The Invisible Filter: How Nationalism Shapes Everything You Think Is 'Normal'

While humans have fought over religion and resources for millennia , dying for a nation only started with the French Revolution in 1789 . Dying for a nation only started with the French Revolution in 1789 . So we've only been killing each other over national identity for roughly 230-ish years . Cool , cool , cool cool .

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So before that , no one died for Germany , it didn't exist until 1871 . No one died for Italy . It has only been unified in 1861 . Right before that they died for kings and gods , and cities and tribes , whatever , but nations .

The concept of nations , that's actually younger than photography , and this really matters because it shows us something crucial Nations aren't natural units waiting to be discovered . They're invented , constructed and maintained through everyday practices , so subtle we barely notice them .

Benedict Anderson captured this perfectly in his book that came out in 18 , no 18 , in 1983 , called Imagine Communities . He asked how do you feel connected to millions of people you've never met ? Right so ? And his answer to that is nations are communities that exist primarily in our imagination .

I mean , if you think about it , you'll never met most of your fellow citizens . Like heck , I haven't even met my neighbor across the street . Yet you feel connected to them , or at least you're supposed to feel connected to them .

You share news with them , you celebrate victories with them , you have your national holidays with them , you mourn losses with them , you cheer for the same national hockey team , all without ever seeing their face in their faces or knowing them .

So anderson showed how this imagination was made possible by specific historical developments , like the development of mass media , standardized languages , print capitalism , like morning newspapers , for instance , where millions of people reading the same news divided , and like the national and international sections .

But this actually goes way , way deeper , right , if you next time you watch the news and the weather comes on , maybe not if like your local state news and state weather , but even there you have state lines and you have country lines .

And whenever I watch the weather here in switzerland I see national borders like we've made political divisions seem I don't know as natural as rain . But the weather doesn't know borders . We've just made them feel inviolable . And here one of the very strange things about nationalism it's like wearing glasses .

You see it very clearly in others , but you forget you're wearing it yourself . We notice their flags , their anthems , their excessive pride , but our own nationalism , that's just normal , that's just how things are , that's just how we are . Um and I mean it gets even weirder like nation states themselves . Bizarre , right , I make it make sense .

Luxembourg is teeny tiny . China is massive . Switzerland speaks four languages on a teeny tiny territory . Japan pretends to be monolingual . Some were born out of ancient kingdoms , other nations , they drawn with rulers on colonial maps . And why is belgium a nation but Catalonia isn't ? Or why Switzerland but not Kurdistan ?

And the really clever part you can't step outside nationalism . There's no neutral ground . Even being international like assumes nations , like being a citizen of the world , that's taking a position within a world of nations too .

And this is where michael billick's concept of banal nationalism becomes fascinating . He looks at , okay , but why ? Why does it ? Why does nationalism and nations seem so natural ? So normal and he's talking not about the flag waving patriots , but about the quiet ways nations maintain themselves through routine practices . So ordinary we stop noticing them .

So , mind , banal doesn't mean harmless . Hannah Arendt stressed this when she was talking about the banality of evil . The ordinary , the banal does not mean harmless . It can be lethal . So how does banal nationalism work ? Nations don't primarily maintain themselves through grand displays .

Of course we have our national celebration days 1st of July , 1st of August and so on but nations are reproduced through subtle daily reminders . You already had the weather maps with borders , news divided into national and international sections , sports teams representing countries at the Olympics , id cards , currency .

Anytime you need to fill out a form that asks for your nationality . Or if you visit , like a national museum , you have a 3,000 year old statue that becomes like a Greek national treasure , though Greece didn't exist when it was made . You have Egyptian mummies in the British Museum . History itself gets reorganized to make today's nation seem eternal .

The same goes for nation's history as it's taught in school books . Or , for example , switzerland has a fictional character from a story written by a German dude as their national hero and founding father . Make it make sense , right , and this is not about whether this guy was real ever or not , but how he is used . Or food Food is a great example too .

Right , every nation claims it's national cuisine , um , but like potatoes aren't native to Ireland , uh , switzerland , sure as hell did not invent chocolate , so , but still , almost every nation claims a food as their own , and it's deeply rooted in that . They're part of storytelling . And let's not forget , right , some of the most powerful examples are the most boring .

All the paperwork , right , your ID card , passport , census forms , passport controls . Each document quietly reinforces the idea that dividing humans by nationality is natural and invitable .

And I feel it's also really important to talk about the difference between nationalism and patriotism . I don't know , maybe the common claim is nationalism is aggressive , and I hate talking in binaries . But , like good . Nationalism is bad . Patriotism is good . It's defensive . Nationalism is exclusionary .

Patriotism is about values and what we stand for , about the love of home . But here's where Billings inside again become crucial . This distinction itself serves nationalist thinking . When we call our own national feelings patriotism , we're naturalizing it , we're making it seem reasonable , normal , healthy , whatever . But it's always others who are nationalists .

Right , if someone I don't know um , someone where at the olympic opening ceremony and one athlete is overly proud , they show nationalist fervor . But if our sports people do this , it's patriotic pride . Same action , different labels . So the real question isn't really whether you call it nationalism or patriotism .

The question is how do you , how do these feelings of national belonging get created and maintained ? How do they shape how we see the world ? And , most importantly as always , who benefits from this distinction ? And it's whether you call it nationalism or patriotism . You're still operating within the framework of nation state .

You're accepting borders , passports , national of nation-state . You're accepting borders , passports , national categories as natural parts of human organization . And here is I don't know another sidebar where it even gets more complex .

