Abstract
Nationalism is normally directed against closest neighbors. This simple fact -- The Hated Neighbor Truism -- has important consequences, mostly overlooked in moral debates on nationalism. First, it undercuts the defense of nationalism based on the (alleged) moral worth of proximity: since nationalists hate closest neighbors, they cannot consistently rely upon such defense. Second, it blocks the usual theoretical contrast of nationalism with cosmopolitanism: the main enemies of the nationalist are not indiscriminate cosmopolitans, but the neighbor-lovers, call them “macro-regionalists”. Finally, it suggests that the proper response to nationalism is a graded, region-sensitive moderate cosmopolitanism.
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Miscevic, N. Close Strangers. Studies in East European Thought 51, 109–125 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008664319975
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008664319975