[YouTube] Why I Was Wrong About Nationalism

[Freedomain]

Why I Was Wrong About Nationalism

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[Brad Sherard]

Its fun watching my own progression of ideas mirrored in honest and curious thinkers.

 

I made the case long ago that an end cannot be achieved by means which contradict that end, but we should take care to really be sure what constitutes an actual contradiction. In the more dogmatic libertarians and anarchists, there is an interesting avoidance of history, of data. It tends to dwell more in ivory tower abstraction. I've had to point out numerous times the obvious to people, and this topic is one such time. People ask me how on earth I could ever "support" nationalism and still call myself an anarchist(I don't actually call myself that but it does derive from basic reasoning about morality). This is my answer:

Suppose you were a peasant, or an early worker in the growing cities as industrialism overtook the artistocrats who could only institute poor houses as more and more people flowed into the cities during the 1600s. The promise of freedom grows as the will to enact it becomes more popular and acceptable in public discourse. Now also suppose you were a peasant of abnormal moral conscience, ahead of your time; you rejected all enslavement, not just your own. The slave trade would persist even as the monarchs fell away to the somewhat more limited democratic and constitutional republic governments on the horizon. Would you, a moral person, support the rise of western civilization out of serfdom even if what remained contained evil institutions? Would you reject the end of slavery and statist violence for many if a few still remained enslaved? 

Moral advancement does not come to humans in one giant leap from hell to heaven. Human history is an endless proof that we have come from evil origins to higher ground slightly less bloodied. We are crawling inch by inch over bodies to get to a truly civilized world. So, denying outright any choice that contains any element of evil as if it simply cannot bring us nearer to peace is to ignore all of human history. It doesn't mean any action is permitted, but it does mean we can't just categorically dismiss incremental improvement. So, as far as consequentialism is concerned, choosing nationalism in the face of globalism(and what is globalism but communism without the revolution?), cannot be categorically rejected.

And we can also consider the logical case as well. Lets start with the assumption of the validity of the non-aggression principle, UPB, etc. Is there a contradiction in choosing a violent path? Not necessarily. Consider the annoying hypothetical of a train track with one person tied to one branch of a split and two people tied to the other. Some evil cartoon villain is forcing you to choose which will die by putting you in front of the switch as a train approaches. Are you commiting violence by throwing the switch to kill one person rather than two? No, you didn't set the events in motion that forced the choice upon you. It was the villain. And we aren't the ones putting us to the decision between the violent action of choosing nationalism or a multi-cultural banana republic.

 

Maybe there is another choice but until it becomes apparant, I choose to do what I think gives us the best chance for a free and peaceful future.

[Marshall B]

22 hours ago, Brad Sherard said:

Its fun watching my own progression of ideas mirrored in honest and curious thinkers.

 

I made the case long ago that an end cannot be achieved by means which contradict that end, but we should take care to really be sure what constitutes an actual contradiction. In the more dogmatic libertarians and anarchists, there is an interesting avoidance of history, of data. It tends to dwell more in ivory tower abstraction. I've had to point out numerous times the obvious to people, and this topic is one such time. People ask me how on earth I could ever "support" nationalism and still call myself an anarchist(I don't actually call myself that but it does derive from basic reasoning about morality). This is my answer:

Suppose you were a peasant, or an early worker in the growing cities as industrialism overtook the artistocrats who could only institute poor houses as more and more people flowed into the cities during the 1600s. The promise of freedom grows as the will to enact it becomes more popular and acceptable in public discourse. Now also suppose you were a peasant of abnormal moral conscience, ahead of your time; you rejected all enslavement, not just your own. The slave trade would persist even as the monarchs fell away to the somewhat more limited democratic and constitutional republic governments on the horizon. Would you, a moral person, support the rise of western civilization out of serfdom even if what remained contained evil institutions? Would you reject the end of slavery and statist violence for many if a few still remained enslaved? 

