the best ideology ever.

The cultural left calls this Nazism, so put your American flag away. Some say Nationalism supports big government and erodes federalism, trust me...most people don't even know what all this means.

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. - Albert Einstein

A backward, insideous and destructive ideology.

This is a Jekyll and Hyde ideology. Until about the time of the Enlightenment, nationalism was not a factor. That is why so many countries and states evolved with many, indeed later conflicting nationalities. The loyalty was to the ruler and not to the state.

The American and French Revolutions changed that. The national state arose. If you did not speak Magyar for instance in Hungary, you were suspect and viewed as a traitor.

Nationalism was good by reviving and preserving many national groups that were in danger of dying out. It is bad for the rise of the chauvinistic attitudes that have led to persecution such as Germanization of the minorities in the East under the Kaisers or Magyarization of the minorities in Hungary. English was forced on the populace in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and maybe even the Isle of Man and Channel Islands.

Nationalism is good when used to build up pride in country, but bad when used to force uniformity.

Nationalism can be extremely good, especially if your country is vastly different and superior than others. Trans-nationalism is a phony United Nations ideology that takes freedom away from people. we  have been spending too much time overseas, and do need to focus in the country. America is way better than Canada, Cambodia, France-Why should we have to bow down to their shitty rules. Because of Nationalism we are free-Our Constitution gives us rights that no other countries have. Why would we want to work with them and have less freedom. I mean our country's gov is way better than Communist China (Not Republic of China or Chinese People-They Rock) or  Zimbabwe or Janjaweed Sudan. They know absolutely nothing about us, and they hurt their people. We should not take protocols from them -they should be taking standards from us. Sorry for sounding like a Complete Jingo, But until the world starts coming up to or exceeding our standards of everything, We are top.We are sovereign for a reason. (PS I am not talking about Hitler style Fascistic Nationalism. Just the benefit of American sovereign government, over internationalist governments. In this Review I was not referring to any people of a country, only governments)

it is much better that people believe in there country befor ethey believe in a religion. it can create unity and pride that is very benefical to the people of a country.

Nationalism is similar to democracy ("The worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time"-Churchill) in that for all its flaws, it remains far superior to the alternatives. A world organized into nation-states presumes a certain level of nationalism to function. Countries like Canada and Belgium are no exception-they are not de-nationalized states, but rather weak states polarized between two opposing nationalisms. More common are the 'state-nations' of Africa, the Middle East and much of Latin America, where the absence of any nationalism leads to rampant corruption and makes a democracy no more than a fig-leaf for oligarchial rule by native elites and foreign investors. Nationalism is often blamed for war, but it is usually a scapegoat for other causes. Only when nationalism is combined with a racist belief in a 'chosen people' destined to rule over others, or exterminate them (WWII), or a militarized aristocracy spoiling for a fight (WWI) does nationalism turn ugly. In the 21st Century, however, a deficit of nationalism is far more likely to cause conflict than a surplus; most of all in the Middle East, where religous fanaticism is filling a nationalist vacuum. There are countless bad books about nationalism; one (rare) good one is Greenfield's 'The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth', which explains how nationalism was indispensable to the economic development of England, Japan, Germany and the US over the last 200 years.

Re: KJLloyd, I followed your link and read the article. The writer discusses the Hamden decision and says this: "He says he takes the courts decision 'seriously.' A few moments later he says it again. And then comes this: 'Weve got people looking at it right now to determine how we can work with Congress, if thats available, to solve the problem.' There is no disdain. No bravado. No criticism. Just an acknowledgment that the Supreme Court has spoken and the executive branch will comply. Some dictator."

