Brandon Marcus
@brandonjmarc
Brandon Marcus
@brandonjmarc
The United States is a nation founded on a revolu-tionary, generous, and deeply moral commitment to human equality and dignity. In the very struggles that constitute this nation's history, in the very struggles that lie ahead, the United States holds to these truths: all of us are equal, we are equal as citizens, and we are equal under the law. For
... See moreSince about the middle of the twentieth century, people who've wanted to wrest the word "national-ism" away from the bloody hands of tyrants have tried to distinguish between "good nationalism" and “bad nationalism." By good nationalism, they usually mean liberal or civic nationalism, an attachment to a set of civic ideals. By bad nationalism, they
... See moreLiberal nationalism, as an idea, is fundamentally historical. The case for the nation, in the nineteenth century, was less that the nation was a natural category than that the nation was a historical development. Liberal nationalism rested on an analogy between the individual and the collective. Just as liberals had faith in individuals, so they
... See moreHistories of nation states are stories that hide the seams that stitch the nation to the state (Lepore)
Nations, to make sense of themselves, need some kind of agreed upon past. They can get it from scholars or they can get it from demagogues, but get it they will (Lepore)