HIST 390 Blog

This week we talked about forms of Nationalism, and how different countries support their form of nationalism.  Because the United States in formed with so many people of vastly different backgrounds, it doesn’t necessarily work to boast of a racial nationalism.  Our nationalism is contractual and thin in the sense that we are a new nation and that it’s hard to define what is American because we are all so different.  We tend to be united by the “American Dream”.  Contractual Nationalism is based out of the Enlightenment and emphasizes rationality and individual, which Americans double down on this in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

This Contractual Nationalism is very opposite to Romanticism, which is the Enlightenment’s reaction to rationality.  Romanticism stresses that rational calculation of self interest is not all there is to life and that people are moved by greater things, such as love.  As partly rational and romantic, it argues that meaning and beauty exