The obvious and straight forward interpretation of cousin it’s comment was that he was referring to American nationalism. A real and quiet common phenomenon in which Americans don’t give a lick about people who don’t live their country (in civilized places this is referred to as racism). I’ve met plenty of people with this view. It is a disgusting and immoral attitude. That said, it is a near ubiquitous attitude. Humans have been killing humans from other groups and not giving a shit for as long as there have been humans. We’re good at it. Really good. We do it like it’s our job. In no way is this unique to residents or citizens of the United States of America. If cousin_it meant something else he can clarify. He’s been commenting elsewhere throughout this conversation anyway.
While all what you say about nationalism is true It’s not obvious to me that it explains what cousin_it was talking about, at least not to its full extent. Degradation of other people through nationalism usually evokes hate (“those damned X!”), while the linked comment seemed too cheerful for that, it’s not like it encouraged to “help show it to those stinkin’ Arabs” or anything like that. As if the fact that someone might be hurt simply didn’t occur to them. There has been plenty of that in other historical cases of nationalism, but I think usually only in similarly asymmetrical situations. Nationalism in symmetrical situations seems to be of the plain hate kind.
Degradation of other people through nationalism usually evokes hate (“those damned X!”), while the linked comment seemed to cheerful for that, it’s not like it encouraged to “help show it to those stinkin’ Arabs” or anything like that, like the fact that someone might be hurt simply didn’t occur to them.
Nationalism almost always displays as willful ignorance or apathy about the condition of those outside the nation. It’s nation-centrism, in other words. Hatred is an extreme case (thus the moniker “ultra-nationalism”).
Nationalism in symmetrical situations seems to be of the plain hate kind.
This just isn’t true. At all. I’m not even sure where you would get it. There are nationalists all around the world who do not express hate toward other nations, even in cases of power symmetries.
More importantly: Why are we arguing about this? Cousin_it isn’t some old philosopher or public intellectual who we can’t reach for clarification. If he wants to correct my understanding of his comment let him do it.
Sorry for taking so much time to reply. FAWS is right, I’m not saying Americans hate foreigners. It’s more like a blindness or deafness. See my link above to the “amazing and unique experience” guy. The ethical angle of the situation simply doesn’t occur to him, it’s as if Iraqis were videogame characters. America’s fighting an aggressive war and killed umpteen thousand people?… uh, okay man, I got a career to advance and I wanna go someplace exotic, like expand my horizons and shit. I’ve never heard anything like that from Russians or anyone else except Americans, though I’d be the first to agree that we Russians are quite nationalistic.
Nationalism almost always displays as willful ignorance or apathy about the condition of those outside the nation.
The original disagreement wasn’t about the term nationalism (and I never claimed that nationalism didn’t explain it, only that what you said about nationalism up to that point didn’t), so you seem to be arguing my point here: For the reasons I described it’s easier for Americans to be “ignorant about the condition of those outside the nation”.
This just isn’t true. At all. I’m not even sure where you would get it. There are nationalists all around the world who do not express hate toward other nations, even in cases of power symmetries.
You can’t keep hurting someone and not even notice you do in a symmetrical conflict because they will hurt you back, and then you will want revenge in turn.
More importantly: Why are we arguing about this?
You seem to be of the opinion that you can’t even coherently/rationally (?) think a certain thing and I disagree. That disagreement is independent of the question whether anyone had actually been thinking that.
EDIT: Nation-centrism is close to what I meant with not feeling that other nations are “real”.
For the reasons I described it’s easier for Americans to be “ignorant about the condition of those outside the nation”.
“willful” ignorance… Do we really need to spend time distinguishing nationalism from the fact that the US gets the NBA?
You can’t keep hurting someone and not even notice you do in a symmetrical conflict because they will hurt you back, and then you will want revenge in turn.
So what you want to claim is that asymmetrical conflict is more likely than symetrical conflict to lead to people in one country being ignorant of the animosity against them in the other country. This is plausible though several counterexamples come to mind and I’m not sure it applies since a large portion of American nationalists appear to conceive of the conflict as a symmetrical one (this has been a minor issue in American politics, of course). I’m not sure I see how this issue relates to nationalism exactly and what it’s relevance is. But as you can see below I’m not sure I understand what you’re claiming at this point.
You seem to be of the opinion that you can’t even coherently/rationally (?) think a certain thing and I disagree. That disagreement is independent of the question whether anyone had actually been thinking that.
WHAA? This is incredibly vague and confusing. I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.
“willful” ignorance… Do we really need to spend time distinguishing nationalism from the fact that the US gets the NBA?
