American Thinker by Ewa Thompson 9/1/2019
In modern English, nationalism has become a dirty word. It is lumped together with racism, xenophobia, chauvinism, and intolerance. To accuse someone of harboring nationalistic views is a formula for exclusion. Few scholars can survive carrying such charges in their professional luggage. Accusations of nationalism are directed at politicians as well, with predictable results. In academia and the press, attempts to discredit and condemn nationalism are numerous. A recent example is "An Open Letter Against the New Nationalism" published August 19, 2019 in the Commonweal magazine.
It has to be emphasized that aggressiveness toward neighbors and attempts to destroy them for the sake of one's own Lebensraum are not nationalism. They are a pathology prompted by greed and arrogance. One of the shortcomings of the aforementioned Letter is unjustified attribution of aggressiveness to what I call defensive nationalism, bent on preservation of identity and history.
Nationalism was not created by the French Revolution, as some scholars maintain, nor was it a product of literacy, as Marxist scholar Benedict Anderson wanted. It has many parents. It involves defense and protection of group identity that took generations to develop. It contributes to the individual's personhood.
Liberal democracy was supposed to dissolve nationalism and bring an end to history, but even within Professor Fukuyama's lifetime, it has failed to do so. History rushed past his predictions and doled out to humanity new wars and new ways of fighting wars. It is true that Western democracies have avoided war on their territory, but they have participated in numerous proxy wars. In 2019, the world is as unlikely to erupt into eternal peace as ever. Wars are being fought, and nothing indicates that they won't be fought in the future, even though liberal democracy seems strongly embedded in first-world countries.
More:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/09/can_democracy_survive_without_nationalism.html
