BRUCE LERRO—More than Realists, Neoliberals put a high preference on ideas. The first think-tanks came out of the Rand Foundation and global capitalists such as the Rockefeller brothers who set up not just think-tanks but foundations and organizations such as the Council of Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, all in the service of opposing communism. New Deal liberal gatekeepers acted as “controlled opposition” such as the Ford Foundation. The Neoliberal notions about human nature are not as bleak as Neoconservative Realists. Under certain conditions, state actors can cooperate. Game theory is a neoliberal attempt to understand the conditions that are likely to promote competition or cooperation among states.
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BRUCE LERRO—While the forces of modernization may have weakened religious beliefs, the doctrines, myths, rituals, and entire architecture of religion (specifically monotheism) were reorganized and used in the name of a secular political religion: nationalism. Beginning in the 19th century, individualists were expected to renounce loyalty to class, ethnicity, and region – not so they could be “free as a bird,” but also to become bound to a new secular community of strangers serving the state. Citizens may gain political rights, but that is far from the end of the story. The socialization into nationalism has been an enormously successful project of the 19th-century ruling classes. Individualists were mobilized to fight and die in wars to prove their patriotism. The reality is now that stateless individuals are not allowed to exist anywhere in the world.
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BRUCE LERRO—A number of years ago, Noam Chomsky commented on how amazed he was by the intelligence of working class people when they called into a sports talk program the Monday after Sunday’s NFL games. Their analysis of what plays didn’t work, what plays could have worked along with the strengths and weaknesses of the players was astounding. But then he pointed out how all this intelligence goes away when the same people are then asked to make a political analysis of the current events in their lives – working conditions, wages, war.
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BRUCE LERRO—In tribal societies, rituals before war or harsh rites of passage induce altered states of consciousness, which are memorable because they require both courage and dependability. Popular monotheistic states of consciousness invite speaking in tongues, devotional emotional appeal, and the promise of being taken care of in exchange for obedience. In nationalistic settings such as recruiting offices, prospective soldiers are promised they will be taken care of by a strict military discipline while having great adventures in other parts of the world. Like monotheism, nationalism appeals to the petty side of humanity. Participants are told they are an elite group, superior to other nations. Once inside the military, boot camp becomes the arena in which individual will is broken. New recruits are taught to be dependent on authority and to not question things.
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BRUCE LERRO—Nationalism is one of those words that people immediately think they understand, but upon further questioning we find a riot of conflicting elements. There are three other words that are commonly associated with nationalism that are used interchangeably with it: nation, state, and ethnicity. But these terms raise the following questions:
What is the relationship between nationalism and nations? Were there nations before nationalism? Did they come about at the same time or do they have separate histories? Can a nation exist without nationalism? Can nationalism exist without a nation? Ernest Gellner (Nations and Nationalism) thinks so.
