The Two Turnings Of Nationalism Since 19th Century

Since modern times,China has faced a historical task of transforming from a traditional society to a modern society.Beset by external and internal affairs,Western thought,which China tried to emulate,is in a state of chaos and even deterioration.The elements of modern politics include a perfect constitutional system,a fair and independent judicial system,a broad representative system,and a political and cultural system that supports this system.It is the result of the political evolution of modern Western countries.The time for China to study Western ideas on a large scale is at the end of the 19th century,but at this time,whether the mainstream social thoughts,political ideas and even theories of Western countries can explain the causes of modern political systems and contribute to the construction of modern countries or not is a question.Nationalism,as the fastest growing,the most widespread and the most far-reaching political theory and social thought in the 19th century,combined with rich and diverse political values and theories in different countries,produced different even contradictory ideological theories and political demands.and it also had different influence on the political practices of different western countries.Especially for the modern state construction of the late-developing countries,it had far-reaching influence on the nationalist-related ideas.The development,maturity and even variation of nationalist theory fully demonstrate the complexity and transformation of Western learning at this era.In a word,in the 19th century,nationalism experienced a transition from a free,universal,humanity to a special,exclusive,and competitive direction.Through the integration of social Darwinism,racism,nationalism and other thoughts,nationalism carry many negative theories that advocate violence and deconstruction,which shaped the world view of Westerners and even modern Chinese,and brought a huge difficulty on peaceful development of international relations and the modern construction of the late-developing countries.This paper takes the development of nationalism as the research object,and takes the construction process of the modern nation-state in the West as a reference,sorts out the two changes of nationalism in the 19th century-the shifts to the social Darwinism and the Statism,and sums up the shifts' influences on the thoughts and political fields of late-developing countries.The introductory part of this paper explains the reasons for the topic selection and the value of the problem,and sorts out the research situation of nationalism.There is an inseparable relationship between nationalism and modernity,and it has always been an important ideological resource and theoretical basis for a series of political reforms and social movements since modern times in China,but the complexity of nationalist theory itself and various ideologies' complex relationship brought various contradictions when people were in dealing with ethnic issues and the construction of modern countries Therefore,from the standpoint of China,the two shifts of nationalism in the 19th century,from the perspective of the history of thought,provides a perspective for us to rethink Western modern political thoughts,and it is also the core research value of this paper.The second chapter of the paper reviews the three attributes of the early nationalist ideas,which are related to the political practices of the three nation states:Britain,France,Germany.It is in different cultural traditions that nationalist ideology reveals its three core elements.and the three core elements also constitute the basics of the long-lasting nationalist ideology and theory.These three elements dominate the three types of nationalism:liberal nationalism,civic nationalism and cultural nationalism.The construction of the earliest nation-state,the modern state of Britain,is the most solid factual basis for the formation of liberal nationalism.The historical construction and political characteristics of the UK constitute the roots for other countries to learn and emulate.France and Germany were inspired by the United Kingdom,pursuing national freedom,and based on liberal ideas,developed civic nationalism and cultural nationalism separately.The nationalist ideas of the three major European countries,including Britain,France and Germany owned common ideological characteristics before the 19th century,and the characteristics contained the humanitarianism,liberalism,rationalism and cosmopolitanism.In the face of French aggression and the fragmented territory,German thinkers who were influenced by romanticism embarked on a nationalist road which was against enlightenment.in the process of reunification of the modem nation-state,German nationalism experienced a transition from cultural nationalism to political nationalism and realized the shift of Nationalism to Statism.Therefore,the third chapter focuses on the shift of nationalism to Statism in the 19th century.The route of the German nation-state's Statism is related to the historical state of its own division.German nationalists are usually also statists.They advocate that the state leads political life and the state is the sole carrier of individual and national mission.only in the country can individual freedom be realized.individual freedom and national mission are consistent with the absolute spirit of freedom.The state occupies a central