Nationalism Defined

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                                                              NATIONALISM SIMPLY DEFINED


            What is nationalism? Is nationalism a word that means being true to one’s country? The answer to that question is contained within a much deeper thought and feeling than that.

            Nationalism defined, according to Webster’s Dictionary has 4 different meanings: 1. national character; nationality. 2. An idiom, trait or character peculiar to any nation. 3. Devotion to, or advocacy of, national interests or national unity and independence. 4. Chiefly U.S.- Socialism advocating the nationalizing of industries.

            Definition 1 is what a nation is about and stands for, it’s identity. Definition 2 is things which identify a nation. Definition 3 can be either good or bad, depending upon what a country strands for and/or the methods it uses to “run” the country. Number 4 is generally considered bad by democratic, capitalistic, free enterprise systemed countries, and is one thing that America’s founding fathers fought to escape.

            Nationalism completed, is a state of mind in which the nation-state, or country, receives the supreme loyalty of each individual, due to the way that each individual feels. And since it is a supreme loyalty, and due to the way that a person feels, it is a heart felt loyalty, which means that something must sway each individual heart to place the nation-state above even God and family. That is much more than believing in one’s country and supporting its government.

            Paying due taxes, obeying just laws and fighting for one’s country is not being a nationalist; that is simply being a good citizen and a patriot.

            Nationalism, in it’s most extreme sense, means believing that a country and it’s agenda, principles and methods are supreme, rather than a means to an end, and that the country’s leaders are as God, or in God’s stead.

            Before going further, it is important to note, that having an affinity for one’s ancestral lands, being loyal to traditions handed down from generation to generation and regarding traditional land boundaries is not nationalism or communism. This is simply being clannish, as for example, are the Native Americans, or other races which seek to keep the culture and bloodline consistent. Those people are content to live among or around people whose culture is different, not having a desire to destroy all others. And actually, most of us are clannish at least to a degree. We have our circle of friends and acquaintences, and that's mainly whom we associate with.

            It is natural to assume that nationalism has been in existence for as long as a couple of thousand years, citing the ancient Roman Empire as a classic example. But the old Roman Empire was actually a type of world order and guideline, not really being devoted to any particular, precise political organization or realm. It was something like having one king or ruler whom dictated the affairs of the whole world within the empire’s realm, which was nearly the whole world then, once all opposing peoples were brought into subjugation.

            But even the Roman Empire was not a true world order, because many different faiths, religions and minor ruling “parties” or ethnic beliefs were allowed, and Rome didn’t entirely rule the whole world per say.

            The Roman Empire was pretty much a mix of different groups which were either a type of loose knit nationalist, ethnic group or a group which maintained national feeling for their native country, yet having no real ruler per group, the whole of which was subject to the ruling class of the time. Each group was allowed to adhere to its own religious and/or ethnic belief. It was a great deal like America is today.

            The Jews, both the strictly Judaist and the Christians, are probably the biggest reason why ancient Rome never became a true, one world order, as well as internal, political troubles, and later, trouble from without the Empire.

            Pure nationalism began in Europe in the 1800’s and many regard the American and the French revolutions as the first, really recognizable engines of nationalism. And now, nationalism is the dominant force on earth, though not all nations have become nationalist, especially to any large degree.

            Before the 18th century, people were loyal to the city-state (a state broken down into various territories, each having it’s own ruler who was subject to a King or other type of ruler); the feudal system and it’s lord, comprised of homage, tenants’ service, wardship, marriage, relief’s, aids, escheats and forfeiture, typical of the Middle Ages in Europe; a dynastic state, which basically means a race or succession of Kings, of the same line or family. Also, a continued lordship of a race of rulers. Old Egypt was a dynastic state, as was Israel, though in different forms and for very different reasons; or, loyalty was to a religious group or sect. Again, both Egypt and Israel both fit into this system, though these two nations were as different as night and day.

            Up until the 18th century and the rise of nationalism, both political loyalties and social culture were the same for all people of an empire, no matter what their original nationality was. For example, the Jews lived as did the Roman Empire did, as far as politics, law, business, and political culture went (though they still strove to adhere to God-given principles of personal conduct and morality). They did business with whom they would and obeyed the laws of the land, simply not socializing freely with non Jews nor following pagan religious practices. The Roman Empire was truly a melting pot of various races, religions and cultures, especially during the later part of it's reign.

