As the Bush administration stumbled to its tragic end, and the nightmare of the Obama administration was yet to unfold, I went looking for a better definition of conservatism. There were many options on proffer: paleo-, theo-, neo-, fiscal, social . . . for starters. But none of these seemed to include all of the convictions that *I* attached to the label. Especially in dialogue with Europeans, conservatism looks like classical liberalism: freedom of speech and religion, a free market economy as opposed to government regulation of economic resources. But "freedom" in a European sense looks suspiciously like libertinism; freedom of market becomes freedom from moral constraint. I began to think there was no philosophical coherence to, no textual tradition that could ground, what I called "conservatism."
In this brilliant book, Yoram Hazony provides that coherence and tradition.
Other reviewers have covered Hazony's defense of nationalism against the two extremes of imperialism and anarchic tribalism. I will focus on his understanding of freedom that is distinct from the continental concept of liberty (*Liberté, fraternité, égalité,*). Hazony's freedom is the freedom of distinct human communities, each drawn together in a nation, with a history of attempting to solve human problems—family, economics, political organization, etc. "Conservatism" then means, among other things, *conserving* the real accomplishments of the past. Hazony believes that the social and political tradition with the best record is Anglo-American conservatism, expressed in such individuals as John Fortescue, John Selden, and Edmund Burke. The former two thinkers are obscure, and one hopes that Hazony's work will lead to new inexpensive editions of their important writings.
Since history (and not theory) provides concrete solutions to practical problems, Hazony's analysis emphasizes empiricism as the primary philosophical approach, as opposed to rationalist utopianism, which he sees as the philosophical counterpart of imperialism. Both utopianism and imperialism seek universal, all-embracing answers to the problems of human flourishing, whereas Hazony promotes a "moderate skepticism that . . . used to be called ‘common sense’.” (Kindle loc. 635). This common sense can look pragmatically as various options in various contexts to see which alternative is likely to generate a flourishing community. Thus solutions are likely to be particular, based on the "facts on the ground," as opposed to rationalistic or universalistic.
The other major component of Hazony's conservatism is his belief that the above tradition is based on the “biblical moral minimum” shared by observant Jews and historical Protestantism (especially of the Anglo-American) variety. Thus he binds together freedom and morality.
A superb and challenging work. It will (as it should and already has) call forth challenges, but it presents the foundation of rethinking and revisioning conservatism in these troubled times.
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The Virtue of Nationalism Hardcover – September 4, 2018
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Publication dateSeptember 4, 2018
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"A new book that will become a classic.... Yoram Hazony has written a magnificent affirmation of democratic nationalism and sovereignty. The book is a tour de force that has the potential to significantly shape the debate between the supporters of supranational globalism and those of national-state democracy."―National Review
"One of the most important books on one of the most important controversies of our time."―New Criterion
"[Hazony] cogently argues in the book that anyone who values his freedom should reject universalism and fight for a future of nations... [an] excellent book."―City Journal
"Hazony is both erudite and well reasoned."―American Conservative
"The Virtue of Nationalism is a brilliant achievement, at once learned and sharp, philosophical and politically engaged."―Jewish Review of Books
"A concise, thoughtful, strongly put case that resurgent nationalism is reason not for concern but for relief."―New York Sun
"Hazony presents a vigorous case for nationalism and its virtues."―National Interest
"The catastrophic failure of the liberal program opens the way for a new kind of political thinking, and Hazony offers a timely contribution to the debate."―Tablet
"Important.... Hazony continues to do a service in reviving the theory of nationalism at a moment when its empirical manifestations have become impossible to ignore. He also presents a model of engaged political philosophy--learned yet accessible, spirited but not excessively hostile."―Modern Age
"A thought-provoking book."―Publishers Weekly
"In an era when the word 'nationalism' falls on many ears as an insult and condemnation, Yoram Hazony recalls the ancient, essential, and even noble origins of the nation. I expect and hope this provocative and deeply learned book will incite fierce debate, but the depth and persuasiveness of its defense of the virtue of nations will demand engagement by every reader concerned with serious political ideas. Hazony masterfully blends a deep grasp of history, political philosophy, theology, and common sense with originality and clarity in what will be one of the most-discussed books of this dawning new age of the nation."―Patrick Deneen, professor of political science, University of Notre Dame, and author of Why Liberalism Failed
"In this engaging and deeply learned book, Yoram Hazony explores the religious and historical roots of nationalism, illuminates its modern accomplishments, and thereby offers a uniquely insightful guide to the forces transforming the politics of the West."―Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs and author of The Fractured Republic
"To cosmopolitans on the right and left, the division of the world into sovereign nation-states is a lamentable fact we must strive to overcome. In The Virtue of Nationalism, Yoram Hazony demonstrates that it is in fact essential to human flourishing."―Reihan Salam, executive editor, National Review
"Yoram Hazony's book is profound as well as accessible and well-crafted, reflecting years of inquiry and reflection into a subject of unparalleled importance. Political figures, scholars, and the broader public will have to think carefully about this remarkable book."―Natan Sharansky, author of The Case for Democracy and Defending Identity
"Yoram Hazony's The Virtue of Nationalism belongs among the great works of political theory. Hazony presents a radical, even dangerous thesis: what if nationalism is not the scourge that today's left views it as, but rather the best hope humanity has? The Virtue of Nationalism mounts a necessary challenge to the liberal order of the day."―Batya Ungar-Sargon, opinion editor of The Forward
