nationalism

• age of Planetary Prince culminates in intense

52:2.5But the Plan­e­tary Prince is not “the Prince of Peace.” Racial strug­gles and tribal wars con­tinue over into this dis­pen­sa­tion but with di­min­ish­ing fre­quency and sever­ity. This is the great age of racial dis­per­sion, and it cul­mi­nates in a pe­riod of in­tense na­tion­al­ism. Color is the ba­sis of tribal and na­tional group­ings, and the dif­fer­ent races of­ten de­velop sep­a­rate lan­guages. Each ex­pand­ing group of mor­tals tends to seek iso­la­tion. This seg­re­ga­tion is fa­vored by the ex­is­tence of many lan­guages. Be­fore the uni­fi­ca­tion of the sev­eral races their re­lent­less war­fare some­times re­sults in the oblit­er­a­tion of whole peo­ples; the or­ange and green men are par­tic­u­larly sub­ject to such ex­tinc­tion.

• wanes upon race blending

52:3.10The post-Adamic epoch is the dis­pen­sa­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al­ism. With the near com­ple­tion of the task of race blend­ing, na­tion­al­ism wanes, and the broth­er­hood of man re­ally be­gins to ma­te­ri­al­ize. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment be­gins to take the place of the monar­chial or pa­ter­nal form of ruler­ship. The ed­u­ca­tional sys­tem be­comes world-wide, and grad­u­ally the lan­guages of the races give way to the tongue of the vi­o­let peo­ple. Uni­ver­sal peace and co-op­er­a­tion are sel­dom at­tained un­til the races are fairly well blended, and un­til they speak a com­mon lan­guage.

• war fostered and solidified

70:2.3War has had a so­cial value to past civ­i­liza­tions be­cause it:

70:2.41. Im­posed dis­ci­pline, en­forced co-op­er­a­tion.

70:2.52. Put a pre­mium on for­ti­tude and cour­age.

70:2.63. Fos­tered and so­lid­i­fied na­tion­al­ism.

70:2.74. De­stroyed weak and un­fit peo­ples.

70:2.85. Dis­solved the il­lu­sion of prim­i­tive equal­ity and se­lec­tively strat­i­fied so­ci­ety.

70:2.9War has had a cer­tain evo­lu­tion­ary and se­lec­tive value, but like slav­ery, it must some­time be aban­doned as civ­i­liza­tion slowly ad­vances. Olden wars pro­moted travel and cul­tural in­ter­course; these ends are now bet­ter served by mod­ern meth­ods of trans­port and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Olden wars strength­ened na­tions, but mod­ern strug­gles dis­rupt civ­i­lized cul­ture. An­cient war­fare re­sulted in the dec­i­ma­tion of in­fe­rior peo­ples; the net re­sult of mod­ern con­flict is the se­lec­tive de­struc­tion of the best hu­man stocks. Early wars pro­moted or­ga­ni­za­tion and ef­fi­ciency, but these have now be­come the aims of mod­ern in­dus­try. Dur­ing past ages war was a so­cial fer­ment which pushed civ­i­liza­tion for­ward; this re­sult is now bet­ter at­tained by am­bi­tion and in­ven­tion. An­cient war­fare sup­ported the con­cept of a God of bat­tles, but mod­ern man has been told that God is love. War has served many valu­able pur­poses in the past, it has been an in­dis­pens­able scaf­fold­ing in the build­ing of civ­i­liza­tion, but it is rapidly be­com­ing cul­tur­ally bankrupt—in­ca­pable of pro­duc­ing div­i­dends of so­cial gain in any way com­men­su­rate with the ter­ri­ble losses at­ten­dant upon its in­vo­ca­tion.

• has been essential to social survival

71:3.2Much as it is to be re­gret­ted, na­tional ego­tism has been es­sen­tial to so­cial sur­vival. The cho­sen peo­ple doc­trine has been a prime fac­tor in tribal weld­ing and na­tion build­ing right on down to mod­ern times. But no state can at­tain ideal lev­els of func­tion­ing un­til ev­ery form of in­tol­er­ance is mas­tered; it is ev­er­last­ingly in­im­i­cal to hu­man prog­ress. And in­tol­er­ance is best com­bated by the co-or­di­na­tion of sci­ence, com­merce, play, and re­li­gion.

• hero-venerating n. of 20th century

92:6.20An­ces­tor wor­ship one­time con­sti­tuted a de­cided ad­vance in re­li­gious evo­lu­tion, but it is both amaz­ing and re­gret­table that this prim­i­tive con­cept per­sists in China, Japan, and In­dia amidst so much that is rel­a­tively more ad­vanced, such as Bud­dhism and Hin­duism. In the Oc­ci­dent, an­ces­tor wor­ship de­vel­oped into the ven­er­a­tion of na­tional gods and re­spect for racial heroes. In the twen­ti­eth cen­tury this hero-ven­er­at­ing na­tion­al­is­tic re­li­gion makes its ap­pear­ance in the var­i­ous rad­i­cal and na­tion­al­is­tic sec­u­larisms which char­ac­ter­ize many races and na­tions of the Oc­ci­dent. Much of this same at­ti­tude is also found in the great uni­ver­si­ties and the larger in­dus­trial com­mu­ni­ties of the En­glish-speak­ing peo­ples. Not very dif­fer­ent from these con­cepts is the idea that re­li­gion is but “a shared quest of the good life.” The “na­tional re­li­gions” are noth­ing more than a re­ver­sion to the early Ro­man em­peror wor­ship and to Shinto—wor­ship of the state in the im­pe­rial fam­ily.

