Understanding Nationalism and National Identity

1. The question of nationalism and national identity is a major one in the current psychological scenario in the society. The concept of nationalism and national identity is a relative concept in the society and the psychology of the person, which varies from person to person. The concept of nationalism and national identity is often confused among the people who fail to understand the concept of nationalism and its difference from national identity. Nationalism is the total socio-political and economic scenario of a society, which gives it its independent identity of a state (Smith 2013). On the other hand, national identity is more dependent on the Social Identity of a person. The identity of an individual depends on the perception of the self with respect to the society (Andreouli and Howarth2013). The social and the physiological interactions mould an individual’s interaction in the society and the changes in the social interactions, which mould the individual’s idea of nationalism, and his identification in the society with respect to the social identification of the society. There is a conflict of ideas regarding the relativism of the concepts of nationalism and national identity.

The psychology of nationalism operates to understand that people in a society identifies themselves according to a number of factors including political allegiance and their identification with the society. The concept of nationalism comes from cultural contructivism where an individual identifies their psychological state when they identify to social and psychological construct within a societythe sense of social construct in the society is something which guides the individual perspective of individuals to believe in certain norms (Wright 2016). The political and economic norm to which he adheres and feels to protect is known as nationalism. The changes in the social and the political scenarios affect the nationalism perspective of the individuals. The nationalists identify themselves with a set of common norms of the society and they seek to adhere to these norms. The common way of identifying nationalism among individual is to understand their taste in general life choices such as music, food and literature. The changes in the society that an individual sees affect his concept of nationalism based on whether the national society affects the change or not. The sense of nationalist identity is defined by the social identification of the individual with respect to the society. It depends on the individual perspective of the person and the social and the social interaction he has in the society. The national identity often finds its seat in concept of nationalism of the individual. These two terms are correlative to each other if they are considered with an individualistic perspective.

The concept and nationalism and national identity is considered an important concept in the society as it moulds the psychology of an individual regarding their society and the changes they expect to see in their society. The psychological and the intellectual development of individuals in the society help in the understanding and relating to the society where the individualmoulds his own behavior to fit into the society.

The Psychology of Nationalism

The concept of nationalism is ingrained in the individual and it is visible on a number of occasions. The individualistic and the personalized perspective of the nationalism can be related to the Ideological State Apparatus as propounded by the famous theorists Louis Althusser. The correlation of the ingrained ideologies I and the states controlling the subjects through this approach and the individuals do not even know themselves when they show nationalism. The individuals who show nationalism think they are doing an act of patriotism and are satisfied by their action (Hayes 2016). This is a great example of the fact that the concept of nationalism is an abstract and the subjects are not consciously aware of its existence among them. The actions, which exist as a result of nationalism, are usually very harmful for the society. The concept of nationalism among the individual can be understood by the fact that one feels the emotion when they see their country perform in sports or other events. The sense of the relation with the nation and the identity of the individual are understood by the fact that no matter which country the person lives in or how less the facilities they get in the country, they have a sense of loyalty for the country (Farnen2017). The concept of the sense of nationalism explains why an individual roots for the sports of their country. One of the best examples of nationalism is the situation of the people of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, where despite the extreme living conditions the civilians are loyal to their country and unanimously hate Americans. The sense of nationalism is the inherent belief of an individual,which causes them to enforce the sense of nationalism. One of the major issues in the concept of nationalism is the amount if violence it has caused through the history (Hayes2016). All the major wars were caused due to the sense of national pride. The sense of nationalism and the sense of national pride of Germans, which caused the invasions leading to the Second World War, is an example of nationalism. The sense of nationalism gives the sense of social identity and enforces among the individuals the ideology of patriotism based on their sense of nationality they feel.

National identity, on the contrary is a different approach than the nationalism as it is subjective feeling of an individual concerning their surroundings. As the name itself explains, the sense of national identity identifies itself with the surroundings (McCroneand Bechhofer2015). It is more of a collective phenomenon, which is obtained from the sense of social mobility and the environment of the individual. In this context, the Social Identity Theory can be put into perspective where the individuals identifies themselves with the society and tries to understand their perspective in relation to the environment they live in (Hesterand Housley2017). The changes in the society that the individual observes help to mould their national identity. The conditions in which an individual the person identifies with the social and the general norms of the society. It is a sense of feeling of self in line with the thought of a group of people along with the difference from the rest of the societies. National identity can be identified by theconcept of the sense of ‘we’ and they in comparison to the society (Rice2017).The national identity of a person is very important for their self-identity and awareness and the sense of belonging in the society. The sense of belonging in a society makes a person follow the norms and rules of the society making them the ideal citizen of the society. The sense of belonging in a society that comes with the national identity helps an individual to relate with the citizens of a nation sharing common ideologies and the passion for motherland (Millerand Ali2014). The national identity is different from nationalism in a sense that a person may relate to the national identity of one nation showing nationalism towards another.

