Reply #45: best definition of nationalism EVER

[cali]

"Nationalism: A state of mind where one hates another's country more than one loves one's own".

From an impeccable and devastating source: Percival Rech-Malleczwen who wrote it in his journal, later published after his death at the hands of the Gestapo, as "Diary Of A Man In Despair".

"What price a forest if the "national" interest calls for a cellulose factory? Or a German cathedral that stands in the way of an autobahn? What is the value of a tiny remnant of the German soul when aggression is in the works and an entire nation is being systematically turned into cavemen—when their spiritual center is to be destroyed, and they are to be turned into an amorphous mass, whose only form is formlessness itself?

But we must be completely clear: Why, if nationalism really is one of the basic impelling forces of mankind, as its apologists contend, was it discovered in such comparatively recent times as the French Revolution? How is it that this "basic force" did not exist in the days of the Song of the Niebelungs? And how does one explain the fact that in 1400 there was a German nation, but no nationalism—while today, when nationalism is in full bloom, even Goebbels gags a little at the statement that this conglomeration of wage earners, sergeants-gone-berserk, and virgin-typists is a nation? If nationalism is truly the hallmark of a people in the prime of its youth and energies, how does it happen that under its aegis morality decays, ancient customs die out—that men are uprooted, the steadfast derided, the thoughtful branded, the rivers poisoned, and the forests destroyed?"

That's just a snip from the book. And btw, he was undoubtedly a conservative and a terrible elitest, but man, was he prescient. The above passage was written in 1940.