Martin LeFevre: The End of Nationalism?

Is dividing the world between ‘them’ and ‘us’ an unchangeable feature of human nature? Is the world as it’s always been, and will always be? Is there any such thing as human progress, except technologically?

These basic questions resurface during the many cycles of crisis in human history. But in this age of simultaneous globalization and fragmentation, there is something different happening, something unprecedented in human evolutionary and recorded history.

We face an implacable contradiction between a world without countries or cultures as we’ve known them for hundreds or thousands of years, and the ancient, emotionally held archetype of identifying with particular groups for survival. Radical change is absolutely necessary.

In America, many people are animated by the dream of “getting my country back” after the agonizing rottenness of the Bush years. But America has collapsed, and cannot be reconstituted to its former prominence. Something much wider happening with humanity however. The very idea of deriving identity from a separate nation or group is a thing of the past. Tribalism, and its modern equivalent, nationalism, must end in the human psyche, or it will be the end of us.

Prior distinctions between people, whether ethnic, religious, cultural, or national, become arbitrary in an unstoppably globalizing world. Geographic, linguistic, and cultural differences once had some meaning, since they were derived from traditions and histories of a people living over time in a particular place.

But insular people and cultures no longer exist. Now the old distinctions between people, being arbitrary, are producing the worst aspects of identification, without yielding their prior benefits. Identification with particular groups isn’t generating coherence, belonging, and security -- just growing chaos, anomie, and insecurity.

Human nature is neither fixed, nor malleable. It has certain features, such as dividing the world between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ which are very old and apparently universal. But this feature no longer applies. And given increasing population and expanding technology, it is increasingly destructive.

Hearkening back to halcyon days of national cohesion and purpose produces the opposite effect; it polarizes peoples and increases the disintegration of society. ‘America is being torn apart by illegal aliens who don’t play by the rules.’ Such scapegoating rhetoric spews out of the twisted mouths of supposed journalists, striking nerves in millions of people who feel they’ve lost control of their country, and their lives.

What is to be done? Our underlying attitudes regarding the basic characteristics of human nature have to be brought forth and questioned. For most people, ideas and beliefs about human nature are implicitly, subconsciously, and strongly held. But at times of upheaval, this substratum is thrown to the surface, sometimes for the better, but often for the worse. And except for the pressures that gave rise to modern humans about 100,000 years ago, humanity as a whole has never experienced upheaval like we are experiencing now.

The dream of integration, like all ideals, is a reaction to an untenable social and psychological reality. But people aren’t pieces that can be stitched together, nor can people live like fragments orbiting a center that no longer holds.

Letting go of the dream of integration does not mean accepting the nightmare of fragmentation. A healthy society cannot be woven out of a conglomeration of separate selves chasing phantoms of fulfillment.

Wholeness and order are basic psychological requirements. If people cannot find wholeness and order authentically, they will fabricate them illusorily, and form all manner of addictions.

Social and psychological anarchy leads to social and psychological tyranny. The most sweeping psychological, philosophical, and political changes in human history are clearly required, and like never before, possible. Yet there is a sense of narrowing horizons, of resigned limitations, of complacent satisfactions.

When the old values and rules degenerate, or no longer apply, people have to create new ones, or they become dangerous caricatures of the people they used to be. Most Americans believe, and behave, as though the ecological, economic, social, and political crisis that humankind faces can be adapted to without radical change resulting from serious individual and communal attention.

There is no ‘them’ anymore. Half of America is on anti-depressants, and yet most of the rest of the world still wants to be like us. So can the first thing—self-knowing—suddenly be adopted as the last resort?

- Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net. The author welcomes comments.

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