Clarifier

Randomly noticed a question/answer on Quora that clarifies a lot of things. The writer was not intending to clarify, but nevertheless his semantic point removes a lot of blinders.

The point as stated: Zionism is just Jewish nationalism. We don’t give special names to other nationalisms because we don’t argue about them.

The fact in the second part is wrong but the because is powerfully true.

Rule: We DO give special names to every nationalism WHEN we argue or war about it.

Fascism is Italian nationalism. Nazism is German nationalism. Communism is Russian nationalism. Maoism is Chinese nationalism. These names are NOT ideologies. Mussolini was expressing Italian culture, Hitler was expressing the German way of doing things, Stalin was no different from the tsars, Mao** was just being Chinese.

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Now back to my current useless theme, the gradual quiet takeover of our upper class by Indian Brahmins. Gandhi was a Hindu nationalist, and Modi continues the tradition in spades. But we don’t give a fake ideology name to Hindu nationalism because we’ve never argued or warred about it.

In an economic or cultural war, a nationalism based on a real nation will always beat a nationalism based on ideas. When ANY nation makes war with bombs and bullets, everyone loses.

People defending their extended family are automatically SERIOUS. People defending bizarre delusions like “constitutions” or “democracy” need to be pumped up constantly with propaganda and bribes and punishment. As we’re seeing yet again in our renewed ferocious propaganda push to bring “democracy” to those specifically named RadicalIslamicTerrorists, no matter how many we have to “democratize” with bombs and bullets.

In modern times the distinction is even deeper than nature/nurture. A culture with strong family ties has powerful economic advantages. India and China have been winning the economic war because both have traditional families with division of labor. This provides an unstated discount for labor, a hidden exchange rate. One income goes farther in a Jewish or Hindu or Mexican home because the family doesn’t need to pay for basic services like child care or elderly care, and pays less per person for housing. A culture of broken post-nuclear families has to pay for everything with money. That’s why the bankers break our families.

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** Semantic footnote: Maoism is the perfect controlled experiment for this point. Chiang was Our SOB. Chiang lost to Mao because Mao was correctly seen as defending China while Chiang was correctly seen as defending a foreign power. We gave a special contemptuous name to Mao’s family loyalty. We referred to Chiang’s disloyalty as “Nationalist China.” We called OUR ruler generic Nationalist in a respectful way. We called China’s ruler Maoist to express contempt.