Thinking this morning about the decade or so of nationalistic rhetoric that was building up in Russia by the Putin regime prior to the war he started with Ukraine. Before the war I didn’t really see a difference between Patriotism and Nationalism.
Since then I read George Orwell’s essay Notes on Nationalism. An essay he wrote in 1945 making a distinction between the two that I don’t know had really existed before he penned it.
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“By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions and tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled ‘good’ or ‘bad’…By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power.”
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Watching Kubrick’s film Paths of Glory, while he doesn’t use Orwell’s definition is a great example of the cost of nationalism. When those in power will use the rhetoric of patriotism to protect and elevate their own positions. Sacrificing the lives of many to elevate the prestige of the few.
The glory of the film was in Col. Dax, Kirk Douglas’ character who stands against the tide and holds a mirror up to those in power, though he gains very little for it. There is something of virtue in that. Something quite beautiful.
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