Are We Nationalists?

Join us as we tackle a reporter’s concerns regarding nativism and its associations with religiosity, nationalism, and Nazism. We dive into the benefits and criticisms surrounding nationalism, exploring civic and ethnic nationalism, and discussing its cultural implications. From historical contexts to modern attitudes, this video offers an in-depth conversation about pride, patriotism, and the nuanced understanding of national identity within a global framework.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing a question that came from a reporter who was horrified that they went to Natal Con, and they go, well, you know.

This nativism stuff, you know, it seems okay. Like I agree with what you're saying there, but why is it all wrapped up with all of these horrible other ideas like, you know, religiosity and nationalism and all this other Nazi stuff from their perspective. And I was like, wait, actually, I was like, wait, what?

Like. Are, are you? Because you know, normally I might be like, well, you know, I support Tism. I don't support everything that everyone says. Who goes to like a prenatal convention? You're like, wait, what's wrong with religiosity and nationalism? Right? Like first religiosity. We will just take this aside, you know, I'm sorry that it's associated with better mental health, longer [00:01:00] life, you know, less stress, less anxiety.

Screw

Simone Collins: those people,

Malcolm Collins: screw those people. Just, we'll throw all that aside. Okay. Oh my goodness. But let's just talk about the concept of nationalism, because I was like, wait, I don't think there's anything really objectionable about nationalism. Like, I, I don't, what is. What is wrong with nationalism?

Like I understand for example, like Nazis were nationalists, but Nazis also were like animal level and Nazis were underwear

Simone Collins: and they also pooped and they also drove in. Cars was

Malcolm Collins: really, really big into dogs. He was really big into protecting dogs and protecting animals. And he was a vegetarian at times.

Like, is PETA Nazi? Like, yeah, no. Yeah. Like that wasn't what people disliked about Hitler. Yeah. That he, that he had pride in Germany and German history. Yeah. There, the, that is not the bad thing. It was. The genocide. That was a bad thing. It was the [00:02:00] war That was the bad thing. It was the ethnic cleansing that was the bad thing, right?

It wasn't the loving his country. That was the bad thing. Well, you

Simone Collins: humans should be capable of separating out actions. Well,

Malcolm Collins: and, and well, no, in America at this time period when we defeated the Nazis could be thought of as nothing other than nationalistic. This was a nationalistic effort. This is what individuals like Captain America represent.

They represent nationalism. Mm-hmm. And so I decided to, I was like, okay, well I, now I need to go into definitions to be like, maybe there's some part of the definition of nationalism that's really offensive and I should be thinking more about, right? Mm-hmm. So I go to Wikipedia and I look up the nationalism definition and it is, I.

Really bad. Like I, I could read the paragraph and it wouldn't get to a line that made sense until we, it's not like misleading, it's just gobbledygook. Okay. So then I clicked on civic nationalism 'cause I [00:03:00] was like, okay, well maybe this will get to the point. Okay.

And civic nationalism, other wine, Don is, democratic nationalism is a form of nationalism that adheres to traditional liberal values of freedom, tolerance, equality, and individual rights At.

And is not based on ethnonationalism. So I'm like, okay, cool. The foreign nationalism is not ethno because obviously like we're not ethnonationalist. Like no one no could argue that, right? No civic nationalists. Defend the value of national identity by saying that individuals need it as a partial shared aspect of their identity and upper identity in order to lead meaningful autonomous lives, and that democratic polities need a national identity to function properly.

That, that seems like an obvious truth. Do they argue that they don't? Do they argue that like a country can no anarchy, that's the only way things will ever work? No, I, I think that they genuinely believe that a country should value the needs of non-citizens [00:04:00] over the needs of citizens. Like that's genuinely what they're asking for here.

And a lot of progressives actually believe this. That's true. Yeah. Back to the whole. Progressives

Simone Collins: care about rocks problem. Right.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, but when we talk about things I'm like, well, somebody was like, well, what about immigrants? Because I created like this state structure and this horrified guardian reporter was talking to me okay.

They, I found a leaked version of this was their undercover reporter about nation state I wanted to create. And I still love that they published that. Thank you, guardian. You are our best. Pr, you know, the Guardian is our personal PR team with their, their hate Andre against us. But I, I found a they, they, they came to me and they go, well, okay, so it doesn't look like people who don't contribute to the state really have a vote or a voice in this system.

Like, why would they migrate to your country if they don't have a voice? I was like. Oh, this isn't really for a country, for people who don't [00:05:00] contribute. Like they can stay where they are. Like yeah. We're not trying to get to them as they, we

Simone Collins: respect people who love those people and our, our state functions in a different way

Malcolm Collins: when I think America can be the same.

Right? Like we don't need people who are drains on this date. Yeah. Did o other states apparently will poison themselves with those populations.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or I mean, to, to be more gentle with it. Like the people who value those people are welcome to pay for those people. Meaning that, like right now, for example one, our kids aren't paid for by the state.

Right? Like we pay for them because we value them. And if we didn't value them, we wouldn't have them and therefore we wouldn't pay for them. And I think that's kind of. That's a 'cause. I think there's this implication that like, oh, what are you gonna do euthanize, anyone who's not valuable? No. Like just we're not gonna pay for them.

Malcolm Collins: They're, yeah, we're not gonna pay for them. Yeah. It's not that we, yeah. It [00:06:00] reminds me of the USAID thing where like this, this AIDS program in Africa was shut down, called like prefab or something, and all these people came out and they're like, do you want like random Africans to die of aids? And I was like, no, you don't either.

And they're like, yeah, I wanna fight this. And I go. So you're, you're donating money to programs that are meant to help those people. Like Certainly, and the great thing is a

Simone Collins: lot of people have subsequently stepped

Malcolm Collins: up. And our funding programs. Some people, a very small minority of population. Yes. Certainly not the loudest people.

It's acting like you are killing Africans by shutting down these programs, has stepped into actually fund this or was funding anything like this beforehand. They, they wanted other people to pay for this stuff. They didn't want to handle it themselves. And this idea of, i, I am, I am less killing those people by shutting down a program so that