Bruce Lerro

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. 

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.

BRUCE LERRO—In the history of philosophy neither mechanical materialists, nor organicists or realists took time seriously. Along with space, it was a container for natural or social events. Marx and Engels were among the first to suggest that human history was a process of class struggle, rather that the frozen events like congresses or wars. Pragmatists in the late 19th century like Charles Sanders Peirce and Chauncey Wright sought to think not just about quantitative change within organic nature but qualitative change that occurred in large-scale relationships between matter (the inorganic), life (the organic) and the human mind.

BRUCE LERRO—In a 1932 interview with Mussolini, the press packaged him as a model for the U.S. as “what a real dictator would do”. Here is an excerpt from Barron’s editorial section: “Whether we are quite ready to admit it or not, sometimes openly and other times secretly, we have been longing to see the superman emerge… Of course, we all realize that dictatorships and even semi-dictatorships in peacetime are quite contrary to the spirit of American institutions and all that.” Rather than rejecting the fear that “it can’t happen here” the sociologist Robert Lynd suggested that the capitalists secretly desired a dictatorship.