"One of the most important books on one of the most important controversies of our time."―New Criterion
"[Hazony] cogently argues in the book that anyone who values his freedom should reject universalism and fight for a future of nations... [an] excellent book."―City Journal
"Hazony is both erudite and well reasoned."―American Conservative
"The Virtue of Nationalism is a brilliant achievement, at once learned and sharp, philosophical and politically engaged."―Jewish Review of Books
"A concise, thoughtful, strongly put case that resurgent nationalism is reason not for concern but for relief."―New York Sun
"Hazony presents a vigorous case for nationalism and its virtues."―National Interest
"The catastrophic failure of the liberal program opens the way for a new kind of political thinking, and Hazony offers a timely contribution to the debate."―Tablet
"Important.... Hazony continues to do a service in reviving the theory of nationalism at a moment when its empirical manifestations have become impossible to ignore. He also presents a model of engaged political philosophy--learned yet accessible, spirited but not excessively hostile."―Modern Age
"A thought-provoking book."―Publishers Weekly
"In an era when the word 'nationalism' falls on many ears as an insult and condemnation, Yoram Hazony recalls the ancient, essential, and even noble origins of the nation. I expect and hope this provocative and deeply learned book will incite fierce debate, but the depth and persuasiveness of its defense of the virtue of nations will demand engagement by every reader concerned with serious political ideas. Hazony masterfully blends a deep grasp of history, political philosophy, theology, and common sense with originality and clarity in what will be one of the most-discussed books of this dawning new age of the nation."―Patrick Deneen, professor of political science, University of Notre Dame, and author of Why Liberalism Failed
"In this engaging and deeply learned book, Yoram Hazony explores the religious and historical roots of nationalism, illuminates its modern accomplishments, and thereby offers a uniquely insightful guide to the forces transforming the politics of the West."―Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs and author of The Fractured Republic
"To cosmopolitans on the right and left, the division of the world into sovereign nation-states is a lamentable fact we must strive to overcome. In The Virtue of Nationalism, Yoram Hazony demonstrates that it is in fact essential to human flourishing."―Reihan Salam, executive editor, National Review
"Yoram Hazony's book is profound as well as accessible and well-crafted, reflecting years of inquiry and reflection into a subject of unparalleled importance. Political figures, scholars, and the broader public will have to think carefully about this remarkable book."―Natan Sharansky, author of The Case for Democracy and Defending Identity
"Yoram Hazony's The Virtue of Nationalism belongs among the great works of political theory. Hazony presents a radical, even dangerous thesis: what if nationalism is not the scourge that today's left views it as, but rather the best hope humanity has? The Virtue of Nationalism mounts a necessary challenge to the liberal order of the day."―Batya Ungar-Sargon, opinion editor of The Forward
About the Author
Yoram Hazony is president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem and director of the John Templeton Foundation's project in Jewish Philosophical Theology. His books include The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul and The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture. He lives in Jerusalem.
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Product details
- Publisher : Basic Books (September 4, 2018)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1541645375
- ISBN-13 : 978-1541645370
- Item Weight : 1.1 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.4 x 1 x 9.5 inches
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Yoram Hazony writes with a crisp and deceptively smooth prose that challenges the reader to think hard from the ground up. “The Virtue of Nationalism” attacks the prevailing liberal paradigm about globalism and presents the case for an international order of sovereign and independent nation-states. All this is timely, and an important read for opponents no less than for supporters of resurgent nationalism in Europe and the US.
The overarching thesis of the book is that the only real alternative to nationalism is imperialism. As Hazony lays out his argument that cosmopolitanism is a form of imperialism -- that it promotes a crushing and hateful response to expressions of national, religious and cultural distinction – open-minded readers unused to thinking outside the mainstream will surely feel some of their certainties become shaky and give way. It is not the accepted view among Western intellectuals that without strong national states, the world will sink into an enervating and intolerant uniformity, or a chaos of unrestrained tribal loyalties, but Hazony makes a very powerful case.
Beginning promptly in the introduction, Hazony drives toward paradigm shift. Since the end of the Cold War, he argues, a pitched battle has raged between liberal-imperialist and conservative-nationalist visions of politics. Globalism, according to Hazony, is just imperialism by another name. Seeking to neutralize the prejudice that nationalism is an agent of discord and hatred, Hazony boldly contends that “liberal-imperialist political ideals have become among the most powerful agents of hate in the Western world today.” He develops this explosive claim at length in the third and final part of the book: “Anti-Nationalism and Hate.”
Part one, “Nationalism and Western Freedom” begins with a history of national sovereignty in the West, a tradition drawing on the Hebrew Bible and crystalizing in what Hazony calls “the protestant construction of the West,” namely the order of national states enshrined in the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. This order, on which modern Western civilization rests, supplanted feudalism and the imperialism of Catholic Church. It was soon challenged in turn, perhaps unwittingly, by the doctrines of “universal rights” espoused by thinkers such as John Locke and J.J. Rousseau. Hazony thinks that these universalist doctrines -- visions of politics that ignore, downplay or suppress historical attachments and loyalties -- have now reached a critical point in their centuries-long divergence from national sovereignty: “as liberalism has detached itself from its biblical and Protestant origins, its non-nationalist character has become ever more pronounced.”
