Nationalism and Other Old Demons

In the last two decades, we have seen a resurgence of nationalism, with profound implications for democracy, international law, and world peace. In this article, we argue that when national sentiment is exacerbated, it turns into nationalism, which populist leaders exploit with the support of technological tools. We first explain the different manifestations of national sentiment, drawing on the explanations given by Isaiah Berlin; then, we illustrate how nationalism has grown stronger from the 19th century to the present day; and, finally, we show why abrupt technological changes stir up nationalism and the implications this has for human rights and the stability of the planet. 

From national sentiment to nationalism

Since the origins of the human species, tribal bonds have provided cohesion, security, and collective identity. As Yuval Harari points out in Sapiens, the urge to be part of an “us” has been crucial for cooperation and survival. As human settlements grew larger and more stable, with increasingly broad organizational structures, national sentiment has unfolded in three forms of ascending intensity: national identity or national consciousness, patriotism, and nationalism. 

National consciousness is the sense of belonging to a nation; it arises from knowing that one is part of a human group with a shared language, culture, and history, which has generally occupied the same territory over the years. Patriotism is an inflated form of national consciousness, in which one is not only aware of belonging to a nation, but also considers the nation to which one belongs to be better than all others. In Notes on Nationalism, for example, George Orwell defines patriotism as devotion to a particular place and way of life that one believes to be the best in the world. Nationalism, finally, is not simply a modern form of the primitive impulse of national sentiment, but a pathological form, charged with resentment and destructive aggression. Expressions of this are fascism in Italy in the 1920s and National Socialism in Germany in the 1930s.

Nationalism, according to Isaiah Berlin, has four central features: it is based on the idea that people cannot be understood as isolated individuals, but as members of a group (nation); it sees the nation as a living organism, with needs and ends that must be fulfilled, even if this means going against universal values such as justice or human rights; it argues that what is one’s own has value not necessarily because it is good or just, but because it is “ours”; and it believes that the interests of one’s own nation must be imposed—even by force, if necessary—on those of others. This “conscious doctrine,” as Berlin calls it, tends to justify rejection of difference, hostility toward other peoples, and contempt for any idea that does not fit with national identity. Berlin does not deny that the need to belong is real and human, but he warns that when that desire becomes an absolute demand, it can become dangerous.

From nationalism to populism

Nationalism feeds on the collective perception of having been humiliated, ignored, or threatened by others. However, Berlin notes, it needs something more, because history offers many examples of groups with a strong national consciousness who did not respond with nationalist fervor to defeat or occupation: this was not, Berlin continues, the reaction of the Persians to the Greeks, nor that of the Greeks to the Romans, nor that of the Buddhists to the Muslims, not to mention other conquests and invasions throughout the centuries. In other words, wounded pride is a necessary condition for the emergence of nationalism, but not every wounded people develops it.

The first modern nationalism arose in Germany (or, rather, in what we now call Germany), and it was also there that it reached its most extreme consequences in the 20th century. Its roots, however, go back much further. Berlin traces the first shoots to the Lutheran schism, and then to the defeat of the German principalities during the Thirty Years’ War at the hands of the armies of Louis XIV, who consolidated France as the great power of the continent. Later, in the 18th century, while the French celebrated reason, science, and progress, the German people, often subjugated by the French, began to reclaim their own traditions: their rural customs, their spirituality, their connection to the land. What others saw as backwardness became a virtue for them. Thus was born an idea of nationhood based on difference, on the defense of the local against the universal, which paved the way for the rise of populism.

