Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

>This is curious in its own way, because it reminds me of that talk of how patriotism/nationalism is sort of repudiated by progressives circles but there are not many -or at least well known in my opinion- attempts of creating a new patriotism/nationalism based on those progressive values.

It's because it's pretty much a dead end. Nationalism relies on groups with a common origin. but the USA doesn't have such a common origin, and is strictly not a nation. Finding a new nationalism is thus a futile exercise. Outside the USA, the progressive focus is usually on a global approach and overcoming national borders, which too is antithetical to nationalism.

Now left-wing nationalism exists, but traditionally it's been a powerful force for developing countries rather than developed ones. Left-wing nationalism also tends to run more on civic and revolutionary nationalism, rather than the ethnonationalism and ultranationalism that most progressives associated with nationalism itself.

Immigrant Patriotism is a thing and a very powerful one. It is also something that drives nativists insane because they hate the idea that anyone can be loyal to the country as it explictly undermines their "by birthright" claim to the nation.

This isn't strictly Left or Right but have ties to both.

Oddly, it was a focus of both GHOST IN THE SHELL: 2ND GIG and GHOST IN THE SHELL 2045 as they analyzed what exactly role immigrants had as part of the national identity. The two animes coming to more or less opposite conclusions.

2nd Gig being, "Japanese people will never accept us as equals."

2045 being, "Maybe they're okay and could be Prime Minister."

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 12th 2021 at 12:06:53 PM

That is because more often than not, Left wing nationalism indeed is more a intersection between ex colonized power and communist rethoric, after all the idea the burgois are exploting the worker and the idea of imperalis and foregein power are exploting you is pretty similar that it become the same.

Which of course it can devolpt into left wing populism with all the nastiness you can expect of natinalism: militarization, cult of leader, dicatorship, you name it.

Is something I note a lot between latin american and U Sian is how we percived left wing rethoric in general, maybe is my own bias but the somewhat romantization of revolucionary violence often let me nervious.

Edited by unknowing on Jul 12th 2021 at 3:15:01 PM

That said, left-wing nationalism also tends to clash with communism itself quite a bit due to communism's internationalism. It's also applicable to every other socialist ideology, explicitly non-communist ones included; Victor Paz Essentoro headed the Bolivian Revolution with left-wing nationalism alone, and the same nationalism arguably drove Lazaro Cardenas's reforms.

I feel like ACOUP is going to be linked soon so i'll just do it myself:

My Country (USA) Isn’t a Nation

A historian talks about the specific meaning of a nation (and thus associated nationalism).

I'd say any definition of "nation" that doesn't include the United States is trivially false, though it does highlight that the definition of nation is rather vague. Personally I would tend to define a nation as something like: "The region a sovereign entity controls, and the society they rule over"

I'd say the article is incorrect in equating national identity with ethnicity in particular, especially when you're talking a nation like America.

>I'd say any definition of "nation" that doesn't include the United States is trivially false, though it does highlight that the definition of nation is rather vague. Personally I would tend to define a nation as something like: "The region a sovereign entity controls, and the society they rule over"

Which is notably not what a nation is. The very etymology of the word "nation" is birth.

Wikipedia, for instance, uses "A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a common language, history, ethnicity, a common culture and, in many cases, a shared territory." Mirriam-webster, cambridge etc use something similar.

What you describe is a mix of a state (the entity with monopoly on violence) and a territory (a region controlled).

Edited by devak on Jul 12th 2021 at 3:21:43 PM

Honestly, getting into the weeds about the very specific technical differences between terms like "nation", "country", and "state" is rarely useful unless you're discussing something where that distinction is relevant. Which we're not, so "the USA is not a nation" feels like the worst sort of "well ackshually..." nonsense.

tldr, since dear god that linked article is unnecessarily wordy and goes off on digressions every two sentences: a nation is a group of people with a shared history, culture, and (usually) ethnicity. A state is an independent, self-governing body. A country is less precise than either and generally refers to a geographic region that may or may not be a nation and/or a state. Again, these are extremely tldr definitions and you can argue endlessly around the edges of them. Please do not.

Some examples, since that tends to be helpful:

Nations are probably the easiest to split off from states and countries. If you can coherently talk about a specific group as a "people", then it's probably a nation. The Jewish people were a nation without a country or a state, prior to the (re)creation of Israel in 1948. The Kurdish people in the Middle East are a nation that arguably has its own country (Kurdistan), but that country is split between several states (namely Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria).

A state is a governing entity, so it's very rare to have one that is neither a nation nor a country, as there's little reason for a state to exist without first being one or the other, and existing for long enough as a state tends to make it a country, if nothing else. The best examples of a state that's not a nation are probably various post-colonial states, where the borders were drawn by outsiders with very little attention paid to the history and culture of the people actually living there at the time.

