A szerz� szerint ez�rt is lehets�ges, hogy t�bb ezer nyugat-eur�pai csatlakozott ma m�r az Iszl�m �llamhoz. Term�szetesen - mint minden sz�ls�s�g - a sz�ls�s�ges nacionalizmus probl�ma, de �nmag�ban a haza szeretete soha nem vezetett trag�di�hoz. A hazaszeretet hi�nya viszont igen - ezt m�r csak �n teszem hozz�. (Orb�n Bal�zs ismertet�je a facebook-on.)

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National loyalty is a bit like iodine: poisonous in large quantities yet salubrious in limited amounts. Dangerous nationalism, defined as morally unbalanced national loyalty, is obvious to Western intellectuals. But educated people, keen to give chauvinism the widest possible clearance, may adopt attitudes of indifference, or even contempt, toward their own societies. This goes hand-in-hand with an impulse to glorify foreign cultures. Roger Scruton coined the word “oikophobia” (Greek for “fear of home”) to describe this unhealthy state of mind. I shall call it “inverted nationalism.”

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argued that virtue is a mean between extremes. Courage, for example, is supposed to be the mean between cowardliness and rashness. One upshot is that moral improvement can itself be a morally perilous enterprise. When groups of people attempt to improve themselves and society, the propensity toward groupthink exacerbates the danger of over-compensation. Hence university students, eager to reject the easily perceived evils of racism and sexism, leave the golden mean in the dust as they stampede toward zealotry and sanctimony. The same purity-seeking mentality is implicated in the rise of inverted nationalism.

Does inverted nationalism really influence the elite? Sadly, yes. Here’s an appeal to anecdotal evidence. Several years ago, I attended a Fulbright Regional Enrichment Seminar in Amman, Jordan. Fulbright grants are highly competitive and are funded by the U.S. State Department to facilitate cultural exchange. Recipients live abroad for a while to engage in research, teaching, or other forms of public service and are encouraged to see themselves as semi-official ambassadors to the U.S. I used mine to study Islamic philosophy and Arabic in Egypt. The “enrichment” seminar was an opportunity for recipients living in the Middle East and North Africa to converge, network, and share their experiences in short presentations.

A young woman who had been working as a teacher in Morocco gave one of these presentations. Surprised to discover that many of her students harbored romanticized views of the United States, she resolved to inculcate a much darker—and, she believed, more accurate—picture, emphasizing racism and anti-Muslim bigotry. This campaign was so dispiriting to the students that her Moroccan fellow teachers pleaded with her to relent; one bluntly told her: “You’re destroying their dreams.” But she doubled down. Even a student’s comment that “Mark Twain was a great American writer” occasioned a rebuttal. From Twain’s The Innocents Abroad, a cranky, satirical travel book, she read a passage that Moroccans would find unflattering. “You see,” she reported telling the class, “Mark Twain hates you.” The one bright spot in American history seemed to be the election of Barack Obama who had, however, ordered drone strikes to “kill people that look like you.”

This grantee acted less like her country’s ambassador than her country’s prosecuting attorney. And she was pleased to report that, by the end of the barrage, her students no longer viewed America the same way. Distressingly, the audience of several dozen Fulbright grantees and administrators, who represent a diverse cross-section of the most educated Americans, failed to express outrage at this betrayal. Perhaps this was from a desire to avoid confrontation, but I think something else was at work. Fulbright applicants tend to be “globally-minded” liberals who are eager to distinguish themselves from the flag-waving rubes. This implies an ability to see your country at a cool distance. Condemning America demonstrates a transcendence of parochial loyalty. Hostility may not be objectivity, but it certainly isn’t slavish devotion, and that’s the main thing.

Of course there is nothing new about sophisticates who are rather enchanted with disenchantment. In Notes on Nationalism (1941), George Orwell wrote: “In societies such as ours, it is unusual for anyone describable as an intellectual to feel a very deep attachment to his own country.” He added that “English left-wing intellectuals did not, of course actually want Japan or Germany to win the war, but many of them could not help getting a certain kick out of seeing their own country humiliated” by various setbacks. Since Orwell’s time, these attitudes seem to have spread beyond academia and deepened within it. Consider the testimonies of three intellectuals.

Tov�bb: http://quillette.com/2017/05/19/inverted-nationalism-orwellian-patriotism/

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