National Identity and Social Identity Theory

The concept of national identity is quite different from the sense of cultural bonding or globalization in the present society. The sense of national identity is not dependent on the residency in a nation (Stevens et al. 2014). For example, the Lao Hmong people live in the USA but they follow their own cultures and customs living in closed communities, which restricts their national identity to Hmongs. In the context of the Hmongs, the ‘we’ includes their own community only. Among the Hmong people, it is a common context that they see even Americans as ‘they’ or the outsiders. Similar is the case of Tibet in China, no matter to what extent Chinese say that Tibet is parts of their country, the Tibetans identify themselves as different from China and have a strict sense of belonging in their own society (Leepreecha2014.).The Tibetans identify themselves as a free country, which has been taken over by China. The conflict of national identities and nationalism is seen in this case, the dilemma of a Tibetan working in a Chinese agency feels an identity crisis between his national identity as a Tibetan and his nationalism towards his employers. The conceptual issues faced by the individuals in such scenarios show the changes that the individuals face while having a differential sense of nationalism and national identity.

Therefore, it is seen that nationalism and national identity are two very varies concepts according to the human psychology. Nationalism is a social concept which helps an individual to develop a psychological state relating to sense of patriotism to the nation, on the other hand the national identity is a the individual approach of the person with respect to the society. Therefore, it is seen that nationalism is the sense of loyalty to the society and the national identity is the sense of belonging of an individual in a society.  The nationalism and national identity are both necessary for the survival of an individual in a society as it helps in molding their personal identity with respect to the society.

2. According to psychologist the social constructionism is the concept where an individual where and individual relates to the social constructs prevalent in the society. The changes in the society that are brought about by the social changes in the social interactions among the common population in the society helps in the development of the social relationships of individuals. The social constructionism mould the ideals of an individual thus shaping their personalities (Paletz, Miron-Spektorvand Lin2014). There are a number of social constructs in the society, which mould the people identifying themselves according to the society.

The changes in the social life of the individuals lead to a number of conflicts in if they belong to different constructionism. Social constructionism has led to a number of social issues causing a number of wars major and tensions among states. The social constructs like religion, race, caste and creed make individuals think that they have to establish supremacy of their kind over other leading to a number of conflicts in the society (Kubálková 2015). The social constructs also mold the sense of social identity of an individual in a society leading to a number of social issues in the society. The social identity of an individual in a society causes them to form a sense of superiority and competitive complex leading to conflicts among the individuals in the society.

Therefore, it is seen that majority of the social construct in the society create a sense of conflict among the individuals who identify themselves with the different social units. It is also evident that social constructionism creates complex competition of ethnic superiority.

References

Andreouli, E. and Howarth, C., 2013. National identity, citizenship and immigration: Putting identity in context. Journal for the theory of social behaviour, 43(3), pp.361-382.

Farnen, R.F. ed., 2017. Nationalism, ethnicity, and identity: Cross national and comparative perspectives. Routledge.

Hayes, C.J., 2016. Marx at the margins: on nationalism, ethnicity, and non-western societies. University of Chicago Press.

Hayes, C.J., 2016. Nationalism: A religion. Transaction Publishers.

Hester, S. and Housley, W., 2017. Language, Interaction and National Identity: Studies in the social organisation of national identity in talk-in-interaction. Routledge.

Kubálková, V., 2015. International relations in a constructed world. Routledge. 

Leepreecha, P., 2014. Hmong Across Borders or Borders Across Hmong? Social and Political Influences Upon Hmong People: Keynote Speech. Hmong Studies Journal, 15(2), p.1.

McCrone, D. and Bechhofer, F., 2015. Understanding national identity. Cambridge University Press.

Miller, D. and Ali, S., 2014. Testing the national identity argument. European Political Science Review, 6(2), pp.237-259.

Paletz, S.B., Miron-Spektor, E. and Lin, C.C., 2014. A cultural lens on interpersonal conflict and creativity in multicultural environments. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 8(2), p.237.

Rice, J.L., 2017. Freud’s Russia: National identity in the evolution of psychoanalysis. Routledge.

Smith, A.D., 2013. Nationalism: Theory, ideology, history. John Wiley & Sons.

Stevens, P.A., Charalambous, P., Tempriou, A., Mesaritou, E. and Spyrou, S., 2014. Testing the relationship between nationalism and racism: Greek-Cypriot students’ national/ethnic identities and attitudes to ethnic out-groups. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40(11), pp.1736-1757.

Wright, S., 2016. Language policy and language planning: From nationalism to globalisation.