The Virtue of Nationalism - Yoram Hazony - Book Review
In “The Virtue of Nationalism”, Yoram Hazony offers us a theoretical framework of the nation-state, juxtaposed against liberal globalism and anarchy. Hazony does us all a favor by delving in to the murky phraseology of nation, tribe, and culture from an academic standpoint. These can be touchy subjects, and ones which most of the American right would not feel comfotable discussing in pleasant company. It is a framework defining book, and, coming out in 2018, a timely one. For that reason alone, it is a valuable asset to nationalists everywhere. Throughout the text, but mainly towards the beginning and end, Hazony alludes to both the Brexit and Trump phenomenon, as well as Eastern European pushback against the liberal globalist order. In 2021, we still find ourselves in the midst of this debate – so this theoretical defense of the nation state is both timely thought-provoking.
Hazony defines nationalism as the view that the best political order is one of independent nation states. This view is juxtaposed against anarchy, or warring tribes, and globalism, or empire. The two words ‘nation’ and ‘state’ are by no means synonyms, at least in Hazony’s conception. Hazony’s definition of a nation is “a number of tribes with a shared heritage, usually including a common language or religious traditions, and a past history of joining together against common enemies.” For state we will take the classic political definition of a territorial mononpoly of the use of force, ie. the government proper. The nation is the group of people who are bound together by thick bonds of custom, religion, a war-time past, and often race. The state is the formal governmental structure the nation forms.
First, Hazony presents the historical background of nationalism. He sees nationalism as a mostly Protestant reaction against the Holy Roman Empire; began in earnest during the Reformation and the English Act of Supremacy, forged in the Thirty Years War, and codified in the Peace of Westphalia. He presents the moral and spiritual argument against a universal empire as rooted essentially in the Old Testament scripture – using God’s chosen nation of Israel as the example.
Next, Hazony argues the following four virtues of the nation state when compared to both government by tribal clans and by a global hegemony:
1. Violence is scattered to the periphery of the territory (compared to anarchy which is continuous tribal war)
2. The Disdain of the Nation for imperial conquest.
3.. Collective freedom, meaning the relative security of the nation provides room for arts, etc.
4. Competition among nations results in experimentation and a cream rising to the top.
Regarding the second virtue, the disdain for imperial conquest, Hazony highlights an important point. True nationalism, in distinction to what the corporate press would have us to believe, is not imperialist. True nationalism is about the security of ones own families, communities, religion, and way of life. This is to distinguish something like Nazi Germany, an imperialist power in Hazony’s taxonomy, from modern Switzerland. One is pushing aggressively to remake the world in its own image, and one is content to protect its borders and secure the common heritage of its people. The nation-state, which itself is a collection of clans, which are collections of families, comes together because of shared values. The protection of those values at home, not the propogation of them abroad (especially when they are attached to an army), is the soul of the nation. This stands in direct opposition to the global liberal order, organized without regard to the customs, religions, or families of any one nation.
The examples of globalism’s lack of regard for religion and family are manifold. The war in Afghanistan showed no regard for the customs of the Afgan people. The neoconservative idea to turn Afghanistan into a western style democracy is an obvious pipe dream, if one’s view of human nature is sufficent. What about the free trade agreements that benefit multinational corporations at the expense of working class families? Or the effect of a globalized media culture that makes every place feel the same? Liberalism as a system has little regard for customs, religions, or famlies.
Following Denneen, John Locke’s individualism is on the chopping block. Locke’s analysis starts with the individual, and therefore, according to Hazony, is misguided from the start. People do not exist as atomized units of utility maximization, and this is the fatal flaw of both modern liberalism and libertarianism. Locke’s oversimplification of human nature results in his individualism and social contract theory, both of which are detached from reality. Real nations, says Hazony “are communites bound together by bonds of mutual loyalty, carrying forward particular traditions from one generation to the next. They possess common historical memories, language and texts, rites and boundaries, imparting to their members a powerful identification with their forefathers and a concern for what will be the fate of future generations.” All these aspects of the nation, are ignored by social contract theory and modern liberalism.
Hazony gives us a stirring analogy of the Lockean view vs. his own view of the nation. We’ll call it the business vs. family analogy. When one starts a business – the primary consideration is one’s own property. The object of the business is to maximize welfare. If this sounds familiar, it should. It is essentially the Hobbes and Locke view of the state. Whether a customer or an owner, the bonds that tie one to the business are quite weak. The moment an employee becomes unprofitable to the business, he is let go. Because of the nature of the business, the amount of themselves people are willing to sacrifice is limited. No one would die for their job, or at least are emotionally detached from it.
Contrast this to the family. Everyone is born into the family. It is an “unchosen bond”. It also is concerned with the physical well-being of its members, but that is not the end of it. As Hazony tells it, “Men and women do not marry, bring children into the world, and endure the many years of hardship and sacrifice involved in remaining married and bringing their children into maturity merely because of an assessment that doing so will contribute to their personal health and prosperity…Marriage and family are instituted in order to pass on to another generation an inheritance that has been bequeathed to us by our parents and by their ancestors. This inheritance includes life itself and perhaps some property, but it also includes a way of life, a religion and a language, skills and habits, and certain ideals and ways of understanding what is to be valued that are unique to each family, and that others do not posses.” Because of the duty to future generations, and a firm act of will on behalf of the married couple to stick together, values are transmitted from one generation to the next. The mutual bonds of loyalty are thick, and the family is something that cannot be easily left. For this reason, we will give ourselves for our familys – body, soul, and spirit. A nation is much more like a family than a business.
As it happens, in the Bible, the nation is tied very closely to the family. Many nations are named for the men whose family started them. The concept of the Israelites was to be blood relatives of Abraham. Until the New Testament, and arguably later, the bonds of blood and nation played a major role in the Biblical narrative.
Does God favor the nation-state? Its an important question, to be sure. Hazony correctly point out that the divinely inspired order of human government, at least until the Second Coming, is to be separate nations rather than a global empire. After the anarchical episode in Genesis 6, God established human government in Noah, and scattered the nations at the Tower of Babel in response to their globalist defiance under the leadership of Nimrod. (The reader may recall that the EU building is a replica of the Tower of Babel). Once God has separated the nations by their families and language, he chooses Abraham and later the nation of Israel to be his chosen nation and light to the world. After that, human government is assumed, the health of the nation is essentially tied to its relationship to God, and empire, especially seen in the book of Daniel, is seen as a universal bad. It is this biblical conception of human government and the nation-state that is divinely ordained and compatible with human nature.
Hazony’s book teaches us that the bonds of a nation are thicker than GDP. To the extent that we lose the bonds of mutual loyalty, we cease to be one nation. It is the sad opinion of this writer that many of the bonds of loyalty are already gone, and the implications of being ruled by a state that is no longer a nation are staggering. While the book is theoretical, practical implications can be drawn. Like Deneen, Hazony not only shows us the flaws of modern liberalism, but calls us to re-build the bonds of loyalty that have been so sorely displaced.