I wrote this in October of 2023 and left it unfinished. Due to the victory of the National Rally in the French European Parliament election, I will publish this in its unfinished state, as I feel that the current events make further analysis trite, it can be seen clearly in what has occurred.
I recently read Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People, which I greatly enjoyed, and was quite taken with his presentation of the genesis of nationalism. It is important to distinguish that this is not necessarily in the sense of ideological nationalism, but moreso in the fundamental issue of how to define one’s nation and the boundaries as such. Fundamentally, the question of nationalism in this sense is that of defining the in-group.
He draws from Kohn’s dichotomous theory of nationalism, that splits the conception of national identity into either the republican, or civic, form or the ethnic form. Republican nationalism is fundamentally voluntary and inclusionary, as it bases national identity and belonging on the basis of citizenship and civic identity. Examples brought about by the author include the United Kingdom and the United States, where every citizen is fundamentally part of the British or American society, regardless of background. Of course, this does not argue that racism is non-existent, but that to be described and accepted as an American or a Briton is not an issue of race or ethnic background. In contrast to this is the ethnic conception of nationalism, which is fundamentally exclusionary. Kohn, writing in 1944, ascribed this form of nationalism primarily to Germany and Eastern Europe. At its core, ethnic nationalism ascribes national identity directly to ethnic origin. To be a Russian, or at that time a German, was not an issue of citizenship, but one of heritage.
Both forms of nationalism necessarily requires some form of exceptionalism, not only differentiating oneself from the “other” but also establishing a sense of superiority over them. As the republican nationalism defines national belonging as belonging to the institutions of the state, exceptionalism generally lies within the exaltation of one’s national institutions. The great pride of the United States, at least on the grand scale, isn’t of racial heritage or ethnic history, but of civic history. The great symbols of the American nation are the constitution, the branches of government, our elections. In the United Kingdom there is a similar story in the exaltation of the Magna Carta and the functionings of Parliament. The Americans and British believe themselves to be exceptional not due to some noble ethnic lineage, but due to what they perceive to be a long tradition of civic tradition which upheld the ideals they hold dear. Whether this is necessarily true or not isn’t of issue, but that it is believed to be true.
In contrast, ethnic nationalism necessitates racial exceptionalism. The Germans believed themselves as an exceptional peoples not due to some supposed history of civic tradition, but fundamentally due to their ethnic heritage and the belief in an immemorial German identity. Sand points out the fundamental flaw in this conception, that to extend this conception of an ethnic “nation” into the past is at its core an anachronism. To reach into the past to find a concept of ethnic nation is a futile effort, especially within the history of Eastern Europe, for the fact that national and ethnic consciousness just simply did not exist among the common folk. Though the landed aristocracy certainly made a great deal of effort to establish their ethnic nobility and maintain involvement within the institutions of their time, they constituted a minuscule proportion of the population. Sand points out that prior to the establishment of national languages and dictionaries in the 1800s, the language of the court was not mutually intelligible with that of the common people. Just as there was a liturgical language, there was also an administrative language, which caused the common folk of many nations to be fundamentally removed from the institutions of the state they lived under.
Nevertheless, I wish to talk about the case of France. In Kohn’s conception of the dichotomous nationalisms, and in Sand’s elaboration, France is the founder of the institution of modern nationalism, specifically the republican strain of nationalism, in its revolution and establishment of the French First Republic in 1792. France based its national identity, like the United Kingdom and United States, upon its republican institutions and values. The phrase liberté, égalité, fraternité became the rallying cry of the French citizens and the basis of what it meant to be a member of the French nation. The symbols of the French nation became the Phrygian caps worn by revolutionaries, the Napoleonic Grande Armée, and the guillotine, particularly as a symbol of the rejection of the despotic Ancien Régime.
Nowadays, France seems to be at risk of losing this inclusionary conception of nationality and is shifting closer and closer to an exclusionary, ethnic view of French identity.
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