Where in the quoted statement does Bush say he will "comply"? The supreme court decides Bush has violated the constitution and he says he will get his people to look into it and "determine how we can work with Congress, if thats available." How is that saying he will comply? For an intellgent discussion of what he actually did do regarding this and other lawbreaking go to: http://tinyurl.com/fpqor

. . .arises out of a lack of education and fear. . .the idea that 'my nation is soooo wonderful and all other cultures are defunct' is as dead as Julius Caesar. . .yes, I live in the best country in the world for me, but a sense of nationalism is allergic to political, social, and scientific advancements. . .it's not that nationalism is the worst idea on this list, but it is overrated by a longshot.

("Too much nationalism leads to Racism") Yes, and too much multiculturalism leads to nationalism.

Stupid-ass turf wars. Kids screaming--MINE!, MINE!

I dont see the value in constantly promoting one country over another or thinking one country is superior to others. Human beings are specks on a speck on a speck in this vast universe. To be caught up over imaginary borders on our tiny little planet to the point where we have nationalistic pride is just ridiculous and almost invariably has been a root cause of the many wars mankind has suffered through.

Too much nationalism leads to Racism

What some people here may not understand is that there is a difference between nationalism and jingoism; and we are rating the former, not the later. To me, nationalism is the glue necessary to unify a country in time of attack or crises. Nationalism is the simple pride that is felt regarding the accomplishments, culture and history of a given people. Jingoism is essentially blind, perverted, hyper-nationalism that totalitarian leaders attempt to drum up in order to serve their own self-serving, egoistic, destructive ends. You can certainly have nationalistic pride and not be blindly led along on a string. You can recognize the imperfections of your nation while still striving to make it better. On a micro level, pride in one's own neighborhood or community is essentially nationalistic, for altogether it is what each person can contribute to make the fabric of this nation richer, greater and stronger. Without ample nationalisic pride and spirit, a nation cannot defend itself from those who wish to destroy everything we know and hold dear. Show me a country without nationalism, and I'll show you a country in a state of deep decline, heading towards the trash-barral of history.

One of the greatest cause of division of mankind. Invisible lines of them and us all over the world.

To have a nation state sticking up for me, protecting me, and serving my needs as a citizen is great. To have a nation state push me around, kill in my name, and waste my tax money, not so great. I am not sure it is humanly possible, but I think the world would be better off without nationalism. There would be less war with a one-world nation. Don't get me wrong, that includes local control of our affairs (like States, Counties, and Cities give us in America), but it less nationalism would stop all of the wasted energy put towards it.

Nationalism is no less an evil than racism. After the monarhies of Europe fell, the masses needed a reason other than the Divine Right of Kings to obey their leaders; Napoleon gave them nationalistic pride, which was a mutation of their already inherent--and perfectly natural--cultural pride. It is manipulation, pure and simple.

Nation should understand and keep its own roots and identity (this should not be mistacken with a superiority to other nations, which is a shovinism), and not become a faceless mass. Communists tried to create faceless soviet people making henocide against number of nations. and a result? a big flop: soviet person was not created, but a number of people do not know who they are, what they are and what they are living for...

Love it or leave it!

Nationalism is the most misunderstood ideology on this list. Its just the belief that a country should work to achieve on its own, and caring for its people first. Nationalism is not racism. When it comes down to it, I do believe that the US is the best country on Earth. Instead of getting involved in other countries, just mind our own business. Japan did this for a long time, and was a peaceful country that doing well off financially. They had made thier own culture and were proud of it. Today, I believe our problems should be definitely be handled first. I am rating the definition of Nationalism here on RIA. There are many different types of Nationalism.