Well , what about protecting vulnerable cultures ? And this is another like paradox of cultural protection and the world of nation states . It's almost as indigenous people face a double bind . Right , their cultures and languages often need protection from dominant forces that tried and try to eradicate them . But the tools available for this protection ?

They're mostly national tools like constitutional protections , language laws , official status , state recognition and so on . And yes , it's important for estonia to protect estonian or for ireland to promote irish gallic and to keep the language alive . And at the same time it's battle nationalism at work . It's both right , it's you .

When indigenous communities fight for official language status , they're using nationalist framework to protect pre-national cultures . They're operating in the same system and it's not saying good or bad , it's needed . But you're operating within the same system . Right them right .

But the crucial distinction , as I see it , is indigenous people generally aren't claiming exclusive national ownership over a culture . They're fighting for survival within a system of nation states they didn't create . Their claims aren't about borders , but true culture and their land . They're about maintaining living traditions despite borders .

Um , so one could say this reveals something important . The problem isn't cultural preservation itself . The problem is how the nation state system forces cultural preservation into a nationalist framework when the only tools available are national , are nationalist tools . Even resistance to nationalism must speak in nationalist terms .

So we need to ask ourselves how can we protect vulnerable cultures without falling into nationalist traps ? How can we support cultural preservation without turning it into national ownership ? And these aren't easy questions and I have no finite answer to this . And I have no finite answer to this .

And it is crucial to bring I'm not to bring really indigenous cultures , distinctive cultures , to the table .

And again , the goal isn't to deny the need for cultural protection , it's to find ways to preserve heritage that don't require drawing new borders through human connection and closing that sidebarbar , opening another sidebar , bear with me , but it kind of gets even darker .

Right , um , we have to talk about the relationship between nationalism and fascism and how they're different from each other . So we have nationalism and then we have fascism , but we would not have Fascism without nationalism . Does all nationalism Turn into fascism ? Hell , no , but there is no fascism without nationalism .

First , fascism needs the foundation Nationalism has made , has created , it needs the groundwork . It needs the groundwork nationalism has done . Right , um , without nationalism making borders seem natural , how could fascists claim they need defending , without national categories and paperwork ? How could they sort us from them ?

It's not that nationalism always leads to fascism , right . But fascism always needs nationalism's foundation . So we've seen that banal nationalism creates a natural national community , unquestioned categories of belonging , administrative divisions of humanity , stories of national uniqueness , us versus them , and also bureaucratic tools for sorting people .

And fascism comes in and weaponizes these right . Natural community becomes a pure community that needs defending . Categories of belonging are categories of exclusion . The administrative division is barriers against contamination . National uniqueness becomes national superiority like a chosenness . Bureaucratic tools becomes weapons of segregation . This is crucial .

Fascism doesn't create these categories from scratch . Right , it needs nationalism's groundwork . The everyday acceptance of national division is natural before it can turn those divisions lethal . So that's why understanding banal nationalism really matters . It's not just about flags and anthems , it's about seeing how ordinary practices create conditions fascism needs to emerge .

So how do we resist this ? Well , first train your eye , awareness . Notice when ancient traditions are actually recent inventions . Spot how museums or school books make modern borders seem eternal . Watch how news naturalizes national divisions . Question when our culture claims arise .

So , as a daily practice when checking the weather , notice borders and ask like why does the right need a fucking passport ? In museum you can check dates and look at like how old these supposedly national treasures are . Or research traditional national dishes and their origins , notice how forms and documents , all the paperwork , make nationality seem natural .

And then , of course , like ask critical questions . I would say the top four are who benefits from this national story ? Two , what connections are being erased ? Three , which histories or whose histories get ignored get ignored . And four , whose version of culture dominates ? Right in , again , the crucial part .

This is not about rejecting culture or tradition , absolutely not . It's about seeing how modern nations package them for power and how fascism weaponizes it . You can love your culture without claiming national ownership . You can preserve heritage without drawing borders through it .

You can celebrate tradition without excluding others and you can maintain identity without nationalist

frames . So again , it's not about rejecting culture or tradition . It's about seeing how modern nations package them for power , because real culture flows across borders . Right , we had the Silk Road long before there were nations . Ideas traveled from village to village , from continent to continent . They didn't need visas or passport .

We had foods shared by people before there were frontiers and borders . So it's not about erasing difference . We're . It's about celebrating how human culture works , through connection and not division , through flow , not borders , through exchange and not ownership .

So next time someone claims something is natural national heritage , or that's just how we are , how things work . Again , ask yourself what connections are being erased , what possibilities can't we see because nationalism has become invisible ? Ultimately , this isn't just theory , right ?

It's about how we imagine human possibility and maybe , just maybe , seeing these invisible bars is the first step towards imagining a world beyond them . So there was a lot of food for thought and , as always , let me know how this episode sits with you . Question cares , comments , concerns , um , and , if you like , reach out on social media .

Happy to talk about it . Until next time , see you on the CineGround . And just like that , we've reached the end of another journey together on the CineGround podcast . Thank you for spending time with us . Curious for more stories or in search of the resources mentioned in today's episode , visit us at cinegrouppodcastcom for everything you need .

And if you're ready to embrace your scenic route , I've got something special for you . Step off the beaten path with my scenic route affirmation card deck . It's crafted for those moments when you're seeking courage , yearning to trust your inner voice and eager to carve out a path authentically unmistakably yours .

Pick your scenic route affirmation today and let it support you . Excited about where your journey might lead ? I certainly am . Remember the scenic route is not just about the destination , but the experiences , learnings and joy we discover along the way . Thank you for being here and I look forward to seeing you on the scenic route again .