The main three requirements for nationalism are as follows:
- A common "background". The people have to have had a common element or event in their past that relates them together.
- A Common goal. The people uniting together must have the same goal in mind. They all have to want to fight for the same thing.
- A sense of unity. The people need to feel as if they are a group. They need to think together, as a whole.
Nationalism is forceful and powerful, yet fragile and dangerous at the same time. A group of nationalistic people are like a heard of cows. People tell them where to go and what to do, and they go and do it. They stick together, as a team, and back up the others in their group.
I completely agree with your definition! (Which makes sense, because we worked on it together :P) but I also liked how in your post you picked out the key concepts and elaborated. It made for a really strong argument.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you compared nationalism to a herd of cows. I never would have thought to compare the two but this could not be more true! One cow is not very powerful on its own, but in a huge group, they are very strong!
This is a very interesting definition! You gave little bits of evidence so that it's almost impossible to refute your argument. To add onto your point: I also feel that nationalism can be dangerous, for if the goal of the group wanders from the original goal, things can happen that weren't originally intended.
ReplyDeleteGreat cow analogy. Your three bullet points are rock solid. I think the most important point is your last paragraph about the fragility of nationalism. I agree strongly with this statement in a sense that nationalism can be steered in two directions: either towards success or towards severe deterioration.
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