At first, the Germans’ reaction was more aesthetic than political. Thinkers such as Herder and Moser defended popular roots, language, traditions, and everything that expressed the deepest essence of the supposedly unique character of the German people. This nationalism, with hints of populism, was rather peaceful and focused on protecting what was theirs, but that changed with the arrival of Napoleon. Military defeat destroyed the ideal image that Germans had begun to build of themselves, and what had begun as cultural affirmation turned into a hurt, indignant, and increasingly aggressive nationalism. Throughout the 19th century, that energy became charged with resentment, and nationalism ceased to be a simple defense of what was theirs and became a demand for recognition, power, and revenge. With the rise of National Socialism to power in 1933, Germany ended up establishing a regime with dire consequences, as is well known; it sought not only to recover everything that, in its opinion, had been taken away and denied it, but also for the world to repair its wounded pride by submitting to and recognizing it as a nation superior to all others.

Populism is an ideology that appeals to a leader who embodies the will of a “people” afflicted by growing unrest to overcome traditional elites and established institutions in pursuit of supposedly greater ends. Nationalism and populism go hand in hand, but they are not the same thing. The former is a sentiment; the latter is one of the possible ways of accommodating that sentiment.

A group’s perception of having been offended is a trigger for nationalism, but it is also something that populist regimes exploit, instill, or exaggerate to mobilize the population, weaken democratic institutions, and enthrone the supreme leader. This can be seen in the present day: Vladimir Putin, for example, alludes to the sense of loss left by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resentment caused by the West’s airs of moral superiority in the face of that collapse; the Ukrainians’ struggle for independence, on the other side of the conflict, is also, and with better reason, a struggle for dignity driven by resentment against the Russians; Chinese President Xi Jinping often refers in his speeches to the “100 years of humiliation of the Chinese people”; Benjamin Netanyahu frequently harks back to the mythical time of the Bible to say, “we will never forget what Amalek did to us”; Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, focuses his politics on wanting to “recover the country, its self-esteem, and its future.” Something similar happened in the Arab Spring revolutions and, of course, in the struggles of the Palestinian people, who are overwhelmed by Israel’s genocidal siege. 

The unrest in today’s democracies is giving rise to populist solutions that may eventually turn into nationalist conflicts on a global scale. 

Nationalism and technology 

Technological changes, like feelings of humiliation, can fuel nationalism, and this has happened in recent decades. Digital technology has changed the way we interact, speeding up communications and exponentially increasing the amount of information available, all of which has brought immense benefits to the market, the state, and the daily lives of individuals. It is difficult to imagine a world without these advantages. But the costs of this technology are high and are now becoming more evident than ever: addiction to cell phones, depression among teenagers due to the type of virtual relationships that dominate among them, and the loss of a sense of what is real, valuable, and important. Added to this is an obvious danger to democracy: people vote for what they see on social media, with increasingly emotional, radical, and extravagant content (which is what the algorithm favors), whereby the election results may favor an unrestrained leader with high visibility (due to their extremism or extravagance), but who does not represent the will of the majority, who tend to be more moderate and reasonable. Under these conditions, with technology that favors the emotional over the rational and noise over conversation, populist leaders have fertile ground to thrive and destroy democracy. 

    The primitive impulse of national sentiment has historically manifested itself as a sense of belonging to a nation, which in itself is neither good nor bad, but which can be transformed into a more intense feeling such as patriotism, or, when a people has been humiliated and its pride offended, into aggressive nationalism, exploited by populist leaders who reap political rewards while fueling a spiral of violence. The risk of moving from a peaceful sentiment to an aggressive one, and from a situation of stable institutions to one in which they collapse, has increased in recent decades: first, because of the current growing discontent with traditional politics, and second, because of digital technology, which privileges the emotional and the excessive over science and reason. 

     It is true that this may seem inevitable, but it is not; civil society can resist nationalism and its technological allies, and there are concrete ways of doing so. One is to adopt a more critical individual stance: not assuming that digital technology is inherently positive and being able to question its promises; the same applies to messianic politicians who proclaim the verbs “recover” or “save.” Another is to advocate for a cosmopolitan conception of the world, one that transcends national borders and favors a broader sense of global citizenship. It is also our responsibility to demand stricter, supranational regulation of technology companies. There is much more to be done, but these are starting points for confronting the old nationalist demons that caused so much damage in the past and now threaten our present.