‘Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism,’ French president Emmanuel Macron said at last weekend’s Armistice Day ceremonies. ‘Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. In saying ‘our interests first, whatever happens to the others,’ you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: its moral values.’
You’d have to be a philosopher to make sense of that. My guest this week on The Green Room, Spectator USA’s Life & Arts podcast, is one: I’m casting the pod with the Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony, an expert on the philosophies of both religion and politics.
Is nationalism, in Macron’s words, an ancient and modern cause of the ‘old demons’ of history? Or, as Hazony argues in his latest book, The Virtue of Nationalism, is the nation state the best way to preserve law and liberty?
The usual answer to this question is to dodge it, by declaring that nationalism is bad but patriotism is good.
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