>On Thu, 4 Jul 2002, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>> It is the victory of reaction against revolutionary republicanism that
>> created conservative "nationalism" ("as distinct from patriotism," in
>> the words of Anderson) with which we are familiar today.
>
>Yoshie, I'm not clear what your point is here. The original question --
>rather a light-hearted tongue in cheek one -- was whether there was some
>kind of natural contradiction between secular humanism and strong feelings
>of reverance for the nation as evidenced in a fondness for rituals and
>symbols like flag waving.
That all depends on how "humanity" and "humanism" in "secular humanism" are defined. Secularism in itself, of course, is compatible with nationalism: one can argue for "one nation, indivisible, liberty and justice for all" with or without God. On second thoughts, secularism, in theory, should be more compatible with nationalism than religions with universalist aspirations like Islam or Christianity are, though in practice that has not always been the case.
>If you are saying revolutionary republicanism displayed no flag waving
>reverance for the nation, I would have to disagree. French revolutionary
>republicanism probably provides history's most famous examples of
>doctrinaire atheists explicitly replacing the worship of god with the
>worship of the nation (or more precisely, reversing their relative
>positions in the hierarchy of worship, and then elevating the one so that
>it overshadowed the other). The pantheon was not put in a church by
>accident. And one where they reinterred Rousseau and Voltaire as saints.
>The revolutionary republicans were very big on codifying national rituals
>and symbols.
I don't think that flag waving is wrong, as long as the flag waved stands for liberty, equality, and fraternity, to which ideals left-wing radicals of other nations could rally. The revolution defined its political community by hatred of tyrants everywhere, not by the birthright of nationality. That is why the French Revolution inspired impassioned defenses from revolutionary republicans of other nations (e.g., Thomas Paine, William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, Joseph Priestly, John Thelwall, etc.), against the conservatives of their own nations (Edmund Burke, Hannah More, etc.), whereas Frenchmen could be unceremoniously cast out of the republican community once they were considered to be traitors (e.g., Mirabeau, removed from the Pantheon and thrown into a common grave).
BTW, Voltaire was the least nationalistic among cosmopolitans of the Enlightenment: "Patrie," _The Philosophical Dictionary_ (1752), <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1752voltaire.html>. On the other hand, he was less democratic-minded than the more intolerant Rousseau. I think that Rousseau and Voltaire complement each other nicely; together, virtues of their philosophies and temperaments, minus their respective vices, could serve as guiding lights for all nations. One can hardly blame Frenchmen for wishing to enshrine them at the temple of reason.
>Now if you are saying that cosmopolitanism was originally an important
>theme in the Enlightenment, and that it was later eclipsed by nationalism
>-- which grew out of other enlightenment strands of thought, like that of
>self-determination and democracy -- then I have no dispute. But I'm not
>at all sure such Enlightenment cosmopolitanism was an exclusive possession
>of the left. If anything, it seems the monarchical right was more against
>nationalism on principle, and many of the Englightenment thinkers were big
>on princes. Lastly, cosmopolitanism is not necessarily a good in itself.
>Imperialism has often been very cosmopolitan. Nationalism and
>cosmopolitanism seem both to be inherently contradictory phenomena, with
>neither having a pure core that is then hijacked.
>
>Lastly, it is true that revolutionary solidarity crossed national borders.
>But so did counterrevolutionary solidarity. I'm not sure I see any
>obvious conclusion to be drawn from this.
Republicanism and cosmopolitanism, like modernism (as explained by Raymond Williams in _The Politics of Modernism_), had their left wings and right wings. The conclusion I'd draw is that such movements and schools of thoughts could go either way, depending on their class contents -- no predetermined telos here. -- Yoshie
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