Nationalism is an ideology which places a high emphasis on the strength of the state as a unitary actor. People who advocate this believe in big government, a large defense establishment, legislating moral and social issues and a national greatness philosophy both at home and abroad. Additionally, they support protectionist, even mercantilist economics if they are strong enough, although publicly they claim to be free traders. They tend to advocate unilateral, go it alone foreign policies. It's okay to defend your country, even if unilateral action is deemed necessary, but they don't put much stock on alliance building which is absolutely critical. It makes sense to give international projects some legitimacy, not to mention it spreads the cost around. It is very easy to equate such a philosophy with patriotism, but it has nothing to do with love for your country. Rather, it is an arrogant, foolhardy ideology that nations fall for time and time again. No nation is an island unto itself, nations which have advocated nationalist policies like most of the European powers of the early 20th Century ended up broke because it costs too much to maintain a top heavy government at home and an empire abroad. Big nationalism at home and abroad are simply too expensive for a nation to maintain. At worst, nationalism can be used to justify genocidal actions, but it's fairly rare. This happened Nazi Germany, Serbia, and Rwanda. It was very popular during the 1930's with the rise of fascist regimes in Spain, Germany, Portugal, Japan, and Italy. Today, President George Bush practices a softer form of nationalism, expensive government at home and unilateralism abroad. Just to correct the record, George Bush is not a conservative, rather he is a nationalist. Conservatives never promote a national greatness philosophy; rather they support smaller government, the direct opposite of nationalism. The only thing is that they are both conservative on social issues, but nationalists like to legislate morality a lot more than nationalists do. Overall, not a very prudent strategy to follow, nationalism is way too emotional and not pragmatic enough.

Politically speaking, Nationalism is the only hope for mankind.

Nationalism is very important, without it, a country would be pointless.

I'm pro-nationalism, insofar as governments are able to mitigate against corporate interests. A formal nationalism is really the only way I can imagine things (how else could a country administrate itself? I guess we could have some kind of corporate feudalism). But too often - and this is especially visible these days in areas in transition - political, legal, and geographic lines are bloodily carved up against ethnic ones (witness events in the former yugoslavia, rwanda, not to mention israel and palestine ). Gicau glosses over national unity in his(?) anatomy of nationalism - national unity, from a historical point of view, translates as ethnic homogeneity, which is both the root and flower of nationalism.

is this site full of nazis? nationalism is ahead of socialism

Nationalism is different to patriotism. Patriotism is the love of a nation because one believes in their nation's merits. Nationalism is a blind love of a nation because it is the nation in which they live. Nationalism was responsible for two world wars which combined claimed over a hundred million lives and it was nationalism that allowed genocidal bastards like Hitler to get into power. Nationalism blinds people - this can be seen in the way that many Europeans reject the EU for no reason other than that their nation will be less prominent. Every European and Europe as a whole would be better off with a single European state, but blind allegiance to national flags gets in the way of Europe's next step. This ideology has potential to be more damaging than Nazism or Stalinism. It is a very dangerous mindset.

Nationalism is mindless devotion to one small part of humanity rather than the whole of humanity, and guarantees a world endlessly at war with itself. Look at Europe before the First World War, a perfect hot Petri dish for propagating Nationalist germs: and look at what happened when the pustule burst. Albert Einstein called Nationalism "an infantile disease--the measles of mankind." Judge for yourself--has it done anything in history other than increase suffering? As long as people in all nations are taught nothing but bombastic nonsense about the greatness of their own nations and the wickedness of all others, the wars will continue endlessly, and some day the missiles will fly and that will be the end forever.

All humanity has rights, every man woman and child should be equal and free to practice thes rights without fear of opression. Nationalism esentially advocates the nation as always being right. Everyone should work towards co-operation rather then isolating or crushing others different than them.

Nationalism is one of the things that made the Soviet Union corrupt.Hitler was a nationalist,he was involved in the first world war,and started the second.Dubya is a nationalist,he was involved in the Vietnam War and started the War on Iraq.Nationalism creates a setting in which people are taught to hate everything that is different from them,and to all comply and conform to the standards whatever they may be.Every Nationalist state that has ever existed has pre-empted an unjust war.Try and find one that hasn't.

