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This is okay:
6/17/04
Nationalism: The Big Mindfuck
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A cultish concept
of identity afiliated with a particular geographic location, culture and
system of government. |
To whatever extent you guffawing, self-satisfied and moribund cosmic radar blips need a sense of tribal identity, you've got one. You're part of a nation! This is your own personal assemblage of people who may share some ethnic or cultural identity and/or history. You are never alone.
Bless random chance! Better them than us! Fuck 'em, right? Let's worry about our kids first.
Getting confused? I know! Let's sing our national anthem. Doesn't it give you chills? Why, I'd almost say this wonderful feeling suggests that this arrangement has been especially sanctified by God. Golly that flag reminds me of our boldness, most especially the stirring military past. Remember when we defeated evil?
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Our boys, totally different from other boys, |
Last week the US TV was enamored with D-Day. Insidious sloganeering about bravery and glory were mixed with weird recreations of D-day coverage done by cointemporary newsmen. Considerng the Soviet Union suffered 80 times as many deaths during the war than the US, self-sacrifice seems not quite as applicable to our soldiers as theirs, but for some reason the Russian invasion of Germany receives little commemoration in the US. This lapse of memory and attention is attributable to nationalism and tribalism, always feeding themselves into conceptualizations of history and relevance for no good reason. And this is nothing new. Greek City states carved huge monuments to the glorious collective memory of war.
At the same time the Reagan coverage orgy commenced, every channel slathering over the Republican that conquered communism. Viewers were invited to revel again in the triumph of the Cold War and the blossoming of "freedom" that supposedly occured under this head of state. Enough jism and bile has been spent on Reagan the last few weeks to obscure utterly his amnesiac corpse, now undeniably memoryless of arms sales and contras.
Both hussied up narratives function like salves to wounded American nationalism. The stars/stripes hard-on that followed 9/11 has been spent, but the memory of Afghani sexual abandon still titillates the populace. Americans are still horny, so bored in the "heartland" that they desire another terrorist attack to embolden military operations. They want that sickly anticipation they felt after the towers fell, that worry\lust for more destruction, more power, like young boys obsessed with videos of bulldozers. They like nationalism, the whole pathetic system of gigantic ideological tribes, ignorant armies clashing by night.
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The sick thing about you people is that it's the same everywhere, the same bullshit thinking processes manifesting themselves always, only on slightly larger or smaller scales, more and less systematized through scientific process. Once the small village or tribal sensibility begins to erode through outside influence, you'll transfer your pathetic allegiance to a larger, farcical "unified" entity called a nation. And your emotional involvement with it will function in predictable ways. As one of some number of persons, a unified ethnic group or not, maybe with a religion, you'll burn with anger at alien groups, feeling the vital importance of the Zingzang hat and the Bingbang handshake, your Tradition. though it's arbitrary so long as you can exclude outsiders and embrace the fraternity. Home.
Of course nobody needs to. None of this is necessary. Many people live happily totally ignoring international politics, never taking large-scale conflicts or national characteristics into account. And they do fine. Before massive media assault, things were different. A certain kind of intellectual might have seen nationalism as inevitable, the only game in town, unless you wanted socialism. But especially now, the fundamental need satisfied by nationalism can be quenched variously, usually with a TV, but also with more creative and less bestial narratives. Like trying to get by and minimize the rampant stupidity of the species--but that doesn't seem to light anyone's fire.
Nationalism's never been totally essential. It's always been fantastical. But resolute, omnipresent anyway. Because of you. Do you feel the tug of stupid madness even now as you read this? Feel how your forebears have fucked us all, and how you would do so unquestionably if put into a position of power? Your potential, or, as it were, current corruption?
A few days ago it was Flag Day in the US and it's nauseating. After all we've been through.
"We" being the species, bytheway. Generalized humanity seems a pretty coherent conceptual entity, when our enemy is the abyss. Is there any opponent more daunting, more capable of generally unifying a people? Idiots who prattle about the desirability of a planet enamored with transparently bogus religiosity might consider this. The "alien" attack of Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan is tragic in its accurate portrayal of human nature. "Mars," a planet constituted by expatriate earthlings, attacks Earth with a feeble few thousand men in different countries just to solidify a planetwide tribalism.
And the US government wants to encourage nationalism. Old Glory. The Pledge of Allegiance. A school curriculum of triumph. Plato would have understood the function of this claptrap to be facilitating the army. And maybe that's still the point.
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Adolf Hitler, again. |
Much nationalism is an answer to persecution and exploitation by other nationalists acting in their interests. Which is how we perpetuate so much misfortune. There's always an asshole. And it's probably you.
But even after the fall of communism, the great justifier of US nationalism, the world sits talking to its shrink while engaging in idiotic behavior, incapable of exerting any effort to change itself, like some pornstar fucked by their stepfather one too many times, traumatized forevermore. Like those people constantly creating tension and interpersonal strife in their lives to deflect attention from their glaring deficiencies, US Neoconservative nationalists jumped gleefully into the War on Terror, so much like the Cold War. The spiritual emptiness of the 1990's left them feeling stale. How they lust for more terrorism on US soil to fuel nationalism, that sickly pseudo-religion can once again come to life and take on that healthful sheen and color embodied so well in D-Day.
We've yet to see where the planet's going. Some of you are trying. But with ideas like nationalism still celebrated by official organs of the most free-thinking cultures, don't be surprised if the streets yet flow with blood. And I'll laugh all the way to hell.
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