A country is basically any sufficiently large nation-ish, state-ish thing. The best example I can think of a country that's neither a nation nor a state is Hong Kong. In terms of ethnicity, history, and culture, it's very difficult to separate from China. In terms of statehood, it's been a part of either China or the British Empire for thousands of years (but it's been sort of independent from both, so that gets messy).

By these standards, the United States is definitely a state and certainly a country, but arguably not a nation, since its population does not identify with a single shared heritage. The fact that you can say something like "I'm an Italian-American" (meaning an American of Italian descent, not someone with dual Italian and American citizenship) without it being completely nonsensical illustrates that. You're identifying America as your state/country but Italy as your nation.

I think the true definition of a nation is not very relevant to nationalists, since they have their own definiton of what nation is and how to love it. Which translates into being hateful xenophobic bigot, who defends genocides and slavery.

I think this is drifting too much into actual politics and not politics in media.

I guess the Vatican is a state that's not really a country and certainly not a nation.

Not if we involve media's depiction of patriotism, since many use a lot of traditions as a way to claim that people, who not follow them are not patriots. Like "War on Christmas".

Edited by VeryVileVillian on Jul 12th 2021 at 6:03:06 PM

That is true, though that's also because the Catholic Church is a supranational organization.

The problem is the concept of 'state', 'nation' and 'territory' are abstract in scope, and have no defined 'core'. You can't point at a state or nation just like you can't point at the universe, because they're both defined solely by the things within them instead of one singular core concept.

The General Politics Thread is that way, folks.

>Honestly, getting into the weeds about the very specific technical differences between terms like "nation", "country", and "state" is rarely useful unless you're discussing something where that distinction is relevant.

My point was to illustrate WHY progressives so often do not replace nationalism. Because Nationalism isn't really compatible with an inclusive, international mindset.

It's why saying the USA is not a nation is useful: USA nationalism is straight up white supremacy. It's by it's nature extremely exclusionary of other groups precisely because the USA has no such shared history, or origin of birth. To call it a Nation in the strict sense misses the point.

And in order to bring that back to Captain America: he is a patriot, but he's not a nationalist. He believes in the country as an ideal, or a place where ideals are made real. Not as something with a common birth. And Superman is similar: he's an immigrant, the USA isn't a place where he shares an origin or ethnicity with, but he does share it's values. Both are citizens of a country, but neither is a nationalist because it's not a nation.

That's ultimately the distinction: Cap is a patriot and deeply believes in his country, but not because it hearkens back to some mythic time all Americans came from. He's antithetical to Nazis precisely because Nazis believe the opposite.

Edited by devak on Jul 13th 2021 at 10:40:49 AM

Also, to bring it up, apparently "Captain America is Woke" bs came out, when Captain America helped a muslim and not only agreed with his point of view that America isn't "The Best" but never mocked his religion or country, which to white supremacists and "Patriots" was the "great offense to America's values".

Edited by VeryVileVillian on Jul 13th 2021 at 12:55:52 PM

Yup. And i think that's why describing Cap's values as somewhat conservative don't quite hit the mark. he's a patriot, but that's not *necessarily* a left or rightwing idea, or conservative or progressive.

Frankly, I think that is a somewhat unfair assessment since Stan Lee had Captain America become a hippie wandering the Earth due to the evil of Richard Nixon. Marvel has never been Far Left but it certainly has always trended toward that direction instead of Conservatism.

I think that is and issue: patrotism is often see a inherely conservative idea and not just in right wing sense, after all patrotism was a great thing in comunism country(and still is to a sense, since left wing nationalism conflided service to the nation to service to comunist strugle), and Cap isnt only patriotic in a passive sense of beliving US can be a good nation or in his ideal but actialivy express as such.

Meanwhile, progresim often display patriotism in a very pasive manner in the form of "model stories", in a way overcoming prejudice and exploting your potencial is how you show patrotism, but more often that not progreism is very cynical about the prospect of patrotism because if often see as just diet nationalism(and in case of western country is just white supremacy).

So cap feel very "old fashion" in that regard.

Sounds like characters like Captain America would work better if they were from a Third World country.

Honestly, I'm often of the opinion that Steve Rogers should have stayed Nomad permanently. It was never the costume that defined Captain America, it was the personality.

I'd argue most of them are even more skeptical. Also, part of Captain America's enduring appeal is the fact that he has taught a couple of generations of comic book readers that patriotism should be defined by the proper use of the quote.

My Country, Right or Wrong

"If my country be right, let it be kept right, if my country wrong, be set right."

It is a patriotism of believing a nation-state can be made better and fixed of problems.

I mean I'd say that Rogers is defined by his desire to have American iconography symbolize positive values.

Essentially, he believes that his values are the "true" American values.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Jul 13th 2021 at 12:21:13 PM