Artifact Two (First Essay)

Ignatieff, Michael. Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994.

I am currently reading (on p. 75) Ignatieff's Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism, which questions social identity from the view of a self-proclaimed, and rightly proclaimed, cosmopolitan. His viewpoint I respect, more than those of other researchers or theorists, primarily because he doesn't use abstraction or statistical analysis to explain phenomena. In addition, he was a Harvard poli sci professor and recently lost the Liberal Party leadership convention in Canada. His political activism may bias his opinions, but in most matters it shouldn't... as he was not in politics during the time he wrote his book.

Ignatieff's opinions were probably divergent from public opinion in 1993: the wall was down, the blocs were gone, and so was the iron curtain... But Ignatieff was especially cautious, if not pessimistic. If the Quod volunt credunt rule [men will believe what they wish to believe] applies, the optimism that permeated in the west was a self-infatuation, that Democracy was king regnant and had liberated the world. For "Nationalism" has become the rule in many parts of the world.

Ignatieff went to six different places which demonstrated strong nationalist movements: the Former Yugoslavia (Croatia and Serbia), Germany, Ukraine, Quebec, Kurdistan and Northern Ireland. I have read up to the end of the "journey to Croatia and Serbia" and am starting on his analysis of post-reunification Germany (Bonn was still the capital).

His definition of Cultural identity, and the basis of Nationalism, his definition to the latter being a total devotion to the Nation, I agree completely. He quoted Isiah Berlin: "[when I am among my own people], they understand me, as I understand them; and this understanding creates within me a sense of being somebody in the world." Kudos to him. Perfectly said. Now I have someone to back me up when I say I feel the same way (but why should I need to? Because of social limitations on the individual and fear of censure -- am I someone in the world?).

He also justified the development of ethnic nationalism in the Balkans: if you don't know who to trust, trust only those of your own blood. This bring forth the question: why? I think it is because there are no liaisons, nor bond of fealty, nor any deep common tie with which to bind each other amongst men of different nations; whereas with people of your own heritage, you each share a same past, and from that, you hope for the same future, with the survival and prosperity of the nation firmly set in stone.

Which tells me -- indirectly -- that ethnocentrism is caused by a lack of similarity with the other. By this I assume that ethnocentrism is bad, that it is caused by ignorance, that it is the root of xenophobia, that it is provincial. But that is ethnocentric to my own identity as a cosmopolitan, a social democrat, a proponent of social justice and equality: bias... in short.

So, I will continue to ride alongside this man and see where he has gone. His concepts on Germanocentrism are not yet comprehensible... He has clarified not what nationalism is but its causes (from a scenario). I will use it to further on the research... before the question was what? now why? and later, it will be... so what (to do, if anything)?

Questions
-If the cause of ethnocentrism is to be ignorance, will knowledge and its dissemination lower ethnocentrism?
-If the cause is not ignorance, then it may be lack of links. What constitutes these social bonds?
-What is better: promiscurity or provincialism?