Since at least the 1930s, nationalism has been one of the core beliefs of right wing politics, perhaps the number one belief. It is hard to imagine what a modern right wing party would look like without at least a little racism. But what if the conservatives of the 1700s and 1800s decided that racism was too foolish an ideology for them, and they would be better off without it? Or, more cynically, what if the conservative elite decided that racism was too dangerous for them, since it could lead large numbers of commoners to demand rights on the basis that they were the same race as the elite? Without the appeal to race, conservatism would have to find some other way to justify itself. What might that be? Would there even be a right wing at all, or would the left wing dominate in this more racially tolerant world?
What would the right wing look like if it had not embraced nationalism.
- Thread starter Miranda Brawner
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A couple things:
1. Nationalism =/= racism =/= conservatism. Sure, they have coincided in the form of a few nasty ideologies (Nazism, etc), but believing in any does not necessarily entail or preclude one from belief in the other. One can be a racist leftist, an egalitarian nationalist, an internationalist conservative, or any combination of those ideologies. It's pretty reductionist to assume that they are all inherently related ideologies (plus racism predates nationalism by centuries).
2. You need to clarify what country you're talking about. The mainstream right-wing in one country will be totally different from the mainstream in another, and each of them will be very distinct from the fringe/extreme right-wing in both countries. Do you mean America, the UK, Western Europe, Australia, Japan, the Arab world, or somewhere else? Because the character of racist, nationalist, or conservative ideology will all take on different character depending on the other issues facing the country in question. Policy issues don't exist in a vacuum.
3. Implying that prejudice is always subject to the same political rationalism as other political issues (i.e. taxes, welfare, etc.) is problematic.
4. Implying that elected representatives dictate public opinion and policy issues to the public from their high rises, rather than the other way around, is a bit problematic (assuming you're talking about conservatism in liberal democracies).
5. Even if you don't buy Hegel's ideological theory of history, you can't seriously be suggesting that there will ever be a point in history where liberal democracies will be purely left or right wing. Deeply problematic, and more-or-less ignores all historical context behind ideology and its relationship to race in the western world. A few old men in the 18th century deciding to be less overtly racist isn't going to magically heal the tense race relations in the western world (specifically the western hemisphere) because these tense relations are borne from colonialism, slavery, and all manner of other awful things, the effects of which cannot be easily reversed.
6. The left wing also embraced nationalism in the 18th-19th centuries. In fact, nationalism was originally a liberal ideology formed in opposition to the conservatism of the Congress of Vienna and the associated institutions.
7. You might want to change the wording in the OP so it's not so overtly political. Otherwise, this will probably get reported/moved to the political chat thread.
1. Nationalism =/= racism =/= conservatism. Sure, they have coincided in the form of a few nasty ideologies (Nazism, etc), but believing in any does not necessarily entail or preclude one from belief in the other. One can be a racist leftist, an egalitarian nationalist, an internationalist conservative, or any combination of those ideologies. It's pretty reductionist to assume that they are all inherently related ideologies (plus racism predates nationalism by centuries).
2. You need to clarify what country you're talking about. The mainstream right-wing in one country will be totally different from the mainstream in another, and each of them will be very distinct from the fringe/extreme right-wing in both countries. Do you mean America, the UK, Western Europe, Australia, Japan, the Arab world, or somewhere else? Because the character of racist, nationalist, or conservative ideology will all take on different character depending on the other issues facing the country in question. Policy issues don't exist in a vacuum.
3. Implying that prejudice is always subject to the same political rationalism as other political issues (i.e. taxes, welfare, etc.) is problematic.
4. Implying that elected representatives dictate public opinion and policy issues to the public from their high rises, rather than the other way around, is a bit problematic (assuming you're talking about conservatism in liberal democracies).
5. Even if you don't buy Hegel's ideological theory of history, you can't seriously be suggesting that there will ever be a point in history where liberal democracies will be purely left or right wing. Deeply problematic, and more-or-less ignores all historical context behind ideology and its relationship to race in the western world. A few old men in the 18th century deciding to be less overtly racist isn't going to magically heal the tense race relations in the western world (specifically the western hemisphere) because these tense relations are borne from colonialism, slavery, and all manner of other awful things, the effects of which cannot be easily reversed.
6. The left wing also embraced nationalism in the 18th-19th centuries. In fact, nationalism was originally a liberal ideology formed in opposition to the conservatism of the Congress of Vienna and the associated institutions.
7. You might want to change the wording in the OP so it's not so overtly political. Otherwise, this will probably get reported/moved to the political chat thread.
