Om du följer samhällsdebatten, då har du säkert hört talas om Yoram Hazonys nya bok The Virtue of Nationalism. Jag har inte läst den och har just nu ingen tid (eller lust) att läsa den. Lyckligtvis har ARIs Elan Journo läst boken och enligt honom är Hazonys nationalism (tvärtemot vad författaren säger) fundamentalt oförenligt med principen om individens frihet. Om Journo har rätt, då är det svårt att se vad som är så himla bra med nationalismen. Ett utdrag:

Hazony offers his narrow, unambitious conception of nationalism as the basis for a peaceful, stable political world order, but in fact it unavoidably sets the stage for conflict. His argument depends on an underlying philosophic view that pushes aside the crucial faculty — reason — that makes peaceful coexistence possible.

One inheritance from the Age of Enlightenment is the recognition in political thought of the individual as a rational being. It is reason that enables people to reach objective truth, grounded in observable fact, which everyone can come to recognize. That’s what enables us to communicate ideas and resolve disagreements through persuasion, rather than physical force. The principle of individual rights — itself a universal truth — is a recognition that each of us is a rational being and must be left free to set our own path in life according to our own best judgment. Politically, this principle endorses only persuasion as the means of resolving disputes and it bars the initiation of force from human life.

But Hazony repudiates this Enlightenment view of individuals as sovereign and capable of using reason to attain truths about the world. Instead, he writes, “no human being, and no group of human beings, possesses the necessary powers of reason and the necessary knowledge to dictate the political constitution that is appropriate for all mankind.” For him, it’s a mistake to think of the principle of individual rights as a universal political truth. It is rather a “cultural inheritance of certain tribes and nations.”

Ni kan nog se vart detta är på väg, men jag rekommenderar er ändå att läsa hela artikeln här.