And the fact that you neither need to make any significant sacrifices nor engage in double-think doesn’t make willful ignorance easier?
So what you want to claim is that asymmetrical conflict is more likely than symetrical conflict to lead to people in one country being ignorant of the animosity against them in the other country.
Not really. The term nationalism is unhelpful. There seem to be at least two kinds, the we’re-great-don’t-care-about-anyone-else nation-centric one, and unite-against-the-enemy-us-or-them kind. My point is that being a hegemonic power facilitates the nation-centric kind. The sub-point that a hot symmetric conflict turns nationalism into the second kind pretty much by necessity even if it started out as the first kind. An asymmetric conflict of course allows either kind in the stronger party, presumably that’s what your counter-examples show.
WHAA? This is incredibly vague and confusing. I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.
Presumably you detected a feature that made the post knowably correctable. If that feature wasn’t an incoherent or irrational (in light of further evidence you have available) opinion, what was it?
While all what you say about nationalism is true It’s not obvious to me that it explains what cousin_it was talking about, at least not to its full extent. Degradation of other people through nationalism usually evokes hate (“those damned X!”), while the linked comment seemed too cheerful for that, it’s not like it encouraged to “help show it to those stinkin’ Arabs” or anything like that. As if the fact that someone might be hurt simply didn’t occur to them. There has been plenty of that in other historical cases of nationalism, but I think usually only in similarly asymmetrical situations. Nationalism in symmetrical situations seems to be of the plain hate kind.
Nationalism almost always displays as willful ignorance or apathy about the condition of those outside the nation. It’s nation-centrism, in other words. Hatred is an extreme case (thus the moniker “ultra-nationalism”).
This just isn’t true. At all. I’m not even sure where you would get it. There are nationalists all around the world who do not express hate toward other nations, even in cases of power symmetries.
More importantly: Why are we arguing about this? Cousin_it isn’t some old philosopher or public intellectual who we can’t reach for clarification. If he wants to correct my understanding of his comment let him do it.
Sorry for taking so much time to reply. FAWS is right, I’m not saying Americans hate foreigners. It’s more like a blindness or deafness. See my link above to the “amazing and unique experience” guy. The ethical angle of the situation simply doesn’t occur to him, it’s as if Iraqis were videogame characters. America’s fighting an aggressive war and killed umpteen thousand people?… uh, okay man, I got a career to advance and I wanna go someplace exotic, like expand my horizons and shit. I’ve never heard anything like that from Russians or anyone else except Americans, though I’d be the first to agree that we Russians are quite nationalistic.
The original disagreement wasn’t about the term nationalism (and I never claimed that nationalism didn’t explain it, only that what you said about nationalism up to that point didn’t), so you seem to be arguing my point here: For the reasons I described it’s easier for Americans to be “ignorant about the condition of those outside the nation”.
You can’t keep hurting someone and not even notice you do in a symmetrical conflict because they will hurt you back, and then you will want revenge in turn.
You seem to be of the opinion that you can’t even coherently/rationally (?) think a certain thing and I disagree. That disagreement is independent of the question whether anyone had actually been thinking that.
EDIT: Nation-centrism is close to what I meant with not feeling that other nations are “real”.
“willful” ignorance… Do we really need to spend time distinguishing nationalism from the fact that the US gets the NBA?
So what you want to claim is that asymmetrical conflict is more likely than symetrical conflict to lead to people in one country being ignorant of the animosity against them in the other country. This is plausible though several counterexamples come to mind and I’m not sure it applies since a large portion of American nationalists appear to conceive of the conflict as a symmetrical one (this has been a minor issue in American politics, of course). I’m not sure I see how this issue relates to nationalism exactly and what it’s relevance is. But as you can see below I’m not sure I understand what you’re claiming at this point.
WHAA? This is incredibly vague and confusing. I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.
And the fact that you neither need to make any significant sacrifices nor engage in double-think doesn’t make willful ignorance easier?
Not really. The term nationalism is unhelpful. There seem to be at least two kinds, the we’re-great-don’t-care-about-anyone-else nation-centric one, and unite-against-the-enemy-us-or-them kind. My point is that being a hegemonic power facilitates the nation-centric kind. The sub-point that a hot symmetric conflict turns nationalism into the second kind pretty much by necessity even if it started out as the first kind. An asymmetric conflict of course allows either kind in the stronger party, presumably that’s what your counter-examples show.
Presumably you detected a feature that made the post knowably correctable. If that feature wasn’t an incoherent or irrational (in light of further evidence you have available) opinion, what was it?