Most over-rated modern-day dogma

[Scipio]

Dogme 95.

WTF?  It's a substitute for shitty scriptwriting.  Those assholes all need to study Mamet.  Revolution in film is about WRITING, not shooting without effects.

[dps]

This is a thread to post nominations for a vote for the most overrated modern day's dogma - an "evident truth" or an ideological position that hardly anyone ever challenges anymore.

My nomination: the self-determination of nations. Case in point: Africa and Quebec.

I don't want to be a contrarian prick, but this is languish so I feel the need to be to an extent.  Is Quebec a good example as a majority has expressed a desire to stay in Canada?

Better than Africa.  You can argue that Quebec was given self-determination, and they determined that it was in their best interest to remain a province of Canada.  Self-determination was never offered to Africans--they were given independence, eventually, but they had to stick with the old borders imposed by the European powers.  Eritrea might be about the only exception, at least the only one I can think of off-hand, and even that's debatable as it wasn't part of Ethiopia before WWII and was technically in a federal state with Ethiopia after the war.

Saying nationalism is bad is kind of like saying don't ask don't tell is bad.

Yeah, when looked at in isolation it is kind of stupid maybe, but when seen as a point in a changing shift in attitudes, it makes perfect sense, and is actually an improvement over what came before.

At least, hopefully.

I've made essentially the same argument about the BCS.  Few people seem to agree with it.

Objectivism
Neo Conservatism

and pretty much every other ism out there.

You think that they are all positions that hardly anyone ever challanges?   

[The Minsky Moment]

But it is far too broad.  Under this definition you could e.g. talk about "Gothic nationalism" (based on common folklore) or "Roman nationalism" (based on common use of Latin) or "Catholic nationalism" (based on religion).  All these groups had some sort of belief in common destiny and common action.

Circular reasoning. 

All arguments about defining terms necessary involve some degree of tautological reasoning.  The problem with the broader defintion is that it sweeps in just about anything that historically has caused groups of people to understand themselves as part of a community.  That isn't necessarily a problem, unless one wants to make distinctions between different kinds of manifestations of that phenomenon as it appears historically.  So while it is true that the Gellner defintion and its variants kind of assumes the answer, it does by drawing a real distinction of significance bewtween nationalism as it defines it, and other historical manifestation of feelings of shared community.

If the Romans couldn't be nationalistic because nationalism by definition doesn't include the Romans, then, sure, the Romans weren't nationalistic.  But I think that the Romans were not nationalistic for reasons other than that we have decided to define nationalism as explicitly excluding them.

But the Gellner definition and its variants doesnt explicitly exclude the Romans; the Romans are excluded b/c the ways they conceived of their communal connections happens not to fit the definition.

My objection is to a definition of nationalism that read plainly, includes the Romans, because a definition of nationalism that includes the Romans is not useful for making the kind of distinctions we want to be able to make.

[grumbler]

All arguments about defining terms necessary involve some degree of tautological reasoning.  The problem with the broader defintion is that it sweeps in just about anything that historically has caused groups of people to understand themselves as part of a community.  That isn't necessarily a problem, unless one wants to make distinctions between different kinds of manifestations of that phenomenon as it appears historically.  So while it is true that the Gellner defintion and its variants kind of assumes the answer, it does by drawing a real distinction of significance bewtween nationalism as it defines it, and other historical manifestation of feelings of shared community.

The problem with the narrow definition of nationism is that it excludes most forms of nationalism other than romantic nationalism, and excludes even many forms of romantic nationalism (Russian nationalism and many forms of German nationalism, for instance).  Nationalism centered around more than just the concept of the nation-state, IMO.

My objection is to a definition of nationalism that read plainly, includes the Romans, because a definition of nationalism that includes the Romans is not useful for making the kind of distinctions we want to be able to make.

I don't know of a definition of nationalism that includes the Romans, so take that up with the people advocating that.

[The Minsky Moment]

The problem with the narrow definition of nationism is that it excludes most forms of nationalism other than romantic nationalism, and excludes even many forms of romantic nationalism (Russian nationalism and many forms of German nationalism, for instance).

That is just as circular as what you are criticizing.  basically you are taking what most scholars of nationalism use as a definition of nationalism, defining that to be something called "romantic nationalism" and then saying there is some problem with the "narrow definition of nationalism" because the two concepts equate.

Seems to me that if for some reason one wanted to have a distinct concept called "romantic nationalism" (and it isn't entirely clear to me why this is so), then the logical defintion would be that it is a subcategory of nationalism where the nationalist ideology is based on a Romantic conception of ancestrally derived volkish "genius."   That would incorporate 19th century German and Russian nationalism while excluding American and French nationalism.

I don't know of a definition of nationalism that includes the Romans, so take that up with the people advocating that.

The only one I have heard of is this one: "the belief that groups of people (defined variously by language, religion, folklore, or several of these attributes) share a common destiny, and so should work together to achieve it. "