The Virtue of Nationalism is a 2018 book by Israeli-American political theorist Yoram Hazony.
The Virtue of Nationalism is a 2018 book by Israeli-American political theorist Yoram Hazony.
Hazony argues that the nation state is the best form of government that humans have yet invented, contrasting both with historical empires and modern forms of global governance including United Nations affiliated institutions such as the International Court of Justice. [1] [2] In particular, Hazony argues that nationalism uniquely provides "the collective right of a free people to rule themselves." [2]
According to Hazony, national identity is based not on race or biological homogeneity, but on "bonds of mutual loyalty" to a shared culture and a shared history that bind diverse groups into a national unit. [3] Hazony argues that the social cohesion enabled by a nation-state where a common language and history are shared by the majority of the population can produce a level of trust that enables the production of social and moral goods, such as civil and political liberties. [4] [5] [3]
He argues that, in contrast with systems like the European Union where member states are bound by measures taken by the Union, each nation state sets up unique systems, standards and administrative procedures, effectively producing a series of experiments that other nation states can freely copy as they strive for improvement. [2] [1]
Hazony asserts that it is a matter of historical fact that the rights and freedoms of individuals have been protected best by nation-states, especially in England and in the United States. This, in his view, contrasts sharply with attempts at “universal political order . . . in which a single standard of right is held to be in force everywhere, tolerance for diverse political and religious standpoints must necessarily decline.” [2] Hazony argues that globalizing politically progressive elites have promoted a “global rule of law” that is intolerant of cultural differences, of patriotism, and of religious faith. [2] Hazony writes that globalists promulgate “anti-nationalist hate,” and are aggressively intolerant of cultural particularism. [2] In Hazony's words, "liberal internationalism is not merely a positive agenda . . . It is an imperialist ideology that incites against . . . nationalists, seeking their delegitimization wherever they appear." [2]
In a juxtaposition that book reviewer Ira Stoll describes as the book's "strongest case" for nationalism, Hazony discusses the conflicting understanding held by Europeans and by Israelis. [1]
In November 1942, as word seeped out of Europe about mass killings of Jewish families, Israel's founding Prime Minister Ben Gurion said that Jews were being “buried alive in graves dug by them . . . because the Jews have no political standing, no Jewish army, no Jewish independence, and no homeland.” [1]
The consensus view in Europe is that the Holocaust was caused by German nationalism. In Hazony's words, “According to this view, it is not Israel that is the answer to the Holocaust, but the European Union.” [1] Hazony however describes the Nazism of the Third Reich as a distinctive form both of imperialism and of racial supremacism. He states that what the Jews lacked was a Jewish state in which they could have sought refuge. The consensus view among Israelis is that Israel is the most effective response to the Holocaust. [1] [2]
John Fonte, writing in the National Review , described Virtue as a book "that will become a classic." [2] In February 2019, the book won the Paolucci Book Award from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. [6]
Reviewing the book for The New York Times , Justin Vogt called Hazony's narrative a "reductive approach (that) poses a false choice between an idealized order of noble sovereign nations and a totalitarian global government." In Vogt's opinion, "The world could use a less moralistic, more nuanced defense of nationalism. This book is a missed opportunity." [7] In that vein, critics of the book largely faulted Hazony's use of terms and categorizations. For instance, one review by Park MacDougald for New York magazine's the Intelligencer commented: “The book’s major flaw is that Hazony tends to define his terms as ideal types and then argue from those definitions.” [8] Likewise, another review by George Washington University professor Samuel Goldman in Modern Age stated that Hazony's argument “rests on a confusing and counterproductive use of terms.” [9]
Some reviewers commented that Hazony's theory and defense of nationalism does not appear to take into account the historical body of nationalist thought, possibly to make his position more palatable to his readership. [10] [11] For instance, an essay by Michael Shindler in Jacobite, notes that Hazony's theory is heavily derived from recent scholarship from Israel and the anglosphere (particularly Fania Oz-Salzberger’s 'The Jewish Roots of Western Freedom,' and Philip Gorski’s The Mosaic Moment), which depicts "nationalism as a descendant of the biblical Israeli model," as opposed to the "robust body of nationalist theory that’s been developing since the 19th century." This lack of engagement, Shindler claims, is "conspicuous" since that body of literature, though it is "quite cogent...admits that nationalism is culpable of precisely what it is accused of by its liberal critics." [12]
Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Though antisemitism is overwhelmingly perpetrated by non-Jews, it may also be perpetrated by self-hating Jews. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism, which is distinct from antisemitism itself.
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining its sovereignty (self-governance) over its perceived homeland to create a nation-state. It holds that each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference (self-determination), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity, and that the nation is the only rightful source of political power. It further aims to build and maintain a single national identity, based on a combination of shared social characteristics such as culture, ethnicity, geographic location, language, politics, religion, traditions and belief in a shared singular history, and to promote national unity or solidarity. Nationalism, therefore, seeks to preserve and foster a nation's traditional culture. There are various definitions of a "nation", which leads to different types of nationalism. The two main divergent forms identified by scholars are ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism.
Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in the 19th century to enable the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. Following the establishment of the modern state of Israel, Zionism became an ideology that supports the development and protection of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.