Readers familiar with Patrick Deneen’s “Why Liberalism Failed” will notice some similarities in the argument. But Hazony’s focus is the international order. The alternatives we face, he says, are a borderless “neo-Catholicism” of international law and unaccountable global bodies, a “neo-nationalism” in the spirit of Rousseau that is statist, repressive and anti-traditional, and finally Hazony’s preferred choice: the “conservative” or “traditionalist” approach to national sovereignty. Hazony’s does not conceal that he takes his bearings from the Hebrew Bible, the Protestant Reformation, and from his own attachment to Zionism, but the Hazony doctrine is meant to extract a wisdom that applies to all nations and at all times.
The bulk and essence of the book’s argument appears in part two -- “The Case for the National State.” Here Hazony takes an anvil to some prominent idols of Western political philosophy. The arguments are sometimes brilliant, sometimes idiosyncratic and curious, always stimulating. Political philosophy, he argues, should not take the already constituted state as a first principle and try to figure out how best to govern it. Instead it should begin with human nature and the causes of political order as such. Political order of any kind – familial, tribal, national or religious – requires that people identify themselves with the larger group. Family is the building block of social order, not due to biology but because of cultural inheritance and self-identification. Nevertheless, family clans are individually weak and collectively quarrelsome. “The state is born out of the relative weakness of the old order of tribes and clans,” and not, as the Enlightenment thinkers argued, from a ‘social contract’ or the ‘consent of the governed.’ The state is not a business enterprise, held together by calculable advantage, but a very large extended family. It becomes strong and prosperous, or collapses, for the same reasons families do.
What should a national state seek to accomplish? Hazony disagrees with Machiavelli: it should not seek to rule other nations or found an empire to ensure glory and longevity, as Rome did. It must navigate the between the extreme human possibilities – two dangerous siren calls – the anarchy of infinite localism and tribalism, and the empire of universal dominion. “Here, at the inflection point between anarchy and empire, we find a new ordering principle rooted in the moral order: the principle of national freedom.” National freedom takes “what is vital and constructive” in both anarchy and empire and moderates them. It removes the anarchy of war to “the periphery of human experience” as empire does, but provides meaningful attachments to others and the freedom of self-determination, like the anarchic order of tribes and clans.
The nation-state never can entirely escape its origins in clan and tribe: “There are no neutral states. What holds a free state together is the mutual loyalty of the members of the majority nation or tribe... every free state is, in other words, a national or tribal state.” Hazony’s thinking has a sharp realist aspect. Stable and free states, he thinks, require “a majority nation whose cultural dominance is plain and unquestioned, and against which resistance appears to be futile.” Free states therefore appear in Hazony’s telling as limited, organic small empires. This idea is likely to rub some readers the wrong way, but Hazony is persuasive: He does not call for the majority nation to impose its ways on national or religious minorities, but such minorities must have given up the hope of winning a civil war, or they must actually secede and exercise self-determination.
Does this imply an unlimited right to self-determination of all nations, tribes and clans? Hazony thinks not. He outlines a series of considerations statesmen should bring to bear on the decision whether to support a particular people’s quest for self-determination, and these are both prudential and moral: “moral considerations... tilt the decision-making balance one way or the other, without in any respect betraying the stateman’s responsibility to pursue the interests of [his] nation.” The argument is surely right as far as it goes and the principle applies in all situations, but this is in part because Hazony leaves the actual messy calculations out of the picture.
Hazony next proposes seven principles to govern “the order of national states,” reminiscent of Immanuel Kant’s articles of perpetual peace, and evidently designed to replace them. These principles are perhaps the least convincing part of the work. The second of these, the “non-interference in the internal affairs of other national states,” is actually also a Kantian article. Although Hazony limits this principle in the case of aggressive or imperial states, he opens himself up to the charge of adopting something of the utopianism of his rationalist-liberal-imperial opponents. If a state is potentially hostile, or simply internationally influential, why should another state not seek to weaken it politically, even without proof of active aggression? The assumption here appears to be that national states can and will reach a balance of power, enforced by shifting alliances of threatened states, so that no state will be able to grow overwhelmingly powerful. But perhaps Hazony takes the balance of power to arise from the doctrine of national freedom, rather than the doctrine of the national freedom forming under the conditions of a particular kind of balance of power. How, for example, might a nation state seeking to flourish independently operate under long shadow of a powerful regional empire? Hazony never says.
Similarly, the principle of “parsimony in the establishment of independent states” seeks to avoid the chaos of unlimited self-determination, and enjoins a consideration of benefits of annexation in certain cases, where the viability of existing national states would be threatened by partitioning a new state. But here, Hazony seems to forget that “parsimony” is more the principle of scientists than of nature. The variability of the abilities of struggling peoples to win national states through war, and again the variability in the abilities of existing states to provide aid to particular peoples, as well as the complexes of interests involved, moral and material -- all seem to militate against a neat, God’s eye view principle of parsimony. And where a nation-state lacks the power and influence to decisively affect a foreign struggle, might it not at certain times have an interest in preventing the struggle from spreading at the expense of the more virtuous side? Or, on the contrary, in prolonging a hopeless struggle at the expense of a vicious state? Neither of these policy options, well known to power politics, seems particularly parsimonious.
Perhaps the seven principles are best read as a first stab at the problem. They collectively outline an attitude of anti-imperialism, of concern and loyalty to one’s own nation, and of generosity toward other nations. The problems they fail to solve are just the permanent problems of living and operating in a complex international arena.
