I think it also is a good counter to centralizing and oppressing forces. The same force impelling Turks to mistreat the Kurds is also impelling the Kurds to preserve their language and culture in the face of oppression.
That's rather an odd defence of an ideology: It causes a massive, intractable problem, but, in doing so, it also offers a means to exacerbate the problem. Without nationalism, there wouldn't be this particular form of oppression to defend against. And as heartening as it is that the massacre of 600,000 Armenians has encouraged the survivors to compile dictionaries and form folk ensembles, I think that, overall, I'd rather have the half-million dead back.
(Oh, and Twain counters your last objection before he lays into Scott. He acknowledges the wrongs done in the name of Bonapartism and Jacobism, but points out that these can hardly be rectified by rejecting the good things they produced.)
no subject
That's rather an odd defence of an ideology: It causes a massive, intractable problem, but, in doing so, it also offers a means to exacerbate the problem. Without nationalism, there wouldn't be this particular form of oppression to defend against. And as heartening as it is that the massacre of 600,000 Armenians has encouraged the survivors to compile dictionaries and form folk ensembles, I think that, overall, I'd rather have the half-million dead back.
(Oh, and Twain counters your last objection before he lays into Scott. He acknowledges the wrongs done in the name of Bonapartism and Jacobism, but points out that these can hardly be rectified by rejecting the good things they produced.)