The Mortality and Morality of Nations
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Reprint, 3/16/2017
EAN 9781107480865, ISBN10: 1107480868
Paperback, 382 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.6 cm
Language: English
Standing at the edge of life's abyss, we seek meaningful order. We commonly find this 'symbolic immortality' in religion, civilization, state and nation. What happens, however, when the nation itself appears mortal? The Mortality and Morality of Nations seeks to answer this question, theoretically and empirically. It argues that mortality makes morality, and right makes might; the nation's sense of a looming abyss informs its quest for a higher moral ground, which, if reached, can bolster its vitality. The book investigates nationalism's promise of moral immortality and its limitations via three case studies: French Canadians, Israeli Jews, and Afrikaners. All three have been insecure about the validity of their identity or the viability of their polity, or both. They have sought partial redress in existential self-legitimation: by the nation, of the nation and for the nation's very existence.
Part I. Preface
Part II. Introduction
1. Theory
2. Case studies
Part III. Theory
3. Meaning
4. Mortality
5. Morality
6. Liberty
7. Language
Part IV. The French Canadians
8. The Canadiens
the emergence of an endangered ethnie
9. The French Canadians
the rise and demise of ethno-religionism
10. The Québécois
the rise and demise of ethnonationalism
Part V. Jews and Zionists
11. Ontological insecurity
Jewish identity in modernity
12. Epistemic insecurity
Jewish and Zionist survival in question
13. Existential threats
Zionism's 'holes in the net'
14. Existential threads
the lifelines of Zionism
Part VI. The Afrikaners
15. Ontological insecurity
the birth of the Afrikaner ethnie
16. Epistemic insecurity
Afrikaner survival in question
17. Existential threats
Afrikanerdom's 'holes in the net'
18. Existential threads
the lifelines of Afrikanerdom
19. The twilight of apartheid and its aftermath.