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Thank you for your thoughtful response. Those are all very good points. I'm sorry for being so reductionist. I understand that nationalism is not always an oppressive ideology, since it can be harnessed by oppressed groups to promote liberation. I was wrong to sweep under the rug this benevolent side of nationalism. I also made the mistake of ignoring how ideologies are often formed from the bottom up as well as from the top down, like you said. As for what country I'm interested in, I'll admit that my own country, the US, was on my mind when I wrote the question, but I would love to discuss alternate developments of conservatism in any country.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
If we can draw any universal qualities about the Right/Conservatism across political cultures, this is a verified short list: a skeptism of the untested and rapid change (Risk adversion in general), a greater emphasis on the particular and objective/familer and easily describable problems and consquences rather than the subjective/ nebulious and less immediate problems, and a desire to catagorize things into groups and draw clear boundaries between them. Given this, embracing Nationalism is a question of weather or not that better promotes their values vs. the type of thinking currently prevailing in society. This, I'll argue, is the reason why the Right adopted nationalism in the 1930s (Since it was a familier structure that provided a counterargument to the internationalism and dramatic social leveling of Communism) while opposing it in the 1830's (Since nationalism pushed for greater centeralization against provencial uniqueness and undermined traditional, time tested structures of power like the Church).
So, to get the right to not adopt Nationalism you'd need to remove the social-intellectual threat of International Socialism and International Capitalism (The Great Depression and vulnerability of dependence on free trade demonstrated by WWI). To be honest, the only way I can see this happening is for liberal nationalism (48) succeeding initially before going belly up in terms of social breakdown and economic failure as the romantic high wears off and the problems they'd left to fester beneath the surface come back to haunt them.
Sorry if anything I said came off harsh btw, it was around 2am where I live when I wrote that, and I didn't mean to sound so irritable 
Anyway, that pretty much answers all my questions, so let's get down to it.
It might be argued that "mild" nationalism has always been a part of US politics since the end of the Civil War. On the other hand, the more "white" nationalism wasn't really mainstream until the Jim Crow Era. Both types of nationalism still exist, and are a part of American political culture, and non-racist nationalism is part of both mainstream political parties (the Republicans might be more overt about it, but a lot of Democrats also believe in American "exceptionalism", which is deeply related to nationalism). The reason that it's hard for one to imagine the American right as existing devoid of racial context is because racial issues have always been in the forefront of American political life. In my mind, the only way to prevent this is to either ban slavery before it becomes widespread or else deport all freed slaves back to Africa after their emancipation. The reason behind this, in my opinion, is that racial prejudice is borne out of much more fundamental roots than "American politicians are racist". Elected representatives are accountable to their voters, therefore racist politicians could not exist without at least implicit support from their constituents (or more likely, the constituents themselves are racist as well).
IOTL, people *did* demand rights on a racial basis. The movement to remove property qualifications for voting and the entire women's suffrage movement used racially-charged rhetoric. Who else would be left to "demand rights" on the basis of race?
Conservatism as a broad cultural/political world view has existed long before modern ideas about race, and conservatism exists as well in countries which do not have the same racially-charged history. Conservative politicians in, say, Saudi Arabia, certainly don't use race (in the American understanding) in order to appeal to their voters, and there's no reason to think that a racially egalitarian America will be any more or less conservative. There are a whole spectrum of other policy issues for conservatives to polarize around (immigration, taxes, civil liberties, foreign policy, the environment, unions, etc.)
Anyway, that pretty much answers all my questions, so let's get down to it.
It might be argued that "mild" nationalism has always been a part of US politics since the end of the Civil War. On the other hand, the more "white" nationalism wasn't really mainstream until the Jim Crow Era. Both types of nationalism still exist, and are a part of American political culture, and non-racist nationalism is part of both mainstream political parties (the Republicans might be more overt about it, but a lot of Democrats also believe in American "exceptionalism", which is deeply related to nationalism). The reason that it's hard for one to imagine the American right as existing devoid of racial context is because racial issues have always been in the forefront of American political life. In my mind, the only way to prevent this is to either ban slavery before it becomes widespread or else deport all freed slaves back to Africa after their emancipation. The reason behind this, in my opinion, is that racial prejudice is borne out of much more fundamental roots than "American politicians are racist". Elected representatives are accountable to their voters, therefore racist politicians could not exist without at least implicit support from their constituents (or more likely, the constituents themselves are racist as well).
IOTL, people *did* demand rights on a racial basis. The movement to remove property qualifications for voting and the entire women's suffrage movement used racially-charged rhetoric. Who else would be left to "demand rights" on the basis of race?
