WI No Nationalism

Without ideas such as national soverignity, the idea of the "nation" as opposed to the state, and so on, how would history be different?
 
I would expect that the world today would be ruled by many thousands of worker's councils and Commissars of People that carry out their will. According to Marx the Nations divide the working class needlessly and for the gain of the bourgeois. So without the dressing up of pure imperialist profit grabbing with the ideas of National liberation or national progress, the working class has all the means and will to break what ever Empires that rule the world.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Nationalism is just tribalism writ large and tribalism is built into humans through evolution (except in Kansas, of course). Therefore, I can't imagine any historical scenario in which nationalism does not emerge as literacy and the means of communications expand.
 
Nationalism was one of the many trends which ultimately destroyed the feudal system and then later reduced the power of absolute monarchs.

If nationalism never developed, a distinct possibilty is that many societies would still function as huge feudal systems, with a very small number of noble (high status) families controlling the a large population legally tied to them by land, contract, blood ties, or military force. At the apex of the system would be the lineage of the king/queen. group identity would not be defined on the basis off ethnicity, language, rage, religion, but by relationships in this feudal structure.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Nationalism has always existed to some point, but it was only in the late 18th early 19th century it became a coherent political force, with the birth of Modern Nationalism in Germany. What transformed Modern Nationalism from a fringe idealogy to a major force was the French Revolution and the Napoleons Wars. Without this we would likely have seen states which build on French Nationalism/Patriotism (loyalty to the state) rather than German Blood Nationalism (loyalty to the people). Which mean that multiethnic states would have stayed a lot more stable.
 
Nationalism is just tribalism writ large and tribalism is built into humans through evolution (except in Kansas, of course). Therefore, I can't imagine any historical scenario in which nationalism does not emerge as literacy and the means of communications expand.

Well, I agree, but even if we humans have a tendency to gather in groups and feel loyalty to these groups, there's no reson why this groups have to be nation-states. Nation-states have an intermediate size: they are too big for anyone to know one's neighbours or one's land and too small compared to other entities that have existed in the past or could exist in the future.

We could perfectly be living in multi-ethnic empires (like Austria-Hungary) or entities (like a stronger European Union) and feel both loyal to our comunity and to the grater structure ... but not to a certain nation-states.

In this scenario, Basques might feel Basques and Europeans, but not Spanish or French. Slovaks who speak a certain dialect might feel both "Slovaks who speak dialect X" or "Slovaks who live in a certain area" AND Europeans; but not "Slovaks in general".

There were times when people felt this way. I was reading an article that said that in 1800, people living in Spanish America had several identities at the same time, none of which coincide with our current nation states:

- Face to Protestants they felt Catholics.
- Face to other Catolics they felt Spanish.
- Face to Spanish from Spain ("españoles peninsulares") they felt Spanish American ("españoles americanos")
- Face to other Spanish Americans they felt identified with the region were they lived (River Plate Area, Paraguay, Tucuman, Cordoba).

None of this matches with the "Argentinian" identity, meaning by that the nation-state that came to being in 1816*. Paraguay is an exception, as apparently there was a Paraguayan regional identity in late XVIII century in a region that matches more or less with Paraguay's modern core territorry (I mean, Eastern Paraguay)

*According to the article, "Argentino" meant then only a natural of the River state area. In 1800, a few porteños were using the adjetive to refer to the whole Vicerroyalty, but that use hadn't gained much acceptance in the other parts of the Vicerroyalty, like Cordoba or Salta.
 
If I try a more serious post, I'd expect religion would be more of a motivator for the people and a centre of loyalty. If people don't believe in the nation-state, they'll believe in something else instead, and kings and lords aren't likely to be popular in a modern age.
 
Without nationalism, the process that destroyed monarchy as an institution (more specfically, the calling of the Estates General) might never happen. Without that, it isn't set in stone that monarchy will ever fall.