            After the rise of nationalism, the social culture of each country’s people became more stereotypical, and variances from what was considered the norm became less tolerated. It would be like saying that you are not a true American unless you like hotdogs, baseball and apple pie. Adolph Hitler and his regime’s members were absolute fanatics about defining what the true, typical German should be, going as far as to claim that German, or Aryan, blood was different from and superior to, any other race’s blood. Had Hitler’s Germany continued to conquer and succeeded in subduing the world, the change would have been inevitable; nationalism would have turned into a new world order. From my so far limited studies on Hitler, I don’t know if eventual world domination at the expense of elimination of all other races was his aim, but Germany would have certainly have been a nation-sized version of a new world order.

            Since the rise of nationalism, every country’s people have a tendency to define what the true countryman should be, but while throwing this idea away, since we know that race and culture do not accurately define nor dictate what a true patriot of a country is, we need to be careful always to define a true countryman as one whom believes in and adheres to the founding principles of their country. For a long time, Negroes were not considered by many to be much more than property, much less true Americans. But Blacks, as well as many other races, have voluntarily fought and died for America.

            National feelings, or, hints of a form of nationalism, have likely always been around at times, especially in times of war or distress. People of the old west forming a posse to help the marshal track down troublesome outlaws would be a small example. But once the problem is taken care of, national feeling reverts back to individual liberty and freedom. Nationalism does not subside. It demands more and more, destroying individualism, liberty and freedom.

            Nationalism has some ideas which, at first glance, seem to be righteous, but which, in reality, simply pave the way for totalitarianism, dictatorships. The biggest deception is centralization, the stated goal of which is to foster efficiency, which it really doesn’t do, plus it destroys the sovereignty of separate states/other entities, and leaves the decision making for many in the hands of a few.

            Nationalism also unifies language, education and religion, which tends to curb, even prohibit, the opportunity to enrich one’s life with culture, retards the ability to learn and discover, because the education system becomes a means of propogandization rather than examining various aspects of any given subject, and destroys true faith, because it eliminates free thought by denying the right to choose, and actually puts God in a box. Though the Apostle Paul was a devout Jew, he knew several different languages and had studied various religions (while adhering strictly to the Jewish faith, then to Christianity).

            Nationalism curtails the economic independence of each smaller region, and by so doing quenches the entrepreneurial spirit of the free enterprise system, which in turn demands that people in the middle classes go either up, or down, most of which go down.

            It is interesting to note, that the implementation of nationalism sets the stage for an intense, emotional fervency, which many mistake for some type of God-inspired, political revival, which really, is a false religious movement resembling a cult, when taken to the extreme and/or letting it replace an actual faith or religion. The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Romans and the Greeks were big on mixing religion and politics. In fact, the two were actually interwoven into one program. One thing that this fed was contempt, at times hatred, for true religions. The Jews were slaves to both the Egyptians and the Babylonians, and the Romans persecuted and torturously murdered at least 1 million Jewish Christians, under Nero, Domitian, Aurelius, Trojan, Severus, Maximinus, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, Dioclesian, Maximian, Galerius, Maxentius, and Julian.

            During certain periods and ages, the social culture was not only greatly influenced by religion, but was actually determined by religion, to a major extent. The Egyptians worshipped the sun god Aton, and life revolved around that. It was the same way during the Middle ages, primarily either Christian or Mohammedan, and the Jews have always had a social culture which revolved around their worship of Yahweh. I’ve mentioned this in order to reveal a paradox.

            Under political systems which revolved around a nation’s religion, there was almost always a king, whom was chosen by God either directly, by word of a prophet, or more indirectly, thru a proclamation of the people. And the king was considered to be the owner of the land and in a sense even the people. Yet those people were not true nationalists, because they only revered the king (rather than worshipping him) whom, along with the people, worshipped God, not the country, or nation-state. One major difference between say, Adolph Hitler and King Nebuchadnezzar, was that Nebuchadnezzar provided for the Jews, though his captives, in exchange for work, and generally allowed them to maintain their culture and religion, usually. The two were similar in end goal agenda, but vastly different concerning method of attaining world or empire domination. As a matter of fact, King Nebuchadnezzar even put a large group of his own people to death, once it was found out that they had lied about some of the Jews, in order to have them put to death.

