This book attempts to address the recent development
of ethno nationalism in Western Europe and North
America. It engages with Kleinian psychoanalytical
concepts, balancing these with a broader
socio-economic emphasis, to argue that a certain type
of nationalism is becoming more prevalent. The book
seeks to suggest, through an interpretation of
political culture, that contemporary ethno
nationalism is linked to the decline of a sense of
the self. Contemporary service based economies tend
to favour a lack of personal reality or connectedness
to social traditions. Individuals gain emotional
solace for this lack of selfhood in an insecure
phantasy of total omnipotence
and self creation. They deposit the all powerful
part of themselves into an invincible racial body,
and hence a more radical, atomised nationalism may
become more rather than less prominent in the
contemporary world.
of ethno nationalism in Western Europe and North
America. It engages with Kleinian psychoanalytical
concepts, balancing these with a broader
socio-economic emphasis, to argue that a certain type
of nationalism is becoming more prevalent. The book
seeks to suggest, through an interpretation of
political culture, that contemporary ethno
nationalism is linked to the decline of a sense of
the self. Contemporary service based economies tend
to favour a lack of personal reality or connectedness
to social traditions. Individuals gain emotional
solace for this lack of selfhood in an insecure
phantasy of total omnipotence
and self creation. They deposit the all powerful
part of themselves into an invincible racial body,
and hence a more radical, atomised nationalism may
become more rather than less prominent in the
contemporary world.