Open thread, 14-20 July 2014

David_Gerard

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Previous thread

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one.

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

Now you made me want to make a rational argument for nationalism. Uhm... let's try this:

Imagine that some cultures do things that you consider horrible (e.g. genital mutilation, "honor" killing, killing people for blasphemy or sexual orientation, etc.). Your culture doesn't do that. However, for some reasons, the populations in the other cultures are growing, the population in your culture is not, people immigrate to your country and bring their horrible behavior with them. You are afraid that unless something is done against this, the repulsive behavior will become a norm in your country, too. Maybe not the majority norm, but still something that is more or less tolerated, because no mainstream politician would risk making too many voters angry. How to stop this?

Appealing to national feelings may be a realistic strategy. (The point is not to invent something that intellectuals would agree with, but something that has a realistic chance to get a popular support.) You can try to make people more proud of your local culture, and emphasise that not doing X is an important part of what makes this country great. Thus you get a strong political force against X.

Related: "Use Your Identity Carefully". -- My analogy is that nationalism is identity on the mass level (identity for NPCs?). It is a tool to preserve a group of memes, both good and bad. Instead of throwing away the tool, you can try to increase the proportion of the good memes in the mix.

That's certainly one, but there's an even easier argument to make - Burkean conservatism. Your nation's identity is built around stuff that's probably worked pretty well for it in past(or else it probably wouldn't be a nation today). As such, it's got a higher prior probability of working out in your local circumstances. It's not a large effect, of course, but it's a real one, particularly for successful nations.

0A1987dM12y

But my culture also does things that I consider horrible that other cultures don't do! (SCNR.)

7Emile12y

Having a strong national identity, and norms around self-sacrifice in favor of "The Fatherland" seems like pretty good instrumental rationality, in terms of coordination, enforcing cooperation, economies of scale, etc. "Identity for NPCs" sounds a bit dismissive for a mechanism that works pretty well (to me it sounds close to "cooperating is for suckers, rationalists should defect"). I don't think "rejecting weird foreign norms" has much to do with the historical causes of nationalist sentiment; I'd say it had more to do with enforcing strong norms over weak norms (for example, speaking the same language, not engaging in nepotism, obeying the law, sending your children to school, taking up arms to defend the country), and putting the primary focus of loyalty on the country (and not the king, the church, your family or your village). Foreigners from far away with different norms is a more recent phenomenon.