Conservatism as a broad cultural/political world view has existed long before modern ideas about race, and conservatism exists as well in countries which do not have the same racially-charged history. Conservative politicians in, say, Saudi Arabia, certainly don't use race (in the American understanding) in order to appeal to their voters, and there's no reason to think that a racially egalitarian America will be any more or less conservative. There are a whole spectrum of other policy issues for conservatives to polarize around (immigration, taxes, civil liberties, foreign policy, the environment, unions, etc.)
To get an America that is more racially tolerant to begin with, I think we would need to go back to when English settlers first started crossing the Atlantic. We would need for these English to see themselves less as settlers and more as traders or diplomats, seeking to bring various native peoples into England's sphere of influence rather than killing or enslaving them. The entire conquest of the Americas by Europeans with the support of slave labor cemented racism as a central component of white people's consciousness, which has lasted up to the present day and will take a long time to undo. In this alternate timeline, where European imperialists decide to go for soft power, we would see the Americas remain native-majority with some immigrant populations clustered in cities.
Right, and so I was wondering if that OTL trend was prevented. Basically, in an alternate timeline, when the lower and middle class whites, and women, start demanding more rights on the basis of race, the upper class men answer with a resounding no. Of course, the elites would have to find some allies if they wanted to avoid getting overthrown, and the big question is who those allies would be. With different political coalitions, we could see, for instance, a multicultural-aristocratic-urban-patriarchal-spiritual bloc versus a folksy-socialist-secular-rural-feminist bloc.
I will try to do some more research on conservatism outside the western world, since that would probably give good insights into what conservatism would look like in a less racist western world.
Max Sinister
Banned
More traditional / monarchist / religious, I'd say. And if they can't be nationalist, they'd have to be either universalist or particularist.
SwampTiger
Banned
I find this discussion rather confused, with a "liberal" conflation of nationalist/racist/determinate ideologies. Classical liberalism is closer to today's conservative movements, ie. freedom of thought, speech, religion and economics than modern leftist thought which constrains these issues, forcing its followers into rather constrictive beliefs. The occasional nut-case on the "right" is used to "prove" leftist theories.
I would contend communist /Marxist/Socialist thought is itself more elitist/monarchist/religious than conservative Classical Liberalism. Racism has not been the central issue in American politics. It is a major issue which breaks into the open rather often. American minorities have had a rising standard of living throughout the past century. The reason the United States has an immigration 'problem' is because anyone can rise in their economic and social position. This is not due to the leftist views of the country, or most would remain in their home countries, but due to America's core Classical Liberal/conservative roots.
I would contend communist /Marxist/Socialist thought is itself more elitist/monarchist/religious than conservative Classical Liberalism. Racism has not been the central issue in American politics. It is a major issue which breaks into the open rather often. American minorities have had a rising standard of living throughout the past century. The reason the United States has an immigration 'problem' is because anyone can rise in their economic and social position. This is not due to the leftist views of the country, or most would remain in their home countries, but due to America's core Classical Liberal/conservative roots.
It is probably the 1st time that I heard about the English settlers enslaving the "native people" (taking into an account that I have no idea what they are teaching in the American colleges, just for clarity sake, the "native people" were and are the American Indians, not the slaves brought from Africa
) . Of course, an idea of the predominantly lower-classes settlers of the New England suddenly considering themselves diplomats is quite "interesting" as well but I'm not sure if it has any traction with a reality. Which leaves us with the "traders". "Trader" is a profession which is quite distinct from one of a farmer and you can't "see" yourself as a trader if you are not actively engaged in buying and selling the goods. The OTL settlers had been mostly looking for farming land which obviously was putting them at odds with the natives on which land they were settling. Bringing these natives into the British "sphere of influence" would make sense only in the model in which the main occupation of the European newcomers was fur trade (like Russian Alaska and California and to certain degree Canada and French Louisiana).Well, to a great degree economy of the British colonies in Americas was not based on slave labor and there is no such a thing as uniform "white people's consciousness" even if just because the "white people" belong to the numerous different cultures some of which never had race-based slavery.
Well, if you are using "Americas" instead of the "US", it probably should come as a big surprise to you that all the way to the South of Rio Grande most of the countries are "native-majority" and the same goes even for the cities.
An assumption that all "western world" was and is inherently racist is, perhaps, politically correct, but it also quite offensive. Can you please abstain from making sweeping pronouncements on the subjects which you, by your own admission, don't know well? BTW, why do you think that racism did not exist outside the western world?
I apologize for all the assumptions I made. I will set this topic aside and return to it when I have done more research.