The final part of the book, “Anti-Nationalism and Hate” is likely to strike many readers as most exciting and controversial part of the work. Hazony makes a strong argument that the charge that nationalism promotes hatred and intolerance is based on a misunderstanding. He points out that German “National Socialism” was not nationalist, but openly imperial. He argues passionately and convincingly that much of the Western animus toward Israel is really animus toward the nation state as such. Some readers will object to the prominent role played by Israel in this part of the argument, but Hazony has hardly invented this prominence, he merely provides a highly plausible explanation for it.
So Hazony defines and denounces the enormous and destructive hypocrisy of Western liberalism’s attitude to Islam, Israel and the Third World. One chapter is called, “Why the Enormities of the Third World and Islam Go Unprotested.” The West’s forgiveness of non-Western imperialism and aggression -- particularly Islamic aggression -- is part of a delusion of having attained superior maturity, much as one forgives children their wild or erratic behavior because they can’t be expected to know better. Hazony does not directly address the declining power of Western world, which is a pity. But his warning should certainly be heeded: The West courts its own demise by taking itself to be beyond vulnerability, and too powerful to fail. And it misunderstands the non-Western world, when it assumes it just needs time, or the transfer of material resources, to ‘grow up’ and become liberal.
The essence of Hazony’s nationalism is anti-colonialist, but his argument is a stinging rebuke to the so-called “anti-colonialism” in the West that has mysteriously survived the end of Western colonialism, and lives now to excuse Russian, Chinese or Iranian expansionism, and to blame the West for non-Western atrocities.
“The Virtue of Nationalism” is the best book by a conservative on the world-order problem since Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations.” It is a more philosophical and moral work than Huntington’s, but it addresses many of the same problems, attacks the same crumbling hypocrisies, and warns of the same dangers. Friends and opponents of the nation-state alike should read this book; the first to deepen their understanding of what’s at stake, the latter to familiarize themselves with some of the enemy’s best arguments.
Hazony’s argument has points of weakness. The seven principles for a world order based on national states paint an attitude rather than outlining a viable policy, and these principle tacitly assume the continuation of a balance of power favoring Western states. The shifting power structure of the post-colonial world goes largely unaddressed. And the total assimilation of the idea of globalism to the idea of imperialism feels hasty and incomplete. An account of the technological shifts in communications and the role of multinational corporations would have been a welcome supplement to the excellent account of international law and transnational political bodies.
“The Virtue of Nationalism” is notwithstanding these shortcomings the most profound defense of nationalism by a conservative published so far in this young century of tectonic shifts. This book is the civilized right’s most philosophical and learned reply yet to post-national globalism. It begins with first principles, takes no shortcuts, and cuts to the core of every issue. As the existing paradigm crumbles before own eyes, Hazony provides the starting point for thinking about the coming world order.
(I received an advanced review copy of this book)
The overarching thesis of the book is that the only real alternative to nationalism is imperialism. As Hazony lays out his argument that cosmopolitanism is a form of imperialism -- that it promotes a crushing and hateful response to expressions of national, religious and cultural distinction – open-minded readers unused to thinking outside the mainstream will surely feel some of their certainties become shaky and give way. It is not the accepted view among Western intellectuals that without strong national states, the world will sink into an enervating and intolerant uniformity, or a chaos of unrestrained tribal loyalties, but Hazony makes a very powerful case.
Beginning promptly in the introduction, Hazony drives toward paradigm shift. Since the end of the Cold War, he argues, a pitched battle has raged between liberal-imperialist and conservative-nationalist visions of politics. Globalism, according to Hazony, is just imperialism by another name. Seeking to neutralize the prejudice that nationalism is an agent of discord and hatred, Hazony boldly contends that “liberal-imperialist political ideals have become among the most powerful agents of hate in the Western world today.” He develops this explosive claim at length in the third and final part of the book: “Anti-Nationalism and Hate.”
Part one, “Nationalism and Western Freedom” begins with a history of national sovereignty in the West, a tradition drawing on the Hebrew Bible and crystalizing in what Hazony calls “the protestant construction of the West,” namely the order of national states enshrined in the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. This order, on which modern Western civilization rests, supplanted feudalism and the imperialism of Catholic Church. It was soon challenged in turn, perhaps unwittingly, by the doctrines of “universal rights” espoused by thinkers such as John Locke and J.J. Rousseau. Hazony thinks that these universalist doctrines -- visions of politics that ignore, downplay or suppress historical attachments and loyalties -- have now reached a critical point in their centuries-long divergence from national sovereignty: “as liberalism has detached itself from its biblical and Protestant origins, its non-nationalist character has become ever more pronounced.”
Readers familiar with Patrick Deneen’s “Why Liberalism Failed” will notice some similarities in the argument. But Hazony’s focus is the international order. The alternatives we face, he says, are a borderless “neo-Catholicism” of international law and unaccountable global bodies, a “neo-nationalism” in the spirit of Rousseau that is statist, repressive and anti-traditional, and finally Hazony’s preferred choice: the “conservative” or “traditionalist” approach to national sovereignty. Hazony’s does not conceal that he takes his bearings from the Hebrew Bible, the Protestant Reformation, and from his own attachment to Zionism, but the Hazony doctrine is meant to extract a wisdom that applies to all nations and at all times.
