Nationalism is the love of nation. It is the love of your group and usually your ethnicity and those who look and behave like you. I’ve written before that nationalism and group identity are natural and even a source of pleasure and security. It’s a strong impulse based on the belief that you are of common descent with others like you. I had a student last year who was Irish and claimed to love all things Irish and was a fierce defender of Ireland. He had never been to Ireland and knew little more about Ireland than green beer on St. Patrick’s Day. But he felt this kinship with Ireland.

Of course the most vicious nationalist was Hitler and he and his glorification of Germany represents certainly the extreme. I don’t care to focus or write about Hitler because it is too easy and so much has been said that his character is almost cartoonish, which is not to say that he should not be studied and understood. And nationalism can rear its ugly head even if it is not in this extreme form of Hitler’s National Socialism or the Nazi party. But there are some interesting qualities of nationalism that I think are common to the idea personifying the nation whether it be benign and warm nationalism or the vicious extreme. Three of these qualities are described below.

1. It is pretty much impossible to fight a war without it being associated with a “nation.” Again, nation is typically associated with a large political collective, but small groups who consider themselves oppressed and victimized can see themselves as consistent with the ideas of nationalism and the nation. ISIS is both a political and a religious group and while they are typically not described as nationalists there impulse to glorify Islam and political Islam is fueled by the fires of a nationalist psychology. Relatively few wars these days are purely over pragmatic and rational resources. Most of the difficult conflicts in the world have some element of nationalism or ethnic identity that stimulates violence.
2. Nationalism wraps its ideas in sanctity. There is a sense that the state, or the land, or the people are sanctified which makes them special and above the fray. Nationalist literature refers to the ease with which soldiers go off to their death because they know they are defending sanctified land and ideas. Groups like ISIS justify unimaginable horrors (beheadings, sexual assault, slavery) on the basis of their presumed sacred ideas. And there is nothing sophisticated in any intellectual or political sense about these ideas.
3. When issues and ideas are sanctified it’s easy to turn them into binaries; that is, the contest becomes between the forces of “good” and “evil.” You see in their literature metaphors of darkness and light. This creates a virulent form of competition and discourse where the only way to win is to annihilate the other and defend yourself which is justifiable because the threat is existential. There is no talk that might develop new relationships or negotiation in the service of common goals of “tolerance” or “give-and-take” or “compromise.” The struggle is only between life and death.

Psychologies that are conducive to sustaining the type of intensity and extremes associated with an Armageddon mentality begin to crop up and develop. Ordinary people begin to believe their leaders and nationalist entrepreneurs who are telling them that they are a “chosen elect” who are duty-bound to rid the world of an enemy. People are not born with these ideas and extremist capabilities. They are recruited into a smaller group environment and socialized (the common term “brainwashing” applies here) into a set of beliefs and psychological states of readiness to accept what seems to be indefensible and outrageous beliefs.

Of course, the first thing to do is to identify a threatening outgroup and begin the process of heaping blame on the group on your way to justifying any sort of treatment of this “enemy.” This group can be Jews, the West, democracy, or any convenient outgroup. It is the extremes of nationalism that are important to pay attention to. I reiterate that common ingroup identity is probably evolutionarily necessary and capable of individual protection and reinsurance. We may think that Hitler and Nazi Germany were extreme examples, but you do not have to look far to see it happening again.

I’m interested in the efficacy of communication and write regularly about how communication works and why it is fundamentally and by definition the best way to elicit change. One of the most important contemporary questions is how differences engage one another; how do individuals and groups with incommensurate realities and significant cultural variation manage their relationship? One way is intergroup dialogue which has been written about but remains an ethereal concept considered by many to be an idealized form of communication that is difficult to achieve. I remain resolute in my conviction to continue to discuss dialogue as a pragmatic and achievable form of communication that is not overly romanticized. Dialogue is a particular type of communication designed to solve problems that require mutuality, cooperation, and change. In these terms – mutuality, cooperation, and change – are not niceties but theoretical requirements.

Intergroup dialogue is really about action. It’s about how you collaborate with others across differences with the goal of social justice and problem solving in mind. Solidarity-based communication is that between similar people working on a similar problem. The interaction is cohesive and reinforcing with goals of stimulation and accomplishment of objectives to bring about any desired change. But bridging discourse, as termed by Dryzek, is between people of who are different and trying to find ways to manage the differences between them, trying to reach across information, cultural, and intellectual divides. Most important dialogue struggles with bridging discourse and it is of course the most difficult.

There are a variety of perspectives and approaches to dialogue, but one of the most thoughtful and theoretically well-developed perspectives is critical-dialogue as described by Nagda, Gurin, and others. These authors have identified four communication processes that are particularly important and pertinent to the dialogic process. Each of these four is required and part of the challenge of establishing conditions for successful dialogue. You can read more about these processes here.