position in German nationalist ideology.The core of German nationalism in the 19th century is the historicists'arguments on the national and national ethical attributes.This chapter reviews the development background,status,and role of the German historicists school in the process of German unification.The historicists oppose the natural law and natural rights,and agree with Hegel's thoughts on the morality of the state.They generally believe that political power(state)is the core of historical development and the core of historical research.They inherited the traditions of Kant and Fichte,abstracted the country as the carrier of civilization and order,and handed over the burden of order and civilization development to the state,thus laying a philosophical foundation for the development of nationalism.The historicists place the country conflicts at the center of research,disregard individual rights and freedoms,and interact with German politics closely,which led to the ups and downs of modern German democracy.However,in this context,the state owns the ethical values,and the abstract state has gained supremacy.Under the banner of the nation-state,it quickly gathers the loyalty and dedication of the people,which leads to cater to the political enthusiasm of the mass and promote the consolidation of national community.Compared with Britain and France,the Germany's national nationalism are more attractive to the latecomers.The fourth chapter of this paper put the research in the social environment and ideological background of the 19th century Britain.Under the influence of the development of liberalism,the core issues of nationality,state,society,individual and their interactive relationships have also changed accordingly.The practice of the utilitarian movement made the foundation of liberalism change greatly in the 19th century.The wonderful combination of utilitarian philosophy and social organism theory has produced social Darwinism.Its thoughts and practices have made "social evolution" and "natural selection" into the nationalist discourse.Social Darwinism has spread rapidly,and the mainstream liberal Americanism has completed the transition to social Darwinism.The core of nationalist theory gets a transition from the free right to dynamism.It advocates opposing governm ent intervention in the nation-state,divests the government's moral attributes,and limits government's functions to providing a fair competition order,and advocates to abandon to help the vulnerable groups,and support to achieve the "progress" of society as a whole and individuals by encouraging citizens to compete in an all-round way.At this level,liberalism has stood on the side of socialDarwinism by giving up the classical humanitarianism and demonstrating individual freedom through utilitarianism.in the international society formed by the nation-state,the ethnic groups are unequal.The various ethnic groups are in different niches because of their different cultures,history,and endowments.Social Darwinism believes that the international community should be led by a high-level civilization.At the same time,the criterion for judging the level of civilization abandons the evaluation of ethics and morality,and focuses on whether the strength is strong or not.The theory of social organisms itself is influenced by Darwinian biological evolution theory and is the product of comparing the social community to the organism.Racism in the biological sense was also very active during this period.The intimate combination of the two created the atmosphere of struggling for the "survival of the fittest" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.Following these principles,the Western countries experienced a capitalist moral crisis internally,which greatly worsened China and other late-developing countries' external development environment.The conclusion of the fifth chapter analyzes the influence of the two shifts of nationalism.The two shifts of nationalism are the result of its combination with different thought traditions.The complex concept of nationalism contains multiple attributes.This is the root of its deep integration with different ideas.But its single side is over-emphasized,and it is easy to cause ideological imbalance:it may lead to the prevalence of Nazism,fascism,racism,and social Darwinism.The Chinese people who have been in changes have involuntarily accepted this idea of nation state.Yan Fu's contradictory understanding of freedom and misinterpretation of the "Evolution of Heaven",Liang Qichao's praise and advocacy of nationalism are its manifestations.The conclusion recalls the hardships of Chinese people exploring the construction of modern countries since the end of the 19th century.only by reorganizing and rethinking Western thoughts,and criticizing nationalism and the related political thoughts,can we improve our ability to criticize Western thoughts and then understand the world and reflect on ourselves and then eliminate misunderstandings.The supporting role of Chinese traditional culture in its own historical tradition is difficult to replace.Modern political values need to be effectively combined with traditional resources to form a modern political value system which is suitable for China.For contemporary scholars,it is the proposition of today's era to strive to construct a value system that conforms to the universal values of human civilization and deeply roots in its own cultural traditions.