I am glad that some libertarians are dealing with Yoram Hazony’s The Virtue of Nationalism. It is a book that is shaping conservative thinking and ought to be addressed thouroughly. I’ve reviewed it for the Cato Journal and dealt with it on this blog too (here, here and here). Alex Nowrasteh has written a powerful post here. More recently Akiva Malamet has published an interesting critique, on Libertarianism.org.
Malamet doesn’t wear velvet gloves, as he states:
Hazony’s work does not perform this task and instead adds further confusion. Ultimately, he defends propositions that, if taken to their conclusion, imply denying that individuals have any kind of meaningful autonomy, excusing state violence, and legitimizing gross violations of human rights. Hazony encourages us to lean more heavily into our tribal and authoritarian instincts—instincts which have served to fuel centuries of violent conflict and sustain oppressive social orders. Finally, he radically oversimplifies Jewish tradition, misrepresenting a complex faith with competing values of both universalism and particularism.
I think Malamet performs a particularly useful service by focusing on this latter element. Can “nationalism” – which is a modern ideology, that serves the interests and purpose of the modern nation-state – be seen as consistent with a political interpretation of the Old Testament? Malamet answers in the negative:
Hazony omits those aspects of the Hebrew Bible (and, I would say, the Jewish tradition broadly) that complicate his story. The idea that human beings are created in God’s image, what Jews call “tzelem elohim” (for Christians the “imago dei”) and that therefore our moral obligations extend to everyone, is the missing half of a core religious dialectic: It is important that the Hebrew Bible talks not only about Jews as God’s chosen people, but also of the Jewish obligation to welcome strangers and outsiders. While Judaism does not proselytize, Jews are also obligated to be an “or l’goyim”—a “light unto the nations.” Later texts—including the Talmud and the works of philosophers such as Maimonides—spend extensive time debating the appropriate range and degree of universalism vs. particularism. No accurate account of the Bible or of Judaism can be had without including both elements.
Hazony also fails to show why moral obligations must depend on their establishment in and by groups. He argues that “rationalist” moral theory is too dependent on abstract ideas without real world grounding—for Hazony, morality only exists in contexts. However, Hazony does not account for what is a significant is-ought problem. The fact that we first learn morality in specific places does not show we ought to see moral duties as only grounded by those environments. … I can apply my reason to my moral sense and extend the range of my ethical concern. In this way, I can abstract from my context and ground my understanding of what I owe to others. Indeed, the Bible itself makes this point, when God tells the Israelites in Exodus 23:9 (my emphasis): “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the soul of the stranger, as you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
I recommend you read the whole thing.
READER COMMENTS
Roger McKinney
Aug 2 2019 at 10:13am
I have written on this, too, here:
https://finance.townhall.com/columnists/rogermckinney/2019/07/29/new-national-conservatism-is-old-mercantilism-n2550770
Hazony gets the constitution of ancient Israel wrong. To begin with, the phrase “image of God” has little to do with what rabbis and theologians have claimed over the centuries. According to archeologists, in Moses’ day it was a sign of authority. Kings would send representatives “in his image,” in other words, with his authority, to conduct business. Kings and pharaohs were called the “image of god” meaning they represented that god with all of his authority. So when Moses uses the phrase he means that God has given mankind his authority over the planet, or to have dominion over it. It also suggests that no man has the authority to rule over another because we all share God’s authority equally.
The constitution of ancient Israel in the Torah was designed by God. It was the complete opposite of the Egyptian state that Moses had learned in the school of the Pharaohs. It had no human executive or legislature. No one could invent laws. God had given Israel just 613 laws, most of which applied to religious ceremony or moral issues that the courts did not adjudicate. The only governmental institution Israel had were courts. It had not taxes to support a state, but a 10% voluntary tithe that went to support the Tabernacle, priests and some poor. The courts did not enforce the moral or poor laws but left that to God. Choosing a king after 400 years was a regression in every way and 1 Sam 8 tells us it made God very angry. It also led to civil war because Solomon had levied very heavy taxes.
I provide the details and my sources in my book God is a Capitalist: Markets from Moses to Marx available on Amazon.
Mark
Aug 2 2019 at 10:45pm
The linked article is excellent. Hazony’s bifurcation of nationalism and imperialism is ahistorical—empires grow out of the nationalist desire to acquire more resources for one’s nation; the stuff about universal morality is usually grafted on later to justify the conquest.
Moreover, the difference between an ethnically homogenous “nation” and an ethnically diverse “empire” is often that the nation was more successful at eradicating the original people living on the conquered land. For example, Hazony celebrates the ancient Israelites as a paragon of nationalism, but according to their own tradition, they conquered Canaan and slaughtered all the Canaanites. I wonder—if the Nazis had slaughtered all the natives of Poland, and then resettled Poland with an ethnically pure German population, would Hazony consider that new Greater Germany a shining example of nationalism?
Weir
Aug 4 2019 at 4:33am
Malamet: “Conceiving of the nation as a family is a fallacy discussed extensively by F.A Hayek in The Fatal Conceit. For Hayek, seeing nations and states as familial is a product of our minds’ insufficient adaptation to the size, complexity, and diversity of the modern world. We are still using instincts which evolved during humanity’s struggle to survive in prehistory. In that setting, group co-dependence was essential, and we knew only fellow members of our tribe or band. This is no longer the case. Continuing to rely on such instincts dangerously misapplies the logic of the ‘intimate order’–the family and the tribe–to the ‘extended order’–modern states and global market systems. It threatens the social cooperation and prosperity we have gained in the transition to modernity.”
We’re only human, which is why it’s so surprising that we have gained prosperity and social cooperation in the transition to modernity. “We are still using instincts which evolved during humanity’s struggle to survive in prehistory.” Humans used those instincts to gain social cooperation and prosperity.
All that prosperity and social cooperation wasn’t gained by something more rational than a human being. Humans see nations and states as familial, and humans used those instincts to gain social cooperation and prosperity.
Continuing to rely on such instincts is dangerous, but is it more dangerous than the alternative? To think that humans are now more rational than humans?
We are what we are, so maybe what threatens the social cooperation and prosperity we have gained is a conceited and hubristic idea of having become more than human? The conceit of having ascended to purely logical and rationalistic U maximizers? Perfectly adapted to the size, complexity, and diversity of the modern world?
Modern states are nation states. But start from zero, today, with the slate wiped clean, and try gaining prosperity and social cooperation when you’ve replaced them with “tribal states” or “identity politics states” or “Twitter mob states” instead.
Humans, tainted by old and outdated instincts, saw nations and states as familial. Henceforth the state will be a giant campus instead. And would that state be rational? Do people become more rational on Twitter?
Malamet: “Nationalism relies on a sense of pride in being a member of a certain group, as opposed to that of any other. Not because of the contributions that my group may make to humanity, but simply because I happen to be a member. Thus, nationalism encourages enmity between societies, almost by definition.”
Swap in the word “tribalism” where it says “nationalism” and swap in “within societies” for “between societies” and you’ve described a less prosperous and less modern state. In other words, the future.
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