(Technically, it isn't anyway, but that makes it even less so)
 
Well, I agree, but even if we humans have a tendency to gather in groups and feel loyalty to these groups, there's no reson why this groups have to be nation-states. Nation-states have an intermediate size: they are too big for anyone to know one's neighbours or one's land and too small compared to other entities that have existed in the past or could exist in the future.

We could perfectly be living in multi-ethnic empires (like Austria-Hungary) or entities (like a stronger European Union) and feel both loyal to our comunity and to the grater structure ... but not to a certain nation-states.

In this scenario, Basques might feel Basques and Europeans, but not Spanish or French. Slovaks who speak a certain dialect might feel both "Slovaks who speak dialect X" or "Slovaks who live in a certain area" AND Europeans; but not "Slovaks in general".

There were times when people felt this way. I was reading an article that said that in 1800, people living in Spanish America had several identities at the same time, none of which coincide with our current nation states:

- Face to Protestants they felt Catholics.
- Face to other Catolics they felt Spanish.
- Face to Spanish from Spain ("españoles peninsulares") they felt Spanish American ("españoles americanos")
- Face to other Spanish Americans they felt identified with the region were they lived (River Plate Area, Paraguay, Tucuman, Cordoba).

None of this matches with the "Argentinian" identity, meaning by that the nation-state that came to being in 1816*. Paraguay is an exception, as apparently there was a Paraguayan regional identity in late XVIII century in a region that matches more or less with Paraguay's modern core territorry (I mean, Eastern Paraguay)

*According to the article, "Argentino" meant then only a natural of the River state area. In 1800, a few porteños were using the adjetive to refer to the whole Vicerroyalty, but that use hadn't gained much acceptance in the other parts of the Vicerroyalty, like Cordoba or Salta.

Very interesting post. I generally agree with most of what you said. Loyalty to a medium-sized nation state which is the dominant and sole form of identity is a relatively small part of human history. Furthermore in Europe at least this identity is falling away (not as much as the pro-EU lot say, but more than what the anti-EU also say). I find what some commentators have called neo-medievalism an interesting theory. Not that we are going back to a feudal age of course, but that at least in Europe a similar structure is coming back: increasing loyalty to sub-national units, for instance, Wales or Scotland, less to nation-states (UK) and more to supernational regions (EU). Another feature of this is a return to looser concepts of sovereignity, with competing spheres of interest in Europe as opposed to the Westphalian model of the nation-state.
 

Hendryk

Banned
We could perfectly be living in multi-ethnic empires (like Austria-Hungary) or entities (like a stronger European Union) and feel both loyal to our comunity and to the grater structure ... but not to a certain nation-states.
Quite. That, after all, was how much of mankind lived until the late 18th/early 19th century, and well into the 20th in the non-Western world.

When the origins of nationalism are being discussed, I tend to recommand a very interesting book, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson.
 
If I try a more serious post, I'd expect religion would be more of a motivator for the people and a centre of loyalty. If people don't believe in the nation-state, they'll believe in something else instead, and kings and lords aren't likely to be popular in a modern age.


The problem with such view is the effect of advance of science may gradually erode the influence of religion. Granted, religion in OTL remained a potent influence and development of nation- state greatly accelerate scientific discoveries, but the science present another worldview that contrast greatly with religion. Science and religion are not exactly incompatible, but the effect of science should not be underestimated.
 

Hendryk

Banned
The problem with such view is the effect of advance of science may gradually erode the influence of religion. Granted, religion in OTL remained a potent influence and development of nation- state greatly accelerate scientific discoveries, but the science present another worldview that contrast greatly with religion. Science and religion are not exactly incompatible, but the effect of science should not be underestimated.
OTL shows that even in a scientifically advanced world, religion remains a potent focus of self-identification. This being said, one should keep in mind that outside of the Abrahamic cultures, and to a lesser extent the Indian subcontinent, people don't tend to make a big deal about which religion they follow. And it was the same thing in the Roman empire until it was taken over by Christianity.
 
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