Gerhard "George" Lachmann Mosse was a German-American social and cultural historian, who emigrated from Nazi Germany to Great Britain and then to the United States. He was professor of history at the University of Iowa, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and also in Israel, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Best known for his studies of Nazism, he authored more than 25 books on topics as diverse as constitutional history, Protestant theology, and the history of masculinity. In 1966, he and Walter Laqueur founded The Journal of Contemporary History, which they co-edited.
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism which developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, tends to manifest itself as anti-Zionism and criticism of the Israeli government. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s, although the identification of anti-Zionism with antisemitism has "long been de rigueur in Jewish communal and broader pro-Israel circles".
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz is a Polish-American historian specializing in Central European history of the 19th and 20th centuries. He teaches at the Patrick Henry College and at the Institute of World Politics. He has been described as conservative and nationalistic, and his attitude towards minorities has been widely criticized.
National conservatism is a nationalist variant of conservatism that concentrates on upholding national, cultural identity, communitarianism and the public role of religion. It shares aspects of traditionalist conservatism and social conservatism, while departing from economic liberalism and libertarianism, as well as taking a more agnostic approach to regulatory economics and protectionism. National conservatives usually combine conservatism with nationalist stances, emphasizing cultural conservatism, family values and opposition to illegal immigration or opposition to immigration per se. National conservative parties often have roots in environments with a rural, traditionalist or peripheral basis, contrasting with the more urban support base of liberal conservative parties.
Jewish Autonomism, not connected to the contemporary political movement autonomism, was a non-Zionist political movement and ideology that emerged in the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, before spreading throughout all of Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. In the late 19th century, Jewish Autonomism was seen "together with Zionism [as] the most important political expression of the Jewish people in the modern era." One of its first and major proponents was the historian and activist Simon Dubnow. Jewish Autonomism is often referred to as "Dubnovism" or "folkism".
The Jewish question, also referred to as the Jewish problem, was a wide-ranging debate in 19th- and 20th-century Europe that pertained to the appropriate status and treatment of Jews. The debate, which was similar to other "national questions", dealt with the civil, legal, national, and political status of Jews as a minority within society, particularly in Europe during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
Neo-Zionism is a right-wing, nationalistic and religious ideology that appeared in Israel following the Six-Day War in 1967 and the capture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Neo-Zionists consider these lands part of Israel and advocate their settlement by Israeli Jews. Some advocate the transfer of Arabs not only from these areas but also from within the Green Line.
David Yair Hazony is an American-born Israeli writer, translator, and editor. He was the founding editor of The Tower Magazine from 2013 to 2017, and from 2017–2020 served as executive director of the Israel Innovation Fund. He currently is an independent editor with Wicked Son Books.
Among scholars of nationalism, a number of types of nationalism have been presented. Nationalism may manifest itself as part of official state ideology or as a popular non-state movement and may be expressed along civic, ethnic, language, religious or ideological lines. These self-definitions of the nation are used to classify types of nationalism, but such categories are not mutually exclusive and many nationalist movements combine some or all of these elements to varying degrees. Nationalist movements can also be classified by other criteria, such as scale and location.
Yoram Reuben Hazony is an Israeli-American philosopher, Bible scholar, and political theorist. He is president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem and serves as the chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation. He has argued for national conservatism in his 2018 book The Virtue of Nationalism and 2022's Conservatism: A Rediscovery.
Neo-nationalism, or new nationalism, is an ideology and political movement built on the basic characteristics of classical nationalism. It developed to its final form by applying elements with reactionary character generated as a reaction to the political, economic and socio-cultural changes that came with globalization during the second wave of globalization in the 1980s.
Liberal Nationalism is a 1993 book of political theory by Yael Tamir that presents a liberal argument in support of national particularism. Liberal nationalism is an argument that nationalism can work under liberal principles.
Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany occur frequently in some veins of anti-Zionism in relation to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The legitimacy of these comparisons and their potential antisemitic nature is a matter of debate. Historically, figures like Arnold J. Toynbee have drawn parallels between Zionism and Nazism, a stance he maintained despite criticism. Scholar David Feldman suggests these comparisons are often rhetorical tools without specific antisemitic intent. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) sees them as diminishing the Holocaust's significance.
Rafał Pankowski is a Polish sociologist and political scientist. Pankowski is a Phd and associate professor at Collegium Civitas, as well as the head of "Never Again" Association's East Europe Monitoring Center. He is also the deputy editor of Never Again's magazine. He is also involved in monitoring football hooliganism as part of UEFA's Fare network.
Zionist antisemitism or antisemitic Zionism refers to a phenomenon in which antisemites express support for Zionism and the State of Israel. In some cases, this support may be promoted for explicitly antisemitic reasons. Historically, this type of antisemitism has been most notable among Christian Zionists, who may perpetrate religious antisemitism while being outspoken in their support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel due to their interpretation of Christian eschatology. Similarly, people who identify with the political far-right, particularly in Europe and the United States, may support the Zionist movement because they seek to expel Jews from their country and see Zionism as the least complicated method of achieving this goal and satisfying their racial antisemitism.
The Case for Christian Nationalism is a 2022 book by Stephen Wolfe. The book argues for Christian nationalism based on cultural and ethnic affinity from a Christian perspective, and a retrieval of traditional Christian political thought.
Conservatism: A Rediscovery is a 2022 book by Israeli political philosopher Yoram Hazony. It outlines his philosophy of national conservatism by examining its history, legal tradition, and philosophical commitments. He outlines the history of a distinctive Anglo-American tradition of political conservatism which he argues should be restored and renewed in order to meet the challenges of the current age.