A Discussion on Nationalism

Venue change: Please note that we are meeting at Royal Festival Hall this time! Please use event comments if you're lost.

Flags on lamp-posts, crosses on roundabouts, small boats, red hats, great replacement theory! It seems like we are surrounded more and more everyday by people who are overtly concerned with the integrity of their nation state. No doubt you, dear reader, have your own definition as to what nationalism is and who espouses it most on the modern political stage.

But what actually is nationalism? What are its core characteristics? It is easy to see nationalism in the political workings of 1930s Germany, or even the modern day USA, but what if we were to extend the concept beyond allegiance to simple nations, and included allegiance to other organizations, identities, or even ideas?

This is the question George Orwell poses in his 1945 essay Notes on Nationalism (linked in the reading section). Within this essay, he argues that similar patterns of thought, feeling and action exist in the nationalist bases of Germany and Japan as exists within movements for Zionism, Communism, or Political Catholicism. I would extend that further in our modern arena both to far-right movements like MAGA, and the modern progressive separatist movements.

Orwell goes to extend the concept of nationalism in the following way:
“A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist – that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating – but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations.”

A few starter questions for 10:

1. How would you define nationalism? How does this fit into an expanded definition?
2. Does the rise of identity‑based or separatist movements today reflect a shift in how people define “nation”?
3. Does Orwell’s definition risk being too broad?

Readings:
George Orwell - Notes on Nationalism;
Wayne Price - National Self-Determination, Internationalism, and Libertarian Socialism;
The Identity Trap - Yascha Mounk (2023, Penguin Press)