After Greatness...

This from the excellent Our Kingdom site by Tom Nairn:

"In Nations and Nationalism Ernest Gellner compiled a celebrated and very influential story based on his own family and personal experiences: the supposedly typical transition from 'Megalomania' to assorted 'Ruritanias' (like the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bosnia, etc.). In other areas, Catalonia, Scotland, East Timor, Quebec, Ireland, and so on, have joined (or are still joining) during what he baptised as the age of nationalism.[1] He argued that this transition was neither willful nor avoidable, under the general circumstances of industrialization, increasingly global commerce, and market-formation. 'Ruritanians' (in effect, most populations around the globe enjoying what he called the 'characteristic anthropological equipment') found themselves driven towards statehood by the tensions of general development, which could not help being 'unequal' -- that is, led by privileged zones and followed (either eagerly or resentfully) by the less well-placed, smaller or (for a time) 'assimilable' ethnies. Human cultural diversity (also a given) was far too great for any other solution to work in the longer term, as distinct from transient empires like the French, British, Austro-Hungarian, Great-German, Russian/Soviet, American or Chinese -- the 'Megalomanias' of early-modern history, each one driven by over-reaching delusions and (usually) military ambitions inseparable from violent conflict, defeat and downfall. [2]

Though the number of new-national states was far less than that of background ethnies, it was sufficient to constitute the modern state-system of international relations, currently around two hundred (with quite a number still in formation). Gellner liked to underline how few nation-states had taken advantage of nationalism, compared to the thousands of 'potential nations' prior species-evolution had set going. However, he overdid the irony: not only are there plenty still being created, the process has also generated a number of 'misfits'.

And globalization has thus far been cramped and distorted by such left-overs. That is, the residual areas and populations of ex-Megalomanes forced to abandon Bigger-is-Better, but without (so far) discovering any coherent alternative. Ex-heartlands like 'Spain' (Castile-Aragon), 'England' (United Kingdom minus its archipelago peripheries), hexagonal 'France' as distinct from the Bretons, Occitans and Savoiards, peninsular 'Italy' (famously distinct from actual 'Italians'), Federal-Russians deprived of some of their 'other Russias', and Americans less concerned with leading and inspiring Mankind (along the lines favoured by Presidential candidate Obama).

Over-addicted to Greatness, such light-house populations (and above all their intellectual elites) find (e.g.) 'little Spain', 'little England', 'isolationist' USA etc. uninspiring. They can't be, or seriously imitate, Ruritanias (formerly despised and mocked); Big-Lad scale-domination is no longer possible; so what version of self-government will make sense for them? The candidate that imposes itself is something like "Hanging On", or the upkeep of appearances and discernible status, as far as possible: willful eternalization of the (relatively) recent past, when We counted for Something. What exactly? Well, if uncertainty threatens on this front, history can always be re-invented to suit (as Ruritanian intellos showed, in their day). Premier Gordon Brown has made such new-old thought a speciality, and strives to put it into practice. Umberto Eco has provided other amusing illustrations in his Putting the Clock Back. Being practical is what matters: the stable continuity of realistic scale and presence, not letting things get 'out of hand'.[3] Security-Council rules, all the time, albeit with a safely economic bias demonstrating consciousness of 'The Poor' (for whom so much remains to be done).

Naturally, Globalization has been interpreted and where possible exploited by these hanging-on theatres . Suitable emphasis has to be placed on the ideology of national interest, standing, 'achievements' etc., ideally assisted by safe warfare, permitting emotional mobilization without too much risk of calamity, or enduring commitment: 'surges' are good, colonial-seeming permanence is bad. Ordinariness, smallness, non-significance, being 'just another' country like the so-and-so's: that's the destiny to be avoided at all costs. The formation of 'Europe' via first the Maastricht and now the Lisbon Treaties has been that of a 'shadow' stuffed-shirt or left-over-land, safely dominated by former big lads, either defeated or of pensionable age, and now sadly unable to keep it up on their own. This is what the Irish voters (like French and Dutch ones earlier) are against: of course they do not trust 'Them'. They want a democratic confederation, not an old boy's pseudo-federal club -- we don't yet know which side Gellner's Czech Republic will come down on.

The United Kingdom under Thatcher and then Blair/Brown (1979-2010) is illustrative of the mainstream trend. The debate about 'English nationalism' has shown how it works in practice: preservation of the system behind a smoke-screen of think-tank-British 'civic' this and that.[4] Fred Halliday's 'sequestration' thesis depicts how the ex-great manoeuvre to maintain possession and status, as responsible pillars of an 'international community' whose tenure must not be farther disturbed or upset: early-modern democracy where possible, authoritarianism where not (and in fact, the former tends to need ever-larger doses of the latter, as Bush, Zapatero, Sarkozy and Blair-Brown have all acknowledged). It is stuffed-shirt rule that remains sacred, often reinforced by be-medalled-tunic rule. The resultant international climate has proved favorable to rule by Generals, from Turkey to Taiwan, Burma and Zimbabwe -- often with Generals ostensibly, if slowly, 'moving towards' representative government (though the latter may become dispensable as Chinese and New-Russian influences increase).

What megalomane populations need is a much stronger dose of their own medicine: the 'democracy' once deemed implicit in the History that refused to end in 1990. Before that, metropolitan intellectuals were always keen to persuade ethnic and other dissenters they should be practical. Wouldn't you ordinary 'little guys' be better off in a larger unit than in a romantic dreamland (etc.)? Well, surely it's time to turn such pragmatism on themselves. The ex-megalomanes will sooner or later have think of their own smaller futures, as English, little-Russian, North Italians, or whatever. In relation to globality, everybody is rather small, even the Chinese. It can no longer be perceived as something following capitalist evolution, or naturally 'building itself up' via a more prosperous and self-conscious bourgeoisie. Authoritarian capitalism seems quite capable of fostering a middle class aspiring to lead and rule simultaneously, by self-reproduction of authority (whether via a Party, or other institutional vehicles). Nations no longer need an inherited rabble, 'mobilized' by ethnic (or would-be ethnic, or pseudo-ethnic) solidarity: that corresponded to Gellner's conception of forced scale, the accompaniment of first-round industrialization. Second-round (post-Cold War, 'globalized') industrialization and re-industrialization needs no such demographic phenomenon."