Plus ça change. The essay on antisemitism is instructive not for the obvious reasons – given this was written during WWII – but for its exposition on nationalism, which we recognise today as a move to the right. ( )

The point is that as soon as fear, hatred, jealousy and power worship are involved, the sense of reality becomes unhinged. And, as I have pointed out already, the sense of right and wrong becomes unhinged also.

I can't believe I haven't read this before now, but I'm so glad I found it in the bookshop the other day. Written in 1945, many of the quotes and observations about nationalism and hatred continue - depressingly - to be applicable to today. I thoroughly recommend this to everyone, not just those interested in politics and history. ( )

Orwell writes in his usual acerbic way, starting with his definition of nationalism: the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled 'good' or 'bad'. But more importantly, he says, he means the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good or evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests.

He distinguishes nationalism from patriotism because patriotism means devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people. (I wish I'd read this essay before I read Paul Daley's On Patriotism).

Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. (p.2)

(Which is why, I suppose, that the most rabid nationalists, the ones who wave the flag to try to deny Australia's multiculturalism and are represented in parliament by That Awful Woman, seem to be resentful disempowered yobboes.)

But Orwell goes on to extend nationalism to include

... movements and tendencies such as Communism, political Catholicism, Zionism, Anti-Semitism, Trotskyism and Pacifism. It does not necessarily mean loyalty to a government of a country, still less to one's own country, and it is not even strictly necessary that the units in which it deals should actually exist. To name a few obvious examples, Jewry, Islam, Christendom, the Proletariat, and the White Race are all of them objects of passionate nationalistic feeling: but their existence can be seriously questioned, and there is no definition of any one of them that would be universally accepted. (p. 3). (No doubt we can think of more recent movements to which this kind of nationalism applies).

Nationalist feeling can be purely negative too. People can be hostile to an 'enemy' without feeling loyal to any other unit.

A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist — that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating — but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs, and humiliations. (p.4)

And he will cling, says Orwell, to his conviction that his side is the best, even in the face of facts which refute it. Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. Orwell offers, as an example of this, the question of which of the three WW2 allies, the USSR, the UK or the US, did most to defeat Germany? There should be a reasonable and logical answer to this. But [#Moi, guilty as charged] we start our thinking by deciding in favour of whichever one we prefer, and then we assemble our arguments to support the case.

I was fascinated to read Orwell's thoughts about G K Chesterton's political Catholicism. Yes, that Chesterton, whose Father Brown Mysteries have been turned into a cosy period detective series set in the 1950s. I read The Man Who Was Thursday much too long ago to remember much of it, but Orwell says of Chesterton that every book that he wrote, every paragraph, every sentence, every incident in every story, every scrap of dialogue, had to demonstrate beyond the possibility of mistake the superiority of the Catholic over the Protestant or the pagan. Who knew??

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/07/30/notes-on-nationalism-by-george-orwell/ ( )

This book is a must read to understand the psychological insights of those who have been infected in growing numbers by the virus of Nationalism... ( )

hummingquill has a trash review which contributes nothing. It should be removed. ( )