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Full Idea
Popular imperialism is the cosmopolitanism of the poor, the lever by which the small and impotent come to believe that their acts have world historical meaning.
Gist of Idea
Popular imperialism gives the poor the belief that their acts have world historical meaning
Source
Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 2)
Book Ref
Gopnik,Adam: 'A Thousand Small Sanities' [riverrun 2019], p.96
A Reaction
It is not only the poor who like imperialism. The focus of this popular attitude is the armed forces, and especially the army, where personal bravery is most obvious. The army gets strong support, no matter how dubious are its activities.
| 23273 | In a good state the goal of the citizens and of the whole state are united [Hegel] |
| 23042 | National spirit only exists in the individuals who embody it [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| 23194 | People feel united as a nation by one language, but then want a common ancestry and history [Nietzsche] |
| 23810 | Charity is the only love, and you can feel that for a country (a place with traditions), but not a nation [Weil] |
| 23828 | National prestige consists of behaving as if you could beat the others in a war [Weil] |
| 22816 | Socialists reject nationality as a false source of identity [Miller,D] |
| 21123 | Liberal Nationalism is more communitarian, and Constitutional Patriotism more cosmopolitan [Shorten] |
| 23535 | Western workers turn to nationalism, to avert the effects of globalisation [Berardi] |
| 23130 | Popular imperialism gives the poor the belief that their acts have world historical meaning [Gopnik] |
| 23131 | Patriots love their place, but nationalists have a paranoid ethnic hostility [Gopnik] |
| 22592 | Nationalism pretends that we can only have a single identity [Dunt] |