Re: Genetic Fallacy

<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV> sorry guys, i had to send it again.
Erik
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Thanks for staying.
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"I have been speaking with Tibetans quite a lot and my impression is that
their nationalism is motivated by the Chinese occupation and the cult of
nature deities".
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I would be the last to deny Chinese occupation and its reality or basis of Tibetan nationalism in Tibetan traditions. What I however believe is that normally in third world nationalism does not spread spontaneously (and this is an empirico historical question), it is actively promoted and in that the role of imperialism is very important. On the empirical ground i think same is the case with the Tibetan nationalism. By emphasising the role of imperialism i also do not assume any notion of one way process, or what Nathen has called unilateral imposition but the asymmetry of relations and asymmetric concentration of power should be obvious to any body.
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"Hmm, but what is nationalism exactly? I'm not sure, but I think that the
cult of the nation state with flags and national anthems came up in the
days of Napoleon". 
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I do not know what nationalism exactly is (there are many good books you can refer to like Gellner Nations and Nationalism or Andearson Imagined communities etc), but there are some general points which can be made. Broadly speaking when individual self identity is defined with reference to a 'larger self' called 'nation', which itself is defined with reference to shared territory, geography, race or history etc Nationalism in modern sense emerges. The main galvanising force behind modern nationalism has been to increase the power of nation, which links modern nationalism to capitalism. Nationalism emerged in Europe as a reaction against universal ideals and institutions of Christianity. Hence the murder of Latin, promotion of Vernaculars, rise of Protestantism, the rise of the notion of the Divine Rights of Kings etc. In this context the unique contribution of Western Europe has been events like Renaissance, Enlightenment, Reformation, and French Revolution which modernised and totally transformed the traditional ideas and conceptions of nationalism wherein nation and nationalism were mostly social entities not political constructs. 
This earlier sort of nationalism afterwards gave rise to civic sort of nationalism which is today prevalent in most of west in which nation is now defined broadly through reference to universal values institutions etc. just a brief and rough sketch. This is roughly my historical sense of nationalism is. Nothing in it reduces itself to nationalism, neither nationalism can be reduced to any one element of it or even to whole but combined it give us some sense of what we are talking about when we talk of nationalism. 
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"Colonism is something else. The Portugese started what
we now call colonies, but they were mainly interested in converting
people, the Dutch only wanted tradeposts and the British wanted a home
away from home. After some time every western country had some territory
in Africa, America or Asia". 
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Well Erik I have not read such a rosy picture of imperialism any where. Unfortunately reality is quite different from this. I do not want to rehearse figures here, I do not intend to lament the past. But still past can not be wished away so easily, should not be wished away like this.
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But this wasn't terribly new because the
Vikings, Ashoka, Alexander, the Roman Emperors, Chengis Khan, the
Khalifs, the Ottomans they all had colonies as well. Power just isn't
very good at limiting itself".
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Well I do not know what you mean by colonialism but as my understanding of  colonialism exclude all the examples you have given being included under the banner of colonialism. According to my understanding some specific sort of economic relationship should exist between mother country and colony, ingredients of this relationship are constant supply of cheap raw material from colony to mother country, exporting back finished goods to the colony etc. Colonialism in this understanding is a particular phase in the history of capitalism, which Lenin had thought as the highest stage of capitalism.
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>Well, please explain what this identity is, because I've heard this
before, but it seems to me that the words mean something else all the
time. Recent sociological data seem to suggest that in Turkish people
being a Turk is far more important the being a muslim, all though nobody
would ever admit it. Besides, the islam of the Wahabites is not the
islam of Omar Khayyam or Lal Fakir, so what is islamic identity?
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I think you need to ask your Turkish friends in constitution court of Turkey about this, they would know better than me and you what Islamic identity is. 
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"The poverty is caused by multinationals, but can you call a
multinational Western? Besides I?ve seen many indigenous developments
in the last ten years I visited India. Do you think by the way that
nationalism is terribly different from communalism"?
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I have never called multinationals Western. Most of the operations of multinationals are based on global capital which belong to no specific country. Today accumulation mainly occurs at the global level. The share of global capital in the world overall gross production has out weight national contributions. Hence the weakening of all states vis a vis capital except for one state which capital needs as a protector and lender of last resort. I have never used West in the sense you are using here. I had made it clear in my first post to Larry. 
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Communalism (if you are specifically talking about Hindu communalism) is essentially different from modern nationalism in being mainly a social force based on conceptions about lineage. Since the arrival of British in Indian, spread of modern ideas among Hindu elite, the defeat of old Hindu Shankar Acharyas in its wake and their replacement by modernist elite and leaders like Ram Mohan Roy, Gandhi etc. Gandhi who was infused with modernist ideas was really a follower of Tolstoy transformed modern Hinduism to a great extent, same was accomplished by Jaweherlal and others. The process is culminating in Hindu Bhartyia Party which is Hindu only in name, and in reality a Nationalist Party. If you compare Hinduism of BJP with the Hinduism of Shankar Acharyias this transformation is beyond recognition. This is why today it is so easy to incorporate India into the imperial order.
so yes communalism is different from nationalism but it can be transformed into and incorporated into nationalism as it has been successfully done in India.
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"Which ideas do you mean exactly? And if those ideas are so easily
adoptable, is this because of the ideas or because of the cultures who
adopt them? Isn't this a chicken and egg-situation"?
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Ideas about life and death and their relation, notions of salvation, epistemology, relation to world, wealth, money etc We are talking about civilisational change here, which was introduced in the wake of replacement of Christian civilisation by the modern Western Civilisation. Final chapter of Foucault?s History of Sexuality vol. I and his Subject and Power, published as afterwards to Rabinow and Dreyfus?s book on Foucault. Tawny?s Religion and the Rise of Capitalism is also worth looking at.
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I think ideas hold sway,, are dominant ultimately because of the power game, keeping in minds all explanations about power put forth by Foucault and others.
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regards
ali</DIV></div> <hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href='http://go.msn.com/bql/hmtag_itl_EN.asp'>http://explorer.msn.com</a> </html>