewhere in the animal kingdom. The argument against homosexuality centres on whether it is or isn't harmful to the Race. If this can be shown, then the argument of ubiquity is over-thrown.
Making the analogy with nationalism; nations exist and are ubiquitous. They have a moral right to continued existence because they protect, nuture and project the Race.

I'm sure the millions that died in World War 1 would agree with you there. Nations certainly protect the Race, despite the fact that World War 1 kickstarted the massive decline in European world power.

ML: HA! You use the same argument - you say 'peoples exist, therefore they should'!
To quote Treanor again;
"At the most basic level nationalism refers to the belief that the state and the nation should coincide as: 'people = nation = state'.
When the nation and the state do not coincide [as in a multi-national dynastic empire like that of the Habsburgs] the nationalist wants to bring about the nation state against internal and external threats and to assert national greatness".

A People is a lot different than the Nation, which is dependent on the Administration-State. Bringing about the Nation causes the destruction of the People (as a social construct). To provide an example: The Founding Fathers of the United States fought for the American People, Lincoln founded the American Nation.

ML; Switzerland is a Nation State - with Administration Apparatus - a multicultural one at that. It is also one of the most regimented states in Europe, with compulsory National Service.
The Nation is a political expression of a people.

Switzerland is now a Nation State, yes, but it wasn't always. Furthermore, beyond compulsory National Service, most power did (and still does) reside with the cantons, and so it was not a Nation, but several Peoples under a confederate Government-State. Similar to how I think Europe should be.

Aloysha; "The 'Nation' is at most five hundred years old. Peoples have great historical continuity".

ML; The classical writers called Scandinavia a 'womb of nations'. 'Natio' is from the Latin and refers to peoples of common lineage.

See the definitions I'm using. I would exchange the use of 'nations' for Peoples.

ML: Who said 'on hold'? It is a moral right for Nations to control and even to stop the migration of peoples whenever possible!

But there are no rights. If there were rights, they would have to be individual rights, because only individuals can think, not groups. Because of this, any white Briton would have the right to sell his land to a Pakistani and you would have no moral right to stop him. Now we're settled that rights have no practical application as far as both of our politics are concerned, I don'th think mixing morality with politics is useful. Because 'moral rights' aren't going to do a goddamn thing if you wave them in front of the hordes of non-white colonists pouring into Europe. Now, if you want to be serious about it, rights only make sense in politics if you understand them as nothing more than the priveliges of power. Synthetic rationalism

As for the shaping aspect of nations, nations should aim at a stable population as an arena for the development of a particular culture.
Treanor again;
"The goal of a nation is primarily its continued existence: to project a segment of the past into the future. Nations are past-orientated, in contrast to possible Utopian states, orientated to a future goal".

Utopian states? Tell me, who propounded national self determination as a moral right? I'd call that utopian. I like to think in terms of the possible, not the 'ought'. Your idea of National self determination as a moral right is nothing more than a cover to make European racialism socially acceptable. I highly doubt you would've advocated national self determination in the early 1900's, where, if that idea were to become widely circulated (as it did), the European race would've lost total control over its political colonies.

ML: Nations are Cultures. Every individual carries the culture of some Nation - there are no 'individual cultures', or 'private languages' [or if so, they are artificial and invented against the background of a natural culture].

Nations are not Cultures. To provide an example: there is indeed an Anglo-Celt Australian Nation, but there is not Anglo-Celt Australian People, and so there is no native Australian culture. When power is transferred from local communities and regions to a centralised structure capable of imposing violence and is recognised by the population over which it presides as having the ability to acquire and distribute resources for purposes other than protection of its population, the culture dies off and over a short period of time and the People is transformed into a Nation.

Aloysha; "You're confusing the People with the Nation ... Define 'State' ".

ML; No you are; as Treanor says above; 'people = nation = state'.
The 'catechism' is making a MORAL CASE, and stating that only nations can legitimately hold territory. The fact that entities other than Nation States DO hold territory is seen as illegitimate by nationalists!
The State is obviously a political entity - we are not concerned here with the State as such [as there can be multinational/communist/multicultural etc., states], but with the Nation State.

But a People is not a Nation, and a Nation is not a State. And morality has nothing to do with politics. 'Nationalism' is a political, and not a moral concept.

ML: No, it is based on a moral legitimation - that's why Treanor calls this a catechism. The status is due to tradition, antiquity, common heritage/culture/blood and popular/national will.
The catechism does not mean to say that it is not POSSIBLE to end nations etc., [as in point 10], but that it is IMMORAL to do so!
Similarly, 'Thou shalt not Kill' should not be met with the response - "Ah, people get killed all the time!". The meaning is that killing is morally wrong!
This is why point 10 says, "Nations may not be ended singly or collectively".
Comprende?

Comprende? LOL. Nationalism is political, and politics deals with the possible. Morality is a personal thing, it guides how the subject acts in relation to others. Politics deals with power in relation to others - control of resources, manipulation, coercion, etc. Morality says murder is wrong, politics is how you go about making sure you and the people you care for don't get murdered. To do this you need power. Making sure no one on the planet ever gets murdered in the future is impossible. This is what morality wants though. Likewise, making Nation States impervious to destruction by other Nation States is also impossible. Trying to turn the political into the moral (as you are attempting to do - this is solely an exercise to legitimise European nationalisms), or the moral into the political (as Treanor is trying to do) is stupid. Nationalism is fundamentally political, not moral. Now: Popular will? Ah yes, total mobilization of the People behind the State, so that the Nation is created - I'd call that an effect of power. Heritage? No, that's the creation of minorities within the People, Nations don't produce heritage, nor culture. Antiquity? Hey, that's a privelige of historical power. Now, you say that there are no cultures which exist independently of Nations - which is a nice joke, but not much else. There is a skinhead culture, a goth culture, a punk culture - all these exist indepently of 'the Nation'. You want to impose some sort of National pseudo-cultural homogeniety, I'd suggest you're killing off the development of Peoples.

ML; Another Leftist response. There is nothing abstract about a people and its language, its history and its land - these are all concrete things. True, there is also an 'imaginary' aspect to Nationalism, particularly in the emphasis on National Glory and National ambition - but was 'imagination' "dangerous" to anyone other than a Communist?

A population of common blood, its language, history and its land are part of that People - the Nation is the abstraction. And I'd certainly say that 'imagination' was dangerous to the millions of Europeans who were killed in World War 1. Unless you want to call them Communists. And what's up with the constant ad hominems, Moody? First a Slav, then a Marxist, now a Communist - Is the fact I dodge all of your pigeonhole labels irritating you?

[Moody]

An Anarch and an Anarchist are not one and the same.

No, but the root word is the same, and so makes a broader point within literary license - would you care to elaborate?