The bulk and essence of the book’s argument appears in part two -- “The Case for the National State.” Here Hazony takes an anvil to some prominent idols of Western political philosophy. The arguments are sometimes brilliant, sometimes idiosyncratic and curious, always stimulating. Political philosophy, he argues, should not take the already constituted state as a first principle and try to figure out how best to govern it. Instead it should begin with human nature and the causes of political order as such. Political order of any kind – familial, tribal, national or religious – requires that people identify themselves with the larger group. Family is the building block of social order, not due to biology but because of cultural inheritance and self-identification. Nevertheless, family clans are individually weak and collectively quarrelsome. “The state is born out of the relative weakness of the old order of tribes and clans,” and not, as the Enlightenment thinkers argued, from a ‘social contract’ or the ‘consent of the governed.’ The state is not a business enterprise, held together by calculable advantage, but a very large extended family. It becomes strong and prosperous, or collapses, for the same reasons families do.
What should a national state seek to accomplish? Hazony disagrees with Machiavelli: it should not seek to rule other nations or found an empire to ensure glory and longevity, as Rome did. It must navigate the between the extreme human possibilities – two dangerous siren calls – the anarchy of infinite localism and tribalism, and the empire of universal dominion. “Here, at the inflection point between anarchy and empire, we find a new ordering principle rooted in the moral order: the principle of national freedom.” National freedom takes “what is vital and constructive” in both anarchy and empire and moderates them. It removes the anarchy of war to “the periphery of human experience” as empire does, but provides meaningful attachments to others and the freedom of self-determination, like the anarchic order of tribes and clans.
The nation-state never can entirely escape its origins in clan and tribe: “There are no neutral states. What holds a free state together is the mutual loyalty of the members of the majority nation or tribe... every free state is, in other words, a national or tribal state.” Hazony’s thinking has a sharp realist aspect. Stable and free states, he thinks, require “a majority nation whose cultural dominance is plain and unquestioned, and against which resistance appears to be futile.” Free states therefore appear in Hazony’s telling as limited, organic small empires. This idea is likely to rub some readers the wrong way, but Hazony is persuasive: He does not call for the majority nation to impose its ways on national or religious minorities, but such minorities must have given up the hope of winning a civil war, or they must actually secede and exercise self-determination.
Does this imply an unlimited right to self-determination of all nations, tribes and clans? Hazony thinks not. He outlines a series of considerations statesmen should bring to bear on the decision whether to support a particular people’s quest for self-determination, and these are both prudential and moral: “moral considerations... tilt the decision-making balance one way or the other, without in any respect betraying the stateman’s responsibility to pursue the interests of [his] nation.” The argument is surely right as far as it goes and the principle applies in all situations, but this is in part because Hazony leaves the actual messy calculations out of the picture.
Hazony next proposes seven principles to govern “the order of national states,” reminiscent of Immanuel Kant’s articles of perpetual peace, and evidently designed to replace them. These principles are perhaps the least convincing part of the work. The second of these, the “non-interference in the internal affairs of other national states,” is actually also a Kantian article. Although Hazony limits this principle in the case of aggressive or imperial states, he opens himself up to the charge of adopting something of the utopianism of his rationalist-liberal-imperial opponents. If a state is potentially hostile, or simply internationally influential, why should another state not seek to weaken it politically, even without proof of active aggression? The assumption here appears to be that national states can and will reach a balance of power, enforced by shifting alliances of threatened states, so that no state will be able to grow overwhelmingly powerful. But perhaps Hazony takes the balance of power to arise from the doctrine of national freedom, rather than the doctrine of the national freedom forming under the conditions of a particular kind of balance of power. How, for example, might a nation state seeking to flourish independently operate under long shadow of a powerful regional empire? Hazony never says.
Similarly, the principle of “parsimony in the establishment of independent states” seeks to avoid the chaos of unlimited self-determination, and enjoins a consideration of benefits of annexation in certain cases, where the viability of existing national states would be threatened by partitioning a new state. But here, Hazony seems to forget that “parsimony” is more the principle of scientists than of nature. The variability of the abilities of struggling peoples to win national states through war, and again the variability in the abilities of existing states to provide aid to particular peoples, as well as the complexes of interests involved, moral and material -- all seem to militate against a neat, God’s eye view principle of parsimony. And where a nation-state lacks the power and influence to decisively affect a foreign struggle, might it not at certain times have an interest in preventing the struggle from spreading at the expense of the more virtuous side? Or, on the contrary, in prolonging a hopeless struggle at the expense of a vicious state? Neither of these policy options, well known to power politics, seems particularly parsimonious.
Perhaps the seven principles are best read as a first stab at the problem. They collectively outline an attitude of anti-imperialism, of concern and loyalty to one’s own nation, and of generosity toward other nations. The problems they fail to solve are just the permanent problems of living and operating in a complex international arena.
The final part of the book, “Anti-Nationalism and Hate” is likely to strike many readers as most exciting and controversial part of the work. Hazony makes a strong argument that the charge that nationalism promotes hatred and intolerance is based on a misunderstanding. He points out that German “National Socialism” was not nationalist, but openly imperial. He argues passionately and convincingly that much of the Western animus toward Israel is really animus toward the nation state as such. Some readers will object to the prominent role played by Israel in this part of the argument, but Hazony has hardly invented this prominence, he merely provides a highly plausible explanation for it.
So Hazony defines and denounces the enormous and destructive hypocrisy of Western liberalism’s attitude to Islam, Israel and the Third World. One chapter is called, “Why the Enormities of the Third World and Islam Go Unprotested.” The West’s forgiveness of non-Western imperialism and aggression -- particularly Islamic aggression -- is part of a delusion of having attained superior maturity, much as one forgives children their wild or erratic behavior because they can’t be expected to know better. Hazony does not directly address the declining power of Western world, which is a pity. But his warning should certainly be heeded: The West courts its own demise by taking itself to be beyond vulnerability, and too powerful to fail. And it misunderstands the non-Western world, when it assumes it just needs time, or the transfer of material resources, to ‘grow up’ and become liberal.