It is probably the 1st time that I heard about the English settlers enslaving the "native people" (taking into an account that I have no idea what they are teaching in the American colleges, just for clarity sake, the "native people" were and are the American Indians, not the slaves brought from Africa
I am no expert on the topic, but I think that enslavement of Native Americans happened in some English American colonies at times. It clearly was not the norm, anyway, as far as I can tell (expulsion-extermination-assimilation was).
SwampTiger
Banned
We live in a world, at least in the USA, where political groups define their opponents in the worst possible ways. Stepping onto political land mines is inevitable. I assume my audience does not understand the subject in the same manner I do. Don't apologize, ask questions to learn the various viewpoints. The simple term 'nationalism' evokes a wide variety of concepts and beliefs. The members of any 'nation' will have a wide spectrum of definitions of the concept.
Please keep asking questions.
Please keep asking questions.
This was much more typical for the Spanish colonies (not sure if this enslavement was official or just "de facto" practice). The main difference was that in Latin America the "white people" remained a minority. However, the multi-ethnic relations started practically at the point of conquest and, at least in the case of Peru, the Spaniards had been officially marrying to the native females and in the case when a Spanish noble was marrying a female that belonged to the local nobility their children could be recognized as Spanish nobles (Inca Garsilacio de la Vega being the best known but not the only one).
With the French (who, AFAIK also "white people") it was also tricky. Thomas-Alexander Dumas and Toussaint Louverture made it all the way to the rank of general-in-chief during the French Revolution (being "beaten" to this rank only by Abram Petrovich Gannibal in Imperial Russia).
Enslavement of natives in Latin America was technically illegal in Spanish Colonies after some time, but it took place, often in forms different from typical chattel slavery of transhipped Africans. Not sure about legalities in Brazil, but slave raids against native settlements, Spanish missions included, was common there. Also, enslaving natives occurred in French colonies at times.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
If I recall correctly, that methoid of slavery was a exploitation of the declaration by the Spanish Crown that classified the natives as legal minors, no? There was a podcast I listened to a few months ago about the settlement of California and that was how it explained how missons obliged the natives to work their cattle lands.
This is my European perspective on the question:
The safest way to get the Right to distance itself from Nationalism is for the Left to cling to Nationalism.
This requires an egalitarian interpretation of Nationalism, and a lot more "democracy" and "proto-socialism" and less "liberalism" in Nationalism.
It also requires no Marxism, but since such a turn of events would probably require a different course of the French Revolution, Marxism is likely to be butterflied anyway.
So, with an egalitarian, democratic, populist, Nationalist Left (there's always space for a few deviations, like non-nationalist anarchists within the Left, or something akin to OTL's internationalist socialists, but they'd have to be fringe voices, like anarchists and left-wing nationalists have been for much of Europe's 20th and 21st century), I suppose it makes sense to assume that the Right is monarchist, anti-secularist Christian, economically much more radically pro-capitalist, defending established privileges (among them bourgeois liberties, too, over time this becomes the main interpretation of this tenet while at first it also refers to aristocratic privileges and the various special laws of towns, church and monastery holdings etc.), emphasising property and traditional legal order, fighting fiercely against universal suffrage and maintaining elitist and anti-populist positions throughout the 20th century. Right-wing anti-Nationalism would spring from such diverse sources as Catholicism (and Christianity in general, and over the course of the 19th century increasingly also from Judaism), bourgeois cosmopolitanism, the aristocracy's traditionally close interrelations across Europe, and probably also scientific universalism, if the latter and the religious nature can co-exist peacefully, which I believe they could. The Right would continue to emphasise and support the social peace and stability brought about by not tampering with the established (pre-national) social order, hierarchies (arching over national boundaries and certainly not making all members of one ethno-linguistic group "equal"), differences between individuals, particular interests etc. and denounce Nationalism as a strategy of populists trying to manipulate the uneducated proles for their own goals.
The safest way to get the Right to distance itself from Nationalism is for the Left to cling to Nationalism.
This requires an egalitarian interpretation of Nationalism, and a lot more "democracy" and "proto-socialism" and less "liberalism" in Nationalism.
It also requires no Marxism, but since such a turn of events would probably require a different course of the French Revolution, Marxism is likely to be butterflied anyway.
