With regard to the article ‘Satire Nationalism,’ written by Flavia, there is, in addition, a very clear explanation on what satire is, including a list of the most famous satirist writers. But, what is nationalism? To enlarge a bit on this concept, I picked up a text by G. Orwell, a modern satirist English writer, who refers to this matter in his article ‘Notes on Nationalism’. According to him, there are some remarkable aspects of this particular word which I will list as follows:
‘Nationalism is the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.’
‘Nationalism is different from patriotism which is the devotion for a particular place or a way of living that one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people.’
‘Nationalism, in the extended sense, includes such movements and tendencies as Communism, political Catholicism, Zionism, anti-Semitism, Trotskyism and Pacifism.’
‘Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. In this sense, he spends part of his life in a fantasy world in which things happen as they should and he will transfer fragments of this world to the history books whenever possible (Orwell George;1945)
According to Orwell, it’s worth emphasizing that nationalist feeling can be purely negative. In this sense he quotes: ‘a nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist- that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating- but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations.’
5 comments:
I have found very appealing the idea of what nationalism is. It really helped me to clarify the existent difference between patriotism and nationalism. According to G. Orwell, patriotism is a feeling of admiration, on the one hand. While on the other hand, nationalism, one of the worst enemies of peace, is a feeling of superiority.
Yes, it is something like that. According to Orwell patriotism is a sort of feeling of admiration which one does not want to impose in others. Nationalism tends to be more negative. Orwell also refers to other classifications such us negative nationalism which includes anti semitism or an irrational hate for the Jews and anglophobia that is a hostile attitude towards Britain.
Thanks for such a neat summary, Nestor! It's really clarifying.
It is a very useful article Nestor, and as Yani said it is very clear the distinction made between nationalism and patriotism. I really mistake the difference among the use of both words and as I read the article I found many clarified ideas! I think that, as it happened to me, most people do not differenciate the meaning of those words.VERONICA.
It is an interesting article and now, it is very clear to me the distinction between these two concepts. I agree with Nestor and Yanina, when I think about Nationalism, it doesn't seem possitive
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