The essence of Hazony’s nationalism is anti-colonialist, but his argument is a stinging rebuke to the so-called “anti-colonialism” in the West that has mysteriously survived the end of Western colonialism, and lives now to excuse Russian, Chinese or Iranian expansionism, and to blame the West for non-Western atrocities.
“The Virtue of Nationalism” is the best book by a conservative on the world-order problem since Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations.” It is a more philosophical and moral work than Huntington’s, but it addresses many of the same problems, attacks the same crumbling hypocrisies, and warns of the same dangers. Friends and opponents of the nation-state alike should read this book; the first to deepen their understanding of what’s at stake, the latter to familiarize themselves with some of the enemy’s best arguments.
Hazony’s argument has points of weakness. The seven principles for a world order based on national states paint an attitude rather than outlining a viable policy, and these principle tacitly assume the continuation of a balance of power favoring Western states. The shifting power structure of the post-colonial world goes largely unaddressed. And the total assimilation of the idea of globalism to the idea of imperialism feels hasty and incomplete. An account of the technological shifts in communications and the role of multinational corporations would have been a welcome supplement to the excellent account of international law and transnational political bodies.
“The Virtue of Nationalism” is notwithstanding these shortcomings the most profound defense of nationalism by a conservative published so far in this young century of tectonic shifts. This book is the civilized right’s most philosophical and learned reply yet to post-national globalism. It begins with first principles, takes no shortcuts, and cuts to the core of every issue. As the existing paradigm crumbles before own eyes, Hazony provides the starting point for thinking about the coming world order.
(I received an advanced review copy of this book)
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Top reviews from other countries
Martin Land
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book needs to be read and digested by all in the west.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 28, 2018Verified Purchase
This book is so important i can hardly express. It really goes profoundly to the ideological roots of the creeping totalitarianism in the vestigial nations of the west. Hazony clearly shows the true nature and uncovers the euphemised roots of the present imperialism of , primarily, the 4th Reich misnamed as the EU.
This should be seriously studied discussed and debated by all those arguing for classical liberalism or conservative centrism or even fact-based social liberalism (you know, those demonised as far-right by the absolutist imperialists,be they far left or bureaucratic corporatist globalists).
So many of the points and arguments he elucidates i have been struggling to formulate and express over the last couple of years. He addresses clearly and lays out the battleground that will see the west either battered but free and restored , or a despised memory in the imperial demonology of an increasingly barbarous and absolutist imperial regime.
Only developing these ideas and defending them to the hilt, and applying them with vigour will allow free societies to survive the current threats.
This should be seriously studied discussed and debated by all those arguing for classical liberalism or conservative centrism or even fact-based social liberalism (you know, those demonised as far-right by the absolutist imperialists,be they far left or bureaucratic corporatist globalists).
So many of the points and arguments he elucidates i have been struggling to formulate and express over the last couple of years. He addresses clearly and lays out the battleground that will see the west either battered but free and restored , or a despised memory in the imperial demonology of an increasingly barbarous and absolutist imperial regime.
Only developing these ideas and defending them to the hilt, and applying them with vigour will allow free societies to survive the current threats.
24 people found this helpful
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William Cohen
3.0 out of 5 stars
Nation states are the way to go, because the Hebrew Bible tells me so
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 14, 2018Verified Purchase
I know Yoram Hazony as the funny Jewish guy who wrote an inspiring book about how shepherds make great entrepreneurs. I picked up this book thinking it was going to be murkier subject matter - and I was right. As a pro-EU Brit, living through a political disaster, I don't want to hear an apologist for the dark forces of nationalism that (I feel) have poisoned our body politic.
But from a spiritual point of view I get it. The Hebrew Bible is against dependency. We are born into the world to go it alone with God. And not give our power up to multinational corporations, Governments or supranational empires. Biblical Israel is an inspiring model for this.
But to say that to be pro-EU is to be against Israel strikes me as paranoid. I've never been to Israel, I know hardly anything about the country apart from what my mother told me as a child, that the Jews needed Israel because of the terrible things that happened in the Second World War. I'm in total agreement with that. Israel is not a European country, and I don't agree that the EU wants to dominate the world as an imperial power. Yes it wants federal powers, but I don't think my ability to be British has been inhibited by our membership of the European Union.
Yoram has a point that the EU, which is dominated by the Germans, will try to impose values on weaker states. Angela Merkel's former speechwriter has some great observations about this. He said that half of Europe wants to get out of bed in the morning and make a success of their lives, the other half does not. The work ethic is very different. The French and the Germans have an efficient bureaucracy, the Greeks do not. That means there's anarchy in Greece. It's not really a functioning state. In fact, hardly any of the EU members have functioned well as states over the past century.
The Greeks and British want to leave? This is fine. The Greeks have to give up the Euro and the Brits have to give up their privileged trading status. They have to become more like Israel - a country that has to struggle to survive. We have to take the path that Moses led when he took slaves out of a dictatorship.
But that's not how it feels to be living in the UK in 2018.
The decision in Britain was not taken by a party elected within the Parliamentary system, it was made on the basis of a referendum. It was not part of a political vision spelt out in a party manifesto, it was agreed to because the Prime Minister wanted to neutralise a faction within his own party. I was in the polling booth on referendum day, and there were some very strange people there - the kind of people who never normally vote.