            Now the paradox is, that by casting off the political engine of the Middle Ages, the United States made “we the people” the main focus of the nation, rather than the king, i.e., England. Now the people owned the land and its possessions and were responsible for deciding the course of events for the country. The real paradox lies in the fact that though the founding fathers authored the Constitution to cause the nation’s true allegiance to be to the One True God of the Christian faith, yet allowing people to choose their own way of life and religion, as well as promoting individual rights and liberties, forms of Aryanism have sprung up and devotion to real religion has become almost alien.
     True Christianity will not try to force itself onto others, but our Constitution was inspired by God and penned by people whom were almost all Christian. But two things to notice about the Constitution are, that believing wholeheartedly in the Constitution does not make one a Christian believer; and, the Constitution does not try to force one to become a Christian believer. The Constitution could probably work in any monotheistic country, that is, any country whose people believe that there is one Supreme Being. Much or most of it would not have been accepted in ancient Rome, which had many different sub-gods, and more or less considered the main ruler to be the god. Nor would it work in countries which are Hindu, because they believe in many gods, or in countries which are Buddhist, because they don’t really hold to the idea of a Supreme Being as such and most of a capitalistic country’s ways are considered wasteful, extravagant and extremely over-indulging to Buddhists. Rights of the individual have turned into such a me generation only, that some countries are offended by the lack of communal responsibility.

            The Constitution promotes national feeling but is designed to keep nationalism out. German soldiers fought because they were indoctrinated with nationalism. American (and allied) soldiers fought due to national feeling in order to stop the threat of nationalist aggression. Our founding fathers came to America to escape the Middle Ages way of thinking which would likely have turned into all out nationalism, had England been able to centralize the governing bodies at the time. That political engine was a throttled back form of the same engine which was a combination of church and state some years earlier, the same engine which was responsible for the murders of such people as many of the original apostles, John Huss, Jerome, William White, Thomas Chase, Wendelmuta, Bilney, Tyndale, Archbischop Cranmer, and many others. At the time it was the Roman Catholic Church, which basically ran the government, literally at times. During 1692, “witch hunts” in Salem, Massachusetts, it was the Protestant church which really did the same thing, except on a small scale. Incidentally, it was the churches in Arizona whom pressured the government to adopt a policy of extermination towards the Apache Indians, which General George Crook, a Christian, refused to do, killing only when absolutely necessary. When people, whom don't take the Bible seriously, are allowed to run or influence the church, problems occur. Problems also occur when the seperation of church and state is not abided by. Although Biblical principles guided the authoring of the American Constitution, church and state are meant to be seperate, because both the Old and New Testaments support freedom of choice. Preachers of the Gospel are annointed, government is simply ordained. The Levitical priesthood's only duty was to carry out the service to God, while others were appointed to attend to governing duties. The Christian church has always had problems, due mostly to misinterpretation of scripture or outright disobedience to it. When proper doctrine was adhered to, the church was strong and usually harmonious both with God and secular authority (except, of course during persecutions, when they were strong, and harmonious with other believers). When secular authority or doctrine was allowed to manage church, major problems have always occurred.

            Up until the 1800’s, Christianity was too strong to let nationalism develop and mature. Nationalism uproots real culture and thus, destroys society. During the start of nationalism, people were led to believe that it was non-biased and genuinely concerned with the well being of all people. But it really is of an Aryan thought pattern: we love the nation’s people, provided they are all superior beings, the end goal. But during the process of striving for humanistic perfection, the “weak” not only get trampled upon, they get stamped out. It’s a never ending process, because there will always be people whom are weaker than the strongest; even after the multitude meets the standard or stereotype of the ideal. There is no true equality in the nationalist agenda. So it is actually promoting biasness within the guise of equality. And it does that thru the power of attempting to achieve perfection thru humanist means. It reduces the human to nothing more than a part on a piece of machinery. Once it breaks or wears out, throw it away, because it is no longer useful and it is not economically feasible to keep it.


     The first complete program of nationalism arose in England during the 1700’s, as the Puritans revolted. The Church of England had, under Henry the 8th, formally separated from the Church of Rome, set in stone by the Act of Supremacy of 1534. But the puritans wanted a further separation from Catholicism. They were correct in asserting that the Bible is infallible and sufficient for the church, but they had several errors: they held to the Supremacy Act’s assertion that the King was the only earthly, supreme head of the church; they would not tolerate a variety of churches (denominations); they desired the secular state’s power to enforce uniformity; they, like the Anglicans, believed that the government should enforce one religion; they believed in full, non-separation of church and state; they believed that is was the civil authorities duty to defend and define the one true religion; they wanted both church and state powers to decide how people should worship, how the church was organized, and to interpret and decide doctrines.

