Dynamics of Nationalism Part 2

A sense of identity eventually merges. Initially, the identification and imitation of parental figures are incorporated. The language, beliefs, punishments and behaviors of parents are noted along with their rules, emotions, and contradictions. Good, bad and how people are treated are learned. Teachers, religious leaders, sports figures, movie stars, entertainers, etc. also begin to become part of the individual’s fragile sense of identity. Later on, identity becomes clearer based on potential love objects, social groups, achievement and accomplishments in academic and vocational arenas, membership in religious and political groups, participation in college and professional sports teams, country, etc. Through formal and Informal education, the person begins to learn more about love from the great teachers of man. From Ikhnaton, Moses, Confucius, Lao-tse, Buddha, Socrates, and Jesus to name a few. The introduction to the learnings of the philosophers from Europe become embedded consciously or unconsciously. For instance, Machiavelli wrote about employing fear and love to control the populace. However, he added that fear was a stronger technique and more dependable than love. Hobbes, the British philosopher, believed that because of man’s conflicts and frailties, man would submit, and give over control to a sovereign or the state, which would be geared to protect the individual from attack. In other words, fear was the strongest motive. And then there was Spinoza. He believed there was an unconscious motivation that existed in man. He also wrote “but if the greedy person thinks only of money and possessions, the ambitious one only of fame, one does not think of them as being insane, but only as annoying; generally one has contempt for them. But factually greediness, ambition, and so forth are forms of insanity, although usually one does not think of them as illness.” Currently, we have a political divide that was exacerbated by the May 7 zero tolerance policy. This policy resulted in young children being separated from their parents and placed in chain-link areas all over the country. Politically, we were told that these brown skinned people were illegal and associated with disease, rape, homicide and gang related behavior regardless or irrespective of age. Then we witnessed a video of crying children in their cages. One TV station and its various representatives of this man-made policy talked about the strict rule of law with its narrow right and wrong interpretation regarding the immigration madness or mess. However, this was expressed as if there was a concealment of truth as well as an absence of emotional, conscience, moral, ethical behavior, brotherhood of men, religious teachings and critical inductive and deductive reasoning. Instead, there was a blind obedience to this policy based on nationalism or populism, which means hatred and demonization toward nonwhite skinned minorities, love of the strong, disgust toward the poor weakly masses of insignificant strangers. Moreover, we have been told that the other is lazy, shiftless, ignorant, less intelligent and inferior. They don’t deserve legalization, minimum wage, food stamps, health insurance, affirmative action or government, assisted housing. In fact, it’s admirable that Doug McMillion, Walmart’s CEO earned $22.2 million in 2017. The median salaried employee at that company would have to work more than 1000 years to match that income [New York Times, May 27, 2018]. More To Follow