As the number of dead and severely wounded in the Russian – Ukrainian war surpasses a million souls; as the body count in the latest Israeli – Palestinian war hits five digits; as China threatens Taiwan; and as Houthis attack Red Sea shipping, polite table talk often veers to the impolite subject of international politics. Yet the resultant flow of words easily becomes lost in a fog of imprecision, ambivalence and conflicting definitions. It is possible to argue with someone with whom you totally agree, only because of a different understanding of terms. To a scientist, mathematician, or engineer this state of affairs is unacceptable. A theorem, or equation is but a meaningless waste of ink unless and until the terms are defined. F=ma has meaning only if F is defined as force, m as mass and a as acceleration. Any ambiguity or ambivalence in such matters results in failure, error or mortal danger.
And yet in the field of international politics, words that should be precise are often vague, flexible, and even self-contradictory. Words morph or acquire meaning unrelated to their origin, becoming “skunked” – becoming misused because of transitioning from one meaning to another. Recognizing that civilization is built by standing on the shoulders of our predecessors, a breakdown in this communication leads to no good. Some of this state of affairs is simply due to ignorance and laxitude compounded over the years. But some of this may be intentional misdirection.
In logic, Aristotle’s Law of Identity says A is A: “Everything that exists has a specific nature. Each entity exists as something in particular and it has characteristics that are a part of what it is.” Or, as restated by Confucius, “the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.“ As noted by Ayn Rand, “Every word we use [..] is a symbol that denotes a concept. [..] concepts and, therefore, language are primarily a tool of cognition—not of communication [..]. Communication is merely the consequence, [..] Cognition precedes communication.”
Since words are the tools of cognition, of higher levels of thought, there is a risk that by morphing the meaning of words, your thoughts and opinions can be manipulated, producing Pavlovian responses or the doublethink of George Orwell’s 1984.
Among the words and concepts that have been morphed and skunked beyond recognition are: Nation – Nationalism – Nationalist; State (lat. Patria) – Patriotism – Patriot; Empire – Imperialism – Imperialist.
The word Nation comes directly from the Latin natio / nationis meaning “a people”. This is the original “organic” meaning of the word. A Nation is a self-identified large group of people having a common language, culture and tradition, with or without a separate political state of their own. Kurds, as an example, are a stateless nation, divided between four states within each of which they are a minority. The importance of a common separate language is paramount, as language is the carrier signal of information and thus culture, and a nation within the whole of humanity is primarily a cultural phenomenon. Religion, as a part of culture and tradition, has sometimes been a factor of national identity, but less so today. A nation whose self-identification was originally totally based on religion, the Jews, today have resurrected their Hebrew language, recognizing the primary importance of language as the unifying carrier signal of their culture. Today the meaning of the word Nation is being skunked by being conflated with State. A Nation-state is a State with an overwhelming majority of one nationality. But most states are not nation-states, and none should be conflated with the word Nation. The United Nations, for example, are neither United nor Nations. It is instead a Conference of States. The United States is also a misnomer as the “states” are provinces with all claims to independent “statehood” having been quashed in 1865. However, with provinces being called “states”, the entire Union is thus often incorrectly referred to as the “Nation”. However, a notable recent example of the correct use of the term Nation was the formal government recognition of Canada’s aboriginal peoples as “First Nations”.
It follows that Nationalism is a love of or dedication to a people, not to a State. With a Nation being family writ large, this love or dedication can be compared to love or dedication to one’s family. Just as love of one’s own family does not entail a hatred of one’s neighbor’s, love of one’s nation does not require the hatred of any others. In fact, it can be a source of understanding of the nationalism of other peoples. The history of the misnamed National Socialist German Workers’ Party has led to the words Nationalist or Nationalism to be purposefully misused as negative epithets. Yet neither the terms Socialist nor Workers’ Party have been similarly profanized by adept purveyors of international socialism. Nationalism has been conflated with Imperialism, ignoring the glaring fact that Nations and Nationalism are the forces that have dismembered Empires! The Kremlin uses the term NAZI for Nationalist when describing Ukrainians that dare to actually speak Ukrainian in Ukraine. It is sad that this common abuse of the word Nationalism has required a defense of Nationalism by Yoram Hazony in the book “The Virtue of Nationalism”.
The term State identifies a political creation consisting of a geography with defined borders, a populace and a government. Because the term Statism is used to define the supremacy of a state’s government over an individual in the millennia-old conflict between the two, the word Patriotism (from the lat. Patria or state) is used instead to denote the love of, or dedication to, a given State. In the specific case of Nation-states there is a rapprochement between the meaning of Patriotism and Nationalism, yet they are still not identical. In general, it is Patriotism, the dedication to the political entity of the State, that has led to unfortunate excesses. The expressions “my country, right or wrong”, or “the last refuge of a scoundrel” hint at the potential dangers of unchecked Patriotism. It is the unchecked promotion of the State that has created Empires with the attendant illiberal excesses. Yet, to no surprise, in most countries, political powers promote Patriotism as the virtue.
An Empire is a political unit, a State, made up of vast territories, and many peoples (Nations), created by conquest or forceful coercion, and divided between a dominant center, the metropole, and subordinate peripheries / colonies. It is, in fact, unchecked Patriotism that turns into Imperialism. An Imperialist desires the expansion of a State into the territory of other Nations and the continued subjugation of them. Empires, as a rule, serve the elite or the commercial interests of the metropole. It is often the policy of Empire to “digest” its subordinate Nations through assimilation or other forms of ethnocide. And yet in today’s discourse the word Imperialism is rarely used. The sins of Empire are blamed on Nationalism, – usually by those who seek to hide their own Imperial ambitions or past. And yet it is Nationalism that dismantles Empires, and it is Nation-states that have proven to be best able to provide and preserve the individual freedom of their subjects!
A is A. The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.
When during political discourse, certain terms are purposefully misused, the intent can only be nefarious. The very means of your own cognition is being manipulated. The hairs on the back of your neck should rise. Blow the whistle and call foul!