So, with an egalitarian, democratic, populist, Nationalist Left (there's always space for a few deviations, like non-nationalist anarchists within the Left, or something akin to OTL's internationalist socialists, but they'd have to be fringe voices, like anarchists and left-wing nationalists have been for much of Europe's 20th and 21st century), I suppose it makes sense to assume that the Right is monarchist, anti-secularist Christian, economically much more radically pro-capitalist, defending established privileges (among them bourgeois liberties, too, over time this becomes the main interpretation of this tenet while at first it also refers to aristocratic privileges and the various special laws of towns, church and monastery holdings etc.), emphasising property and traditional legal order, fighting fiercely against universal suffrage and maintaining elitist and anti-populist positions throughout the 20th century. Right-wing anti-Nationalism would spring from such diverse sources as Catholicism (and Christianity in general, and over the course of the 19th century increasingly also from Judaism), bourgeois cosmopolitanism, the aristocracy's traditionally close interrelations across Europe, and probably also scientific universalism, if the latter and the religious nature can co-exist peacefully, which I believe they could. The Right would continue to emphasise and support the social peace and stability brought about by not tampering with the established (pre-national) social order, hierarchies (arching over national boundaries and certainly not making all members of one ethno-linguistic group "equal"), differences between individuals, particular interests etc. and denounce Nationalism as a strategy of populists trying to manipulate the uneducated proles for their own goals.
Honestly you need a complete lack of historical context and knowledge, a enormous quantity of ideological and national blinders and a dishonest selective nitpicking to lump nationalism and racism together under a umbrella on the right side of the spectrum. Just don't expect anybody else to see you as anything other than a dishonest political hack if continue to do so.There are so many factual errors in this statement that i really dont know where to begin.
Firstly, racism and nationalism isnt a right-wing position, it crosses the spectrum. The idea of the "right" being nationalist and the "left" being internationalist is based on the old ML claptrap that fascism was the last defence of Capitalism against the communist revolution, and is a mainly a stalinst propaganda myth from the 20`s and 30`s.
The modern right in the west is mainly based on Conservatisem and or Liberalism/ Manchester Liberalism.
Conservativism is a anti-ideology that evolved as a highly skeptical reaction due to the highly abstract and easy answers from the idéologues of the late enlightenment (more or less the dudes in charge of the french revolution and their infiluences).
Conservatives will say that the frames and challenges changes with time and place. Society is am extremely complex phenomenon, formed true a long historical tradition. Easy answer are just that and can in practices lead to very bad outcomes.
Now loyalty to tradition and skepticisms towards political utopias a core part of conservatism, as is pragmatism (some conservatives would actually say that pragmatism is conservatism) and a distrust of authoritarianism. Also, this mean that Conservatives will try to defend certain values of their society, so that a french 1840s conservative will value different things that a american in the 1860s etc. Different times, different places, different traditions.
Secondly you need to distinguish between civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism, and between ideological racism, xenophobia and ethnocentrism. Ideological racism did not forme untli a periode after darwin, as was for a long long time mainly a leaft wing position.
Nationalism was for a long time also a mainly leaf position as most states were not national but dynastic states and you still se nationalism and marxisme combined in many "liberation" movements.
Its really really difficult to make a dramatically less racist US, avoid the civil war maybe.
SwampTiger
Banned
I think we have pounded on MB enough here.
A better discussion would be to consider the differences and misinterpretations of political and cultural terms for today. To my mind racism is a form of tribalism, such as we see in the American political and cultural wars ongoing today. The huge backlash among the Democratic and Socialist base against MAGA is a sign of this. MAGA states the US has declined under 'leftist' leadership. The 'left' has personalized the debate by attacking individuals with crude and violent statements. Extreme racists and reactionaries cry out for revenge. Trump and various celebrities toss out their little personalized #bombs. Each tribe carves out little fiefdoms it will protect to the death. The media stress the extremes to sell 'news'. Most Americans feel angry with all involved.
A better discussion would be to consider the differences and misinterpretations of political and cultural terms for today. To my mind racism is a form of tribalism, such as we see in the American political and cultural wars ongoing today. The huge backlash among the Democratic and Socialist base against MAGA is a sign of this. MAGA states the US has declined under 'leftist' leadership. The 'left' has personalized the debate by attacking individuals with crude and violent statements. Extreme racists and reactionaries cry out for revenge. Trump and various celebrities toss out their little personalized #bombs. Each tribe carves out little fiefdoms it will protect to the death. The media stress the extremes to sell 'news'. Most Americans feel angry with all involved.
Indeed. My point was that "racism" was a rather tricky issue and some of its forms had little to do with a slavery. The same goes for the attitudes toward the native population in the Americas: a lot depended upon colonization model and general attitudes of the white conquerors (Spaniards, Portuguese, Brits and French).
Perhaps it would be even better to move it into post 1900 forum (not sure what this subject has to do with the AH but at least time frame will be appropriate)?