So it doesn't feel to me like a deep and genuine yearning for freedom. Maybe the referendum result was God's Providence. Does Britain want to spend the next 40 years wandering through the wilderness? Is Jacob Rees-Mogg our Moses?
Yoram gives a lot of credence to the ideas of Immanuel Kant - I'm not sure he's a big figure in EU thinking. He also has to admit that some states don't work (and maybe an independent Britain will be unable to feed herself). And Yoram admits, nation states throw up some pretty repugnant characters and behaviour.
The British founded an empire on the basis that they replaced the Jews as God's chosen people. That's okay, but history tells us that meant they had a right to smite other peoples. It's all in the Queen's Coronation oaths. Presumably we're going to have to get that right back and build up our armed forces again.
I'm glad that this book reminds me of first spiritual principles. Though very troubled by how the British are going to deal with their new found independence.
But from a spiritual point of view I get it. The Hebrew Bible is against dependency. We are born into the world to go it alone with God. And not give our power up to multinational corporations, Governments or supranational empires. Biblical Israel is an inspiring model for this.
But to say that to be pro-EU is to be against Israel strikes me as paranoid. I've never been to Israel, I know hardly anything about the country apart from what my mother told me as a child, that the Jews needed Israel because of the terrible things that happened in the Second World War. I'm in total agreement with that. Israel is not a European country, and I don't agree that the EU wants to dominate the world as an imperial power. Yes it wants federal powers, but I don't think my ability to be British has been inhibited by our membership of the European Union.
Yoram has a point that the EU, which is dominated by the Germans, will try to impose values on weaker states. Angela Merkel's former speechwriter has some great observations about this. He said that half of Europe wants to get out of bed in the morning and make a success of their lives, the other half does not. The work ethic is very different. The French and the Germans have an efficient bureaucracy, the Greeks do not. That means there's anarchy in Greece. It's not really a functioning state. In fact, hardly any of the EU members have functioned well as states over the past century.
The Greeks and British want to leave? This is fine. The Greeks have to give up the Euro and the Brits have to give up their privileged trading status. They have to become more like Israel - a country that has to struggle to survive. We have to take the path that Moses led when he took slaves out of a dictatorship.
But that's not how it feels to be living in the UK in 2018.
The decision in Britain was not taken by a party elected within the Parliamentary system, it was made on the basis of a referendum. It was not part of a political vision spelt out in a party manifesto, it was agreed to because the Prime Minister wanted to neutralise a faction within his own party. I was in the polling booth on referendum day, and there were some very strange people there - the kind of people who never normally vote.
So it doesn't feel to me like a deep and genuine yearning for freedom. Maybe the referendum result was God's Providence. Does Britain want to spend the next 40 years wandering through the wilderness? Is Jacob Rees-Mogg our Moses?
Yoram gives a lot of credence to the ideas of Immanuel Kant - I'm not sure he's a big figure in EU thinking. He also has to admit that some states don't work (and maybe an independent Britain will be unable to feed herself). And Yoram admits, nation states throw up some pretty repugnant characters and behaviour.
The British founded an empire on the basis that they replaced the Jews as God's chosen people. That's okay, but history tells us that meant they had a right to smite other peoples. It's all in the Queen's Coronation oaths. Presumably we're going to have to get that right back and build up our armed forces again.
I'm glad that this book reminds me of first spiritual principles. Though very troubled by how the British are going to deal with their new found independence.
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Amazon Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good at the start, but it feels flawed by the end, but worth a read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 28, 2019Verified Purchase
At first I warmed to this book and wanted to agree with it. It presents a useful framework of states being on a continuum between anarchy and empire - with nation states in the middle - an presented as the ideal. However, the theory that Hazony puts forward is so rigid, with so little reference to real life examples, that it falls down.
Towards the end of the book, it felt like more of a polemic against the modern world, without a solution for how to change things, and while it advocated self-determination also suggested that few, if any, other nations could legitimately do so. It sometimes felt as if he was advocating a return to inter-war borders, plus Israel.
As a book promoting nationalism in a positive light, I really tried to like this book, to challenge some of my own beliefs and concerns about nationalism, especially in the current climate in Europe and the USA, but I feel like this book failed to do so. Still, if you can read a copy, do so, but perhaps only focus on the first few chapters.
Towards the end of the book, it felt like more of a polemic against the modern world, without a solution for how to change things, and while it advocated self-determination also suggested that few, if any, other nations could legitimately do so. It sometimes felt as if he was advocating a return to inter-war borders, plus Israel.
As a book promoting nationalism in a positive light, I really tried to like this book, to challenge some of my own beliefs and concerns about nationalism, especially in the current climate in Europe and the USA, but I feel like this book failed to do so. Still, if you can read a copy, do so, but perhaps only focus on the first few chapters.
8 people found this helpful
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J. Hill
4.0 out of 5 stars
First Rate and thought-provoking
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 5, 2018Verified Purchase
This is a book excellently written and excellently argued. It is a book that challenges many of our assumptions about the world and about different forms of society. While I was far from convinced by all of the author's arguments, and found them here and there lacking, I did find myself very much challenged by them and compelled to think hard if I was to defend my own viewpoints. Particularly impressive is Hazony's sincere efforts to avoid being partisan with regard to the arguments so often presented against Israel, and his efforts to understand the point of view of those who oppose his country. If you are only interested in writing that supports your own views, forget it. If, on the other hand, you want to grow in understanding of the world we live in, then read it.
