School Pride as Civic Nationalism

I've never had much use for school pride. Perhaps it's was my non-athletic upbringing, perhaps it was transferring to a different high school for PLTW, or perhaps it was simple disillusionment that prevented me from taking any pride in educational institutions.

An interesting thought that occurred to me in the sleep-deprived hours of the last few days was that school pride is essentially a form of civic nationalism. Schools can't behave in a militarist or imperialist manner, given their nature as public institutions, often with delineated geographic hegemony. Even on a highly competitive market, the vying for students and public-relations machinations would hardly count as real battle--though more on that later.

Yet the attitude promoted by school administrations is decidedly nationalistic. I think this fits the bill of civic nationalism, encouraging students to join together as a community. There's no real way to ensure that they adopt this approach--you cannot force a mind--but most students are perfectly happy to play along.

As an individualist, this attitude bothers me. First of all, it is rarely used to genuinely improve an institution. In education, no changes to the teaching system are ever effected through school pride. All reform is channeled through the conduits laid out by the administration (which, incidentally, never puts the faculty's neck on the line). Moreover, school pride is usually most prevalent in the context of athletic competitions, which in truth have nothing to do with the alleged purpose of imparting knowledge.

This model breeds docility, though, which is what really bothers me. Civic nationalism is easily translated into militarist nationalism--remember those athletic competitions? They desensitize children to physical, even violent, conflicts: the perfect training for imperialist war abroad and the police state at home. As others have commented, it really is amazing that we haven't become a dictatorship by now.

In a more immediate sense, civic nationalism lets us overlook our own problems. It's easy to forget your own failings when harping on the inferiority of others. If we want to see real social progress, we need to stop thinking of ourselves as a society. and embrace the reality that we're individuals, each pursuing perfection in our own way.

Capitalism and Reactionism

I've been planning to do a major post on marketing the free market for awhile now, but there's one point I want to get out right away. Here it is:

Capitalism is, and generally has been, associated with conservatism. In the jargon of the far left, it's a reactionary ideology. I don't agree with this at all, and I think that modern-day libertarians really need to distance themselves from certain aspects of the conservative movement. That most libertarians are former Republicans is no help in this matter. Many of us continue supporting the GOP instinctually (giving the raging statism of the Democratic Party, this isn't necessarily bad). That said, there are still several major areas for improvement.

First off, we need to drive a wedge between traditionalism and cultural conservatism. Promoting the ideals of individualism, reason, and order do not require the European ethnic trappings and Judeo-Christian imagery that is generally associated with the Right. There's nothing inherently wrong about those (waits for the Objectivist handwringing...), but they aren't an essential element of capitalism or libertarianism.

Moreover, we should make clear our dedication to reason and the scientific method, without the statism the left has married to them. It's part of the rationality trap*: those who devote themselves to finding thought-based solutions all too often try to apply that model to fields where it is not applicable (e.g. social organization). If libertarians (including the religious ones) can demonstrate to the public that science can exist without the state, we can deprive the left of a fertile recruiting ground.

The best way to shrug off the 'reactionary' label is to become revolutionary in our ideals. That little word revolutionary should be handled with care. Violent uprising is not warranted and will not be effective--at least not at present. But as we continue to move into the political mainstream we must distance ourselves from that boogeyman of the "Establishment". The corporatist Welfare State is not our friend, and never can be. Throwing in with the cronies on Wall Street and the tenured politicians would be political suicide.

Capitalists must fundamentally reshape the system in our pursuit of a truly free society. We can't quibble over trivialities of the tax code and expect to get anywhere. No, what we need are sweeping reforms in almost all aspects of public life. It will be a costly political battle, but revolutionary capitalism can do what conservative capitalism never dreamed: restructuring society around production and trade.

Will there be room for a government in this free society? Quite possibly. Will it resemble that of today? Not a chance in the world.

_{*An idea I'll explain in a later post. See: The Intellectuals and Socialism by F. A. Hayek}

Improved Vocabulary for Discrimination

Something that's really been bothering me is the lack of descriptive vocabulary for discrimination. Sexism and racism have established good language precedents*, but they've been largely ignored. Instead, we have a jargon juggernaut of homophobia, transphobia, cisphobia, biphobia, and an ever expanding list of other things which aren't actually fears. Interestingly, discrimination based on age and physical ability have followed the precedent, producing the (arguably unnecessary) terms ageism, and ableism.

Above comments aside, I'm not going to argue the accuracy of oppression claims. I'm just going to lay out some new terms that cover the major areas. This list is by no means comprehensive.To help clarify, I'm including some of the terms they replace and/or subsume. Here goes:

• Racism: discrimination based on race and ancestry.
• Sexism: discrimination based on biological sex. Includes: misogyny, misandry
• Sexualism: discrimination based on sexual orientation. Includes: homophobia, homophobia, biphobia.
• Genderism: discrimination based on gender identity. Includes: transphobia, cisphobia.

There, was that really so hard?

Anticipated reaction to this post

*Despite the fact '-ism' is also used for ideologies, which really don't fall under the same categorical umbrella.