• Ikhnaton’s gospel fatally lacked appeal to

95:5.9The fa­tal weak­ness of Ikh­na­ton’s gospel was its great­est truth, the teach­ing that Aton was not only the cre­ator of Egypt but also of the “whole world, man and beasts, and all the for­eign lands, even Syria and Kush, be­sides this land of Egypt. He sets all in their place and pro­vides all with their needs.” These con­cepts of De­ity were high and ex­alted, but they were not na­tion­al­is­tic. Such sen­ti­ments of in­ter­na­tion­al­ity in re­li­gion failed to aug­ment the morale of the Egyp­tian army on the bat­tle­field, while they pro­vided ef­fec­tive weapons for the priests to use against the young king and his new re­li­gion. He had a De­ity con­cept far above that of the later He­brews, but it was too ad­vanced to serve the pur­poses of a na­tion builder.

• Moses wisely encouraged

96:4.6Moses pro­claimed that Yah­weh was the Lord God of Is­rael, who had sin­gled out the He­brews as his cho­sen peo­ple; he was build­ing a new na­tion, and he wisely na­tion­al­ized his re­li­gious teach­ings, telling his fol­low­ers that Yah­weh was a hard taskmas­ter, a “jeal­ous God.” But nonethe­less he sought to en­large their con­cept of di­vin­ity when he taught them that Yah­weh was the “God of the spir­its of all flesh,” and when he said, “The eter­nal God is your refuge, and un­der­neath are the ev­er­last­ing arms.” Moses taught that Yah­weh was a covenant-keep­ing God; that he “will not for­sake you, nei­ther de­stroy you, nor for­get the covenant of your fa­thers be­cause the Lord loves you and will not for­get the oath by which he swore to your fa­thers.”

• delusion of national sovereignty is chief barrier to world peace

134:5.10Uran­tia will not en­joy last­ing peace un­til the so-called sov­er­eign na­tions in­tel­li­gently and fully sur­ren­der their sov­er­eign pow­ers into the hands of the broth­er­hood of men—man­kind gov­ern­ment. In­ter­na­tion­al­ism—Leagues of Na­tions—can never bring per­ma­nent peace to man­kind. World-wide con­fed­er­a­tions of na­tions will ef­fec­tively pre­vent mi­nor wars and ac­cept­ably con­trol the smaller na­tions, but they will not pre­vent world wars nor con­trol the three, four, or five most pow­er­ful gov­ern­ments. In the face of real con­flicts, one of these world pow­ers will with­draw from the League and de­clare war. You can­not pre­vent na­tions go­ing to war as long as they re­main in­fected with the delu­sional virus of na­tional sov­er­eignty. In­ter­na­tion­al­ism is a step in the right di­rec­tion. An in­ter­na­tional po­lice force will pre­vent many mi­nor wars, but it will not be ef­fec­tive in pre­vent­ing ma­jor wars, con­flicts be­tween the great mil­i­tary gov­ern­ments of earth.

• delusion of national sovereignty is chief barrier to world peace

134:6.6It is not a ques­tion of ar­ma­ments or dis­ar­ma­ment. Nei­ther does the ques­tion of con­scrip­tion or vol­un­tary mil­i­tary ser­vice en­ter into these prob­lems of main­tain­ing world-wide peace. If you take ev­ery form of mod­ern me­chan­i­cal ar­ma­ments and all types of ex­plo­sives away from strong na­tions, they will fight with fists, stones, and clubs as long as they cling to their delu­sions of the di­vine right of na­tional sov­er­eignty.

134:6.7War is not man’s great and ter­ri­ble dis­ease; war is a symp­tom, a re­sult. The real dis­ease is the virus of na­tional sov­er­eignty.

• Rome overcame n. by imperial universalism

195:3.2Rome over­came the tra­di­tion of na­tion­al­ism by im­pe­rial uni­ver­sal­ism and for the first time in his­tory made it pos­si­ble for dif­fer­ent races and na­tions at least nom­i­nally to ac­cept one re­li­gion.

• delusion of national sovereignty is chief barrier to world peace

195:8.10With­out God, with­out re­li­gion, sci­en­tific sec­u­lar­ism can never co-or­di­nate its forces, har­mo­nize its di­ver­gent and ri­val­rous in­ter­ests, races, and na­tion­alisms. This sec­u­lar­is­tic hu­man so­ci­ety, not­with­stand­ing its un­par­al­leled ma­te­ri­al­is­tic achieve­ment, is slowly dis­in­te­grat­ing. The chief co­he­sive force re­sist­ing this dis­in­te­gra­tion of an­tag­o­nism is na­tion­al­ism. And na­tion­al­ism is the chief bar­rier to world peace.