6 people found this helpful
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TheReviewer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent. 5 stars as I cannot give it more. A concept shifting must read.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 25, 2020Verified Purchase
Ok the bad.
It can get repetitious but as he is explaining a now alien concept - pro nationalism - in plain english, that might be for the best.
It's very pro Jewish and often a little insulting. To state the world did nothing as Hitler, Stalin etc went mad is very unfair. Millions of others died fighting these imperialist nasties. Hundreds of billions spent and massive destruction was caused fighting these evil believers and thier political visions of a new global order.
His idea that Israel is disliked by the modern trend of globalist liberal communism in the West is valid to an extent. Israel follows it's own path and, he claims, is hated for it. The fact that Jews in Hollywood, Mass Media, Education and Banking - where they are highly over represented express these views and opt for globalist multicultural socialism is a matter he ignores. Jews acting international when it suits but being very national when it doesn't also does not go unnoticed. An international cake and eat it opposed to, this is our Israel cake only we can eat it is going to grate with many.
The good.
It is excellent. A real kick in the teeth to globalisation / imperialism and its intolerance / hate with the all to inevitable results - Stalin, Moa, Leopold, Hitler etc etc etc. That nationalism of an inward concentrating but good neighboring nation offers so much more diversity and stability/peace.
He writes in plain English but has produced quality work any politically minded person could use to ground his position as an effective opposition to today's modern liberal, globalist left without resorting to, or allowing themselves to be called racist, bigot, nazi, etc etc. Indeed it will let you effectively turn the table with a few home truths for the Woke / Politically correct liberal beings.
Should be read by actual racists - they could learn the game not the player is the concept you need to adapt to. Should also be read by the arrogant global elites who need to learn it is the player not your snobby arrogant delusion to theory that deserves respect.
I hope he writes another book being more specific centering around a world of free nations lacking serious so called multiculturalism - the internal peace and diversity this would mostly cause. A world free of the needless globalisation and mass immigration, the environmental and physical conflict it causes.
Expressing a love of nation and the peaceful diversity, it, not globalisation can create.
Best book I have read in many, many years for its sheer concept altering elegance - 5 stars because I cannot give it more.
P.S. I have read rebuttals to this book and they basically argue the author is misguide and imperialism built nations and the same imperialism could continue to build an even increasing global union. This is a weak rebuttal. The author does explain that a certain level of trust, racial, religious, language, political etc outlook does lead to a nation level unity but to much diversity will not. Indeed it will often lead to something much worse. His short explanation holds very true on first and upon deeper examination. A large majority sharing most, not all, common features, often tolerate smaller minorities contained within its boarders is the stability that endures in nations or causes them to collapse. Trying to unite millions of people of different races, languages, religions etc, etc into 1 nation without a dominating majority group and outlook has never worked in any long term scenario.
It can get repetitious but as he is explaining a now alien concept - pro nationalism - in plain english, that might be for the best.
It's very pro Jewish and often a little insulting. To state the world did nothing as Hitler, Stalin etc went mad is very unfair. Millions of others died fighting these imperialist nasties. Hundreds of billions spent and massive destruction was caused fighting these evil believers and thier political visions of a new global order.
His idea that Israel is disliked by the modern trend of globalist liberal communism in the West is valid to an extent. Israel follows it's own path and, he claims, is hated for it. The fact that Jews in Hollywood, Mass Media, Education and Banking - where they are highly over represented express these views and opt for globalist multicultural socialism is a matter he ignores. Jews acting international when it suits but being very national when it doesn't also does not go unnoticed. An international cake and eat it opposed to, this is our Israel cake only we can eat it is going to grate with many.
The good.
It is excellent. A real kick in the teeth to globalisation / imperialism and its intolerance / hate with the all to inevitable results - Stalin, Moa, Leopold, Hitler etc etc etc. That nationalism of an inward concentrating but good neighboring nation offers so much more diversity and stability/peace.
He writes in plain English but has produced quality work any politically minded person could use to ground his position as an effective opposition to today's modern liberal, globalist left without resorting to, or allowing themselves to be called racist, bigot, nazi, etc etc. Indeed it will let you effectively turn the table with a few home truths for the Woke / Politically correct liberal beings.
Should be read by actual racists - they could learn the game not the player is the concept you need to adapt to. Should also be read by the arrogant global elites who need to learn it is the player not your snobby arrogant delusion to theory that deserves respect.
I hope he writes another book being more specific centering around a world of free nations lacking serious so called multiculturalism - the internal peace and diversity this would mostly cause. A world free of the needless globalisation and mass immigration, the environmental and physical conflict it causes.
Expressing a love of nation and the peaceful diversity, it, not globalisation can create.
Best book I have read in many, many years for its sheer concept altering elegance - 5 stars because I cannot give it more.
P.S. I have read rebuttals to this book and they basically argue the author is misguide and imperialism built nations and the same imperialism could continue to build an even increasing global union. This is a weak rebuttal. The author does explain that a certain level of trust, racial, religious, language, political etc outlook does lead to a nation level unity but to much diversity will not. Indeed it will often lead to something much worse. His short explanation holds very true on first and upon deeper examination. A large majority sharing most, not all, common features, often tolerate smaller minorities contained within its boarders is the stability that endures in nations or causes them to collapse. Trying to unite millions of people of different races, languages, religions etc, etc into 1 nation without a dominating majority group and outlook has never worked in any long term scenario.
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