Nationality and Nationalism

Author: (English) Thorsten Veblen, translated by Han Hong
Translator: Han Hong / Country:
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-01-01
Features: In the past, when a life of leisure and privilege was still a source of pride, the situation was different from that of some existing agricultural societies or societies that continued to uphold the spirit of the pre-industrial era. Strangely enough, the concept of this obvious waste was proposed by Thorsten Veblen, a workaholic member of a society obsessed with work, who was indignant about the remnants of the predatory era in the pre-industrial societies he observed. The superficial appearance of egalitarianism, work, and profession in industrial society is equally important as the deeply hidden inequalities. Life is, after all, mostly superficial, even though important decisions are often made at a deeper level. In a certain sense, the teaching class is now more important and indispensable—and in another sense, since they have lost their monopoly over the cultural wisdom contained in sacred texts, they seem less important. In a society where everyone is disconnected from their family ties due to their occupational position and training, almost no one derives much, if any, security and support from their kinship relationships. The clergy, who once held the privilege of administrative positions, no longer possess any such privilege. When everyone becomes a Mamluk, there is no special Mamluk class that dominates the bureaucracy. Finally, the bureaucracy can draw new members from the entire population without worrying that each new recruit will bring dozens of unwanted cousins. External socialization and education themselves have now become universal norms. People acquire skills, learn social etiquette, which makes them accepted by their peers, fits them for social roles, and shapes them into what they are today. The path is through their kinship groups (though now usually their nuclear families) to hand them over to the education machine, which alone can provide the broad training needed for a general cultural foundation. This educational infrastructure is enormous, indispensable, and expensive, and its maintenance seems far beyond the financial capacity of the largest and wealthiest organizations in society, such as large industrial companies. These large industrial companies often provide housing, sports facilities, and entertainment for their employees; except in very few special cases, they do not provide formal schooling. (They may fund schools, but that is another matter.) The people within the organization work and entertain with the organization, but their children still attend public or private schools. Thus, on the one hand, this educational infrastructure is too large and costly for any single organization, except for the largest one—the state. On the other hand, while only the state can bear such a heavy burden, only the state has the power to control such a vital and critical function. Culture is no longer merely a decoration, confirmation, and legitimization of social order maintained through harsh coercive measures; culture is now a necessary, shared medium, a lifeline, or a shared smallest atmosphere, only within which the members of society can breathe, survive, and produce. For any society, it must be a culture in which all its members can breathe, speak, and produce. Therefore, it must be the same culture. Moreover, it must now be a great or high-level (literate, maintained by training) culture, no longer a diverse, locally confined, illiterate, narrow culture or tradition. However, some mechanism must ensure that this literate, unified culture is indeed being produced, ensuring that the products of education are not inferior or substandard. Only the state can achieve this. Even in countries where important parts of the education machine are in the hands of private or religious organizations, the state still controls this most important industry—the quality of producing viable, useful human beings. In the era of fragmented European states and weakened societies, the shadow state—the centralized church—did indeed struggle for control over education, but only when the church represented the widespread high-level culture and indirectly represented the emerging nation-states did this struggle prove effective. In the past, education was still a local industry, and villages or clans could shape people. That era is gone forever. (For education, "small" is only "good" when it is subordinate to "large.") External socialization, the production and reproduction of people outside the unit of local family relationships, has now become the norm and must remain so. The coercive demands of external socialization are the main thread explaining why the state and culture must now be linked. In the past, the connection between the two was rare, accidental, variable, loose, and often minimal. Now, this connection is essential. This is the substance of nationalism, and this is why we live in an age of nationalism. Chapter 4: Transitioning to the Age of Nationalism The most important step in our discussion is now complete. Humanity is irrevocably committed to industrial society and, therefore, to a society where the production system is built on the accumulation of science and technology. Only in this way can the current and expected population of the planet be sustained, allowing them to see the prospect of the life level they are now accustomed to or hope to become accustomed to. Agricultural society is no longer an option, and restoring it would only lead to the starvation of most of humanity, even if a few survivors could only live in unbearable poverty. Therefore, whatever practical meaning there may be, there is no longer any need to discuss the cultural and political pros and cons of agricultural society: we cannot go back. How large the range of choice is in industrial society, we do not fully understand, and perhaps we never will. However, we do understand some of its main accompaniments. The cultural homogeneity required by nationalism is one of them, and we would do well to coexist with it. As EucKcdoudc pointed out, nationalism is not imposed homogeneity, but the objective and inevitable homogeneity brought about by objective and inevitable laws will eventually manifest in the form of nationalism. Most of humanity moves from agricultural society to industrial society. (A very small number move directly from pre-agricultural states to industrial society, but this does not affect our argument, as these points apply equally to them.) However, the social organization of agricultural society is entirely unfavorable to the principles of nationalism, to the combination of political and cultural units, and to the maintenance of cultural homogeneity within each political unit and the essence of school transmission. Instead, as in medieval Europe, the political units it produced were either smaller or larger than the cultural boundaries; only occasionally, by chance, did it produce a dynasty-state that roughly corresponded to a certain language and culture, as later appeared along the European Atlantic coast. (This analogy is always somewhat inappropriate, as the culture of agricultural society was more diverse than the empires of the agricultural age, and generally broader than the small-scale social units within it.) For this reason, according to our model, the period of transition to industrialism is also a period of nationalism, a violent adjustment period where political or cultural boundaries are changed to meet the secondary demands of nationalism that make it feel its presence. Rulers are not willing to give up territory (every change in political boundaries inevitably makes some people losers), and changing one's own culture is often a painful experience, as opposing cultures vie for people's souls, just as opposing political authorities try to win hearts and occupy land. Given all this, our model immediately shows that this transition period is bound to be violent and full of opposition. The true historical facts fully substantiate these expectations.