Nationalism has its good and bad points. It was nationalism which Civil Rights leaders had to go against in the 1960s. As a Democrat (not a liberal, a Democrat), I have mixed feelings about nationalism. I think that this nation should have the smallest, most efficient government possible. However, in a government of the people, by the people and for the people, we should realize that the government's job is not to take care of its people- the government's job is to help people take care of themselves. An American nationalist wrote, "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government". Speaking out against your government and your President, even in a time of war, does not make you a traitor or un-American. It, in a sense, makes you a patriot. If you see something wrong with something, speak your mind and defend your country against its government. Nationalism itself is based upon the time in which you live. In 1960, nationalism did not look like such a good thing. Today, however, it does.

All Nationalism is based on seven principles:- incraesed millitry, increased police, protectionist ecconomics, that National considerations are more important than international ones, more production, indupendence, and anti-socialism. It strongly emphesises patriotism, national unity and a nation (or people) have a right to defend themselves. There are just as many anti-dictotorial (George Bush) as dictotorial forms not including a few gerrymanded ones. There are radical progressive utopian as well as conservative (traditional) forms.There are hard line (front-line) and soft-line (back-line) forms. Famous Nationalists include some British Consevatives, US-Republicans, Austrian Freedom Party, Indonesia, Iran, Pinochet (Chile), Scase (Figi), Rawanda (hard), Burandi (hard), Ariel Sharon (Israel), Putin (Russia), Moses, Solomon, David, Mohammed, Plato (hard), Aristotle (soft), St. Augustin, Hume, John Wayne, Arnold Swartzernigar, Silvester Stelone, Sean Connery, & Col. Oliver North. The degree of Nationalism defined above is to the Right of Center-right (liberal-nationalism) & left of the dictotorial Extreme-Right (Ultra-nationalism or Fascism being to the right of this). There are many false lables placed on Nationalist by Socialist such as racism.

At school I was taught the Right-wing was hard-line, dictatorial, racist, war-mongering/pro war, traditional, oppressive, monerchist, support of organissed religion & the belief in God, for family values, anti-egalitarian, patriotism (common in all leanings), reactionary, against traid unions, agaist women, uses laissez-faire ecconomics and finnaly that it is based on hate and has no principles. My research shows me these are lies, so don't believe everything they teach you at school.

More free-trade and free-speech than socialism. Although I support all the Nationalist principles (and most of the liberal democratic ones) I am against Conscription. I am also against the people of my country (Australia) being patiotic about being criminals, alchoholic, gay or socialists (then thay call themselves Catholics).

"My country, right or wrong"? WRONG!

Nationalism causes so much tension and hate. WWI was basically started by senseless nationalism and the feeling that "my country is better than yours," etc. A role of the United States is to provide humanitarian aid to less fortunate countries, not hold a stupid feeling of superiority. "Imagine there's no countries." -John Lennon

grossly misunderstood.

Yeah. Riiiight. I can just see that. Everybody focuses on their own nationality's goals and doesn't give a care what the rest of the world is doing. Who do you think you're kidding? I can see it all now...Rwanda, Azerbaijan, and God knows who else all start ignoring the rest of the world. What a wondeful world that would be...all these Third World countries ending up flatter than a rhinocerous's instep. Nope, not gonna happen. Take care, everyone!

Nationalism is some of the worst things existing today. It's awful, disgusting & nauseating! Nationalism leads to racial hate, discrimination, military rule, avoiding human rights, isolationism & even nazism (in Germany before & under the Second World War)! Nationalists hate diversity & different cultures than their own, which they think are the best in the world. :-(

Here I'd like to quote a scruffy indie rock band, the Simple Ones, who sang the great line: "I love my country/ It's the government I hate/ That's the kind of thinking that makes this country great." That's sort of my perspective, though I'd be very skeptical of "nationalism" in a broad sense. I do believe in American exceptionalism -- that the idealistic basis of the American founding and its continuing role as the world's best embodiment of individual liberty gives us cause to be star-struck with patriotism -- whereas nationalism has been used abroad to stir up resentments and bequeath more power to charismatic dictators.