RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/why-nationalism-better-cultural-pluralism/575458/

We all have books that have influenced how we make sense of the world. One of my favorites is Polyethnicity and National Unity in World History, a short book by the Canadian American historian William McNeill that was first published in 1985. I recently learned that McNeill died in the summer of 2016, not long after Britain voted to leave the European Union and shortly before Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. It occurs to me that McNeill would have had a great deal to say about the reassertion of nationalism around the world, and I regret that he is not here to share his thoughts with us. This is not because I expect that McNeill would echo my own beliefs—indeed, I am confident he would not—but rather because his work might help reorient our perspective.

Though McNeill was very much a skeptic of nationalism, he taught me, in a roundabout way, to appreciate its virtues. Critics of nationalism often point to the fact that it is a relatively novel doctrine, and they’re not wrong to do so. What they tend to neglect, however, is that the same can be said of nationalism’s chief rival: the ideal of a cultural pluralism that is bereft of hierarchy. In liberal circles, “nationalism” is typically understood as a divisive, exclusionary force, usually in implicit contrast with some form of cultural pluralism, and so to identify as a nationalist is to declare oneself a chauvinist.

But as McNeill suggests, nationalism can be understood as a unifying alternative to a society built on polyethnic hierarchy, in which a series of hereditary ethnic castes live together in uneasy peace, usually with some dominating the others. It is polyethnic hierarchy that has been the norm throughout modern history, not national unity or egalitarian pluralism. One could argue that the dream of pluralism without hierarchy is at least as chimerical as that of an egalitarian nationalism built on the melting and fusing together of once-distinct groups, if not far more so. McNeill’s stylized history gives us a sense of what we’re up against as we try to build decent and humane societies amidst entrenched ethnic divisions, and why so many modern thinkers have embraced the politics of national unity.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/11/progressive-politics-
Some progressives lamented the apparent defeat of radical progressive African-American candidates such as gubernatorial nominees Stacey Abrams of Georgia and Florida’s Andrew Gillum by blaming allegedly treasonous white women. Apparently white women did not vote sufficiently en bloc in accordance with approved notions of identity politics tribalism.

According to this progressive orthodoxy, being female, gay, or minority trumps everything else. But, of course, no one believes in such mythical notions of solidarity, least of all progressives themselves.

White women were expected in Michigan, for example, to vote against a sterling African-American senatorial candidate John James, whose résumé was far more impressive than his victorious opponent, incumbent Senator Debbie Stabenow.

There was no such thing as minorities on the collective barricades when it was a matter of defeating California congressional candidate Elizabeth Heng, first-generation child of refugees, Asian, female, former Stanford student body president, and Yale MBA in her singular bid to unseat a seven-term white male Democratic incumbent.

The outraged identity politics industry has entered the realm of insanity when it screams at the “treason” of white women while bragging that 95 percent of black women voted for a white male Robert O’Rourke against Latino Ted Cruz—while deploring that 59 percent of white women who voted against white male O’Rourke.

In fact, progressive advocates sought to ensure that lots of black, Asian, and Latino men and women lost their senate, congressional, and state house races anytime they were pitted against white-male or white-female left-wing opponents, often with far more power, money, and influence at their disposal.

So dispense once and for all with the idea of the universal sisterhood of identity politics. Or at least recalibrate and redefine minority status as being a progressive of any race or gender first, and, only incidentally, female or nonwhite.

Yesterday, November 11, 2018, marked the 100th anniversary the end of World War 1 and Veterans’ Day which honors all those persons who served in all America’s armed forces. In 1954 at the urging of veterans’ groups Armistice Day was renamed Veterans Day.

The “war to end all wars” failed to do so and murderous ideologies – Nazi and Marxist- were to wreak death and destruction for most of what the eminent British historian Robert Conquest called “A Ravaged Century.”

In the name of peace, treaties and pacts, negotiations and appeasement were attempted with implacable enemies. The prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah warned of the false promises of peace, but perhaps the secular poet Emily Dickinson said it best:

I many times thought Peace had come
When Peace was far away —
As Wrecked Men — deem they sight the Land —
At Centre of the Sea —
And struggle slacker — but to prove
As hopelessly as I —
How many the fictitious Shores —
Before the Harbor be.

rsk