Colloque

What's so wrong with nationalism?

Kai Nielsen

Membre a labase

Kai Nielsen

Résumé du colloque

Marx might have learned from Herder and we might have learned from I. Berlin and G.A. Cohen that there is nothing wrong with nationalism per se. It all depends on the nationalism. Criteria will be articulated for sorting out good nationalisms from bad. Centrally it will be argued that a people can justifiably form a nation-state when they are extensively predominant (no algorithms here) in a distinct territory and possess a distinct culture and traditions. In contemporary circumstances if that state is to have legitimacy it must be a constitutional democracy and we cannot have a constitutional democracy that does not protect civil liberties, though care will be taken to specify what genuine civil liberties are. The application to Quebec should be plain. The society that is Quebec can rightly form a nation-state if it chooses. It is all a matter of what Quebecers reflectively want and what is up for democratic (i.e. majority) determination by Quebecers. That can be done without violating anyone's basic rights and, where the state to be formed is a constitutional democracy, it must be formed without such violation. (What rights are basic will be specified and rationalized.)