Moral advancement does not come to humans in one giant leap from hell to heaven. Human history is an endless proof that we have come from evil origins to higher ground slightly less bloodied. We are crawling inch by inch over bodies to get to a truly civilized world. So, denying outright any choice that contains any element of evil as if it simply cannot bring us nearer to peace is to ignore all of human history. It doesn't mean any action is permitted, but it does mean we can't just categorically dismiss incremental improvement. So, as far as consequentialism is concerned, choosing nationalism in the face of globalism(and what is globalism but communism without the revolution?), cannot be categorically rejected.

And we can also consider the logical case as well. Lets start with the assumption of the validity of the non-aggression principle, UPB, etc. Is there a contradiction in choosing a violent path? Not necessarily. Consider the annoying hypothetical of a train track with one person tied to one branch of a split and two people tied to the other. Some evil cartoon villain is forcing you to choose which will die by putting you in front of the switch as a train approaches. Are you commiting violence by throwing the switch to kill one person rather than two? No, you didn't set the events in motion that forced the choice upon you. It was the villain. And we aren't the ones putting us to the decision between the violent action of choosing nationalism or a multi-cultural banana republic.

 

Maybe there is another choice but until it becomes apparant, I choose to do what I think gives us the best chance for a free and peaceful future.

Well put man. I enjoyed that. Ive thought about what a loser you'd I'd look like at certain points in history advocating the purity of no-state when others are actually getting sh-- done. Someone needs to make some good memes of an anarchist nagging Thomas Paine 250 years ago about his sins against the NAP.

[Laforge]

Excellent explanation again on the regression-to-the-mean topic. Unfortunately many people don't care or want to think that far ahead. I'm still totally onboard with the logic that nationalism is required before libertarian minarchism, with end goal of philosophical anarchism.

What I don't really get is why most nationalists want enhanced border protections. Just focus on stopping tax money going to migrants. Winter and rainy nights are really tough, food is damned hard to grow/find in a northern forest. 99% will gtfo themselves! No need to lay a single brick or fence off any country, right? What am I missing here?
- Borders cost money, may hamper trade&tourism AND can be used by welfare state lovers to keep people IN. Think North Korea/Iron Curtain.
- If public opinion doesn't like the image of sad cold hungry migrants: tell them to take in migrants in their home... then just wait as their personal dramas skyrocket and they change their minds.
- Protection against terrorism isn't really an argument either, look at borderless East-European countries. Afaik if you have LESS migrants on welfare [[without chance for a job & family, with an infinite amount of time on their hands to get radicalized]], terrorism decreases.

 

[lorry]

6 hours ago, Marshall B said:

Well put man. I enjoyed that. Ive thought about what a loser you'd I'd look like at certain points in history advocating the purity of no-state when others are actually getting sh-- done. Someone needs to make some good memes of an anarchist nagging Thomas Paine 250 years ago about his sins against the NAP.

Gotchya covered fam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcUZrDX5P7A

[RichardY]

When serfdom was ended in Scotland after the Battle of Culloden with Scottish aristocrats being executed and death warrants being issued, including on Bonnie Prince Charlie. The nullification of feudal contract led to the "Highland Clearances". I remember from listening to "Will to Power" on Youtube, regarding the whole reluctance of people in general to take on the responsibility of law enforcement and to instead divide it up or outsource it to some other authority. "Better the Devil you know, than the Devil you don't".

Stefan is also wrong about the tallest people being the Danish. The tallest people are in fact the Dutch, specifically people from the Rhineland region. Just think of how tall the Amish are or if you play video games "Forlorn Hope Landschneckt" (Massive guys wielding two-hander swords, spearhead troops), had a great grandfather, whose mother was from the Rhineland region in Germany, massive people.

Although considering Stefan seems to be the only guy (which I still can't quite comprehend) covering in detail current events and bringing to light the injustices in society in a straight talking non-conspiratorial fact based format, perhaps a lot of non-public virtuous people out there, kind of a lack of public ones. Any effective anti-hero's out there? People who aren't fundamentally interested in virtue, more with saving their own skins and wider society by proxy?

[Marshall B]

On 12/1/2017 at 6:19 AM, lorry said:

Gotchya covered fam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcUZrDX5P7A

Dude I am rolling. That was too good. Thanks

[lorry]

On 12/10/2017 at 5:21 AM, Marshall B said:

Dude I am rolling. That was too good. Thanks

No worries