            Tragically enough, there are people in government (and other) agencies and churches today whom hold to these things, and agree with the doctrine of predestination, which maintains that once you become a believer, you always are no matter what you do. When mixed with political agendas and activity, it runs parallel with the thesis that the end justifies the means, which, in reality, has its roots in Aryanism, especially when intertwined with government powered, church supported moral reform. Remember, Adolph Hitler was not an atheist. He believed that his actions were led by Divine Providence.

            Amid talk of the government having the power to interpret scriptures, which means they could dictate doctrine, and each individual's day to day activities to an extent, we can revert back to 1618 in England, when James I ordered all clergymen to read Declaration for Sports on the Lord’s Day, else they would be either suspended or put into prison. These are the very things that the Pilgrims and other founding fathers left England to escape.

            The Puritans compared themselves to Israel of Old Testament times, thinking they were going to experience a revival like a new beginning, ushered in by their government. Nonetheless, it was inevitable that they would have to choose between obeying God or man, because mixing church and state has never produced good results. So they left England and came to America. Is it any surprise that this should resurface, seeing as how England has always sought to regain control over America? But now it is the world bankers and others whom are seeking a corporate takeover of America, and as of January of 2009, it appears they have found a medium thru which to prod the USA into submission to nationalism, exploding from a charismatic, emotional, non-sensical, religious like movement, filled with false promises and rhetoric.

            It’s next to impossible to fully explain the danger of mixing church and state without going into a religious or faith based context, but suffice it to say that the situation is like the Titanic: the boat was thought to be impossible to sink, so much so, that it was not even equipped with enough lifeboats. Therefore, many innocent people died as a result of “management’s” blindness, stubbornness and rebellion towards wisdom. The end result will ultimately be the equivalent of any one of the ancient empires, such as the Roman, Persian, Grecian, Babylonian or Egyptian.

            Going back a paragraph or two, to explain more of the paradox, it’s interestingly ironic, that the old Middle Ages type of thinking didn’t elevate the individual so much as a keeping the King and the unity of the country as priority, yet devotion to true religion was greater. From the 18th century on, and especially now, the rights of the individual are stressed, even to the extent that it becomes an all for my self agenda at the expense of others, yet true religious devotion is more to a humanistic goal rather than true devotion to God. I think it’s because back before the start of nationalism, there was no question about the uniqueness of each individual. There was not really the idea of stereotyping. However each individual was, is how each individual was. There was really not even the thought of destroying individualism. In modern times, due to peer pressure and stereotyping, people have a tendency to try to live up to the humanistic way of being that any given phase of culture directs or influences that we should be. If someone dressed now, like they did in the forties, they would probably not be as readily accepted by most people. Before nationalism, people were judged more by who they were, not by appearance.

            Looking back to the Puritans, which group identified themselves with ancient Israel, and whom thought that nationalism would be a new beginning, it would be easier for people of that mindset to accept what the Bible calls a false messiah, because the true concept of religion had been lost, and replaced with something more tangible which could apparently be gained thru purely human, or humanistic, means.

            Part of the key to getting people to accept, even embrace, nationalism has to do with insecurity. When the people feel insecure, they are more apt to desire what appears to be a better way, even if it conflicts with what they believe. It’s something like being stranded in a boat in the middle of the ocean, and imagining that you see a ship in the distance coming towards you, only to find that it runs right over you. The Jews of old, after having been delivered from the bondage of Egypt and wandering around in the wilderness, started to wish that they were back in Egypt, because they were hungry. The God they worshipped they could not see, much less believe that he would provide them with food. The Egyptian taskmasters, on the other hand, though they had whips in their hands, would at least provide them with a little food.

            To sum it up, there is a vast difference between national feeling and nationalism. The whole country had national feeling on 9/11, when we thought that we were about to be attacked country wide by terrorists. An army of a free country goes to war voluntarily due to the national feeling. The soldiers talk about what they are going to do once the war is over and they go home. An army of a country gone full nationalist talk about what war they will be in next, once the present is over.

     Todd Slee, Roann, In, May 17th, 2010



     Information obtained from Encyclopedia Britannica, 1959-Used with permission.