1. Engagement: This is primarily the requirement that dialogue be taken seriously and individuals be personally involved and committed. These are not the conditions for social loafing; dialogic contact with somebody of difference, when the problems are real and significant, needs the participants to engage in the full range of committed communication. Participants must take risks, assert themselves into the story, and do the hard work of listening empathically as well as critically without overweighting one.
2. Appreciate differences: Politics is essentially the management of differences. Solving problems in general conflict resolution is the same. Differences are fundamental and the goal is not to eliminate them but to manage them. For this reason, an appreciation for differences is crucial. Democracies in particular use the communication process to manage differences. There is simply no peaceful resolution to problems without understanding the perspective of others, creating trust across differences, and even trying to participate and when appropriate adopt differences. Again, the goal is not simply the aesthetic appreciation of differences but the pragmatic issues of empathy, understanding, and the ability to argue and communicate in a manner that resonates with the other.
3. Critical reflection: Again, the unreflective and rigid presentation of self is always limited by the boundaries of the self. Critical reflection is the ability to examine one’s own assumptions including finding those places characterized by bias, stereotypes, and distortions related to how the other is perceived including unfair sources of power and manipulation. Any genuine attempt to solve problems requires participants to think critically about their own patterns of communication and thought processes. Moreover, participants in dialogue must be able to recognize the sources of bias and inequality in both themselves and others but in particular themselves.
4. And finally, building associative relationships: Participants in dialogue groups must build something together. As often as it has been said, and as easy as it sounds participants in conflict must eventually explore common goals to develop new associative relationships that are conducive to resolving intergroup conflict. There is plenty of research that supports the impact of intergroup dialogue. Its goal is to foster the bridging of differences and these four communication patterns of the mechanisms that accomplish these goals. True enough they require additional research and operationalization but these form the foundational theoretical underpinnings

The article by Paul Berman on the Confederate flag debate is just too good to pass up. Click here to read it.

The BDS movement (which stands for boycott, divest, and sanction) against Israel is an aggressive social movement designed to challenge the existence of the State of Israel. The video below is a typical example of the BDS arguments against Israel. They are the standard exaggerations designed to criminalize and delegitimize Israel. The goal is not simply to pressure Israel but to challenge the very existence of the Jewish polity. Take a few minutes to watch the video.

A report on just who runs, funds, and supports BDS is available here. The report explains how BDS presents itself as a movement for human rights designed to economically pressure Israel. The BDS organization claims it is doing little more than engaging in the democratic process by organizing for a social cause. They present themselves as a grassroots Palestinian organization inspired by issues in human rights. The truth is that BDS is part of the ongoing campaign to subvert the Israeli economy in an effort to damage the state.

The BDS movement misleads institutions and international organizations into believing that they are a benign social movement looking to establish a Palestinian state and the peaceful coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians. The truth is that they are far more aggressive and have malicious intentions with respect to the state of Israel.

What the BDS Does Not Understand

But interestingly the BDS movement does not realize the damage it does to Palestinians. They are so preoccupied with their own ideology that they are, in fact, doing more damage to the Palestinians and the prospect of peace than they are to Israel.

The BDS is making things worse for the Palestinians. BDS is misreading the relationship between the Palestinian economy and the Israeli economy. A recent article in the publication Fathom explains how Palestinian unemployment is related to strains in the Israeli economy. There has been a marked decline in Palestinian employment in Israel which the authors estimate amounts to 13% of Palestinian GDP in 2005-2006. Palestinian work in Israel is central to the good health of the Palestinian economy. And this will remain true even after some future peace agreement is signed. The state of one side’s economy in a conflict is important to the peace process because economic stability is necessary after treaties and agreements are signed. Otherwise, economic problems are the primary reason peace accords fail. Estimates are that the size of the Palestinian labor force needs to double. The report in Fathom goes on to clarify the impact of restrictions on Palestinian labor and on the future importance of a flow of labor into Israel from Palestine.

BDS is raising poverty levels in Palestine. When BDS opposes economic ties with Israel – Palestinians go hungry. The settlements are a problem and Israel must confront them in the future. There is little doubt that a hypothetical future peace arrangement will include the removal of many settlements. But to boycott settlement products only damages Palestinians. Settlements provide work for Palestinians who are paid on the average twice as much as those employed elsewhere. Moreover, there are some successfully Israeli-Palestinian business arrangements that will be important as future models of coexistence but boycotts threaten these partnerships.

Economic partnerships and interdependence creates unity and trust. They are an important foundation for peace. Organizations such as Hamas gained popularity through their social support programs and Hamas will be more attractive as economic conditions worsen. Boycotts and divestment will not lead to cooperation, improved fiscal infrastructures, and energized entrepreneurship. Any successful consequences of BDS will harm only Palestinians and, ironically, slow the removal of settlers from the West Bank.