Weekend Nationalism and It’s Virtues Open Commentary

An excerpt from the remarkable best-selling book by Yoram Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism.

[Editor: Please ignore the fact this is posted at National Review. It’s not relevant.]

My liberal friends and colleagues do not seem to understand that the advancing liberal construction is a form of imperialism. But to anyone already immersed in the new order, the resemblance is easy to see. Much like the pharaohs and the Babylonian kings, the Roman emperors and the Roman Catholic Church until well into the modern period, as well as the Marxists of the last century, liberals, too, have their grand theory about how they are going to bring peace and economic prosperity to the world by pulling down all the borders and uniting mankind under their own universal rule. Infatuated with the clarity and intellectual rigor of this vision, they disdain the laborious process of consulting with the multitude of nations they believe should embrace their view of what is right. And like other imperialists, they are quick to express disgust, contempt, and anger when their vision of peace and prosperity meets with opposition from those who they are sure would benefit immensely by simply submitting.

and,

These arguments within the camp of liberal imperialism raise pressing questions for the coming liberal construction of the West. But for those who remain unconvinced of the desirability of maintaining such a liberal empire, the most salient fact is what the parties of these disagreements have in common. For all their bickering, proponents of the liberal construction are united in endorsing a single imperialist vision: They wish to see a world in which liberal principles are codified as universal law and imposed on the nations, if necessary by force. This, they agree, is what will bring us universal peace and prosperity.

as well as,

Under a universal political order, by contrast, in which a single standard of right is held to be in force everywhere, tolerance for diverse political and religious standpoints must necessarily decline. Western elites, whose views are now being aggressively homogenized in conformity with the new liberal construction, are finding it increasingly difficult to recognize a need for the kind of toleration of divergent standpoints that the principle of national self-determination had once rendered axiomatic. Tolerance, like nationalism, is becoming a relic of a bygone age.

***********************************************************************

A highly recommended video interview with Yoram Hazony by the esteemed Peter Robinson.

Yoram Hazony is the chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation and president of the Herzl Institute. His 2018 book, The Virtue of Nationalism, established Hazony as one of the leading proponents of a new kind of “national conservatism.” His new book, Conservatism: A Rediscovery, has set off a passionate debate among intellectuals on the Right to determine what “national conservatism” actually means and why conservatism needs to be rediscovered. We put those questions and many more to Hazony in this interview.

**************************************************************************

An excellent interview last fall with Hazony by Ari Bluff:

If you haven’t gotten the memo yet, nationalism is a dirty word. Pride for one’s country, its distinct culture and its historic values — particularly in Western nations — is terribly outdated. Some find it an embarrassing idea, or even dangerous.

Historian Howard Zinn has called ardent nationalism a “scourge” and depicts it as nothing short of fascism. “Is not nationalism — that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder — one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?” he wrote.

and,

Yoram Hazony has been quietly fighting these arguments for decades. Through his books “The Virtue of Nationalism” and “Conservatism: A Rediscovery,” among others, and work as chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, he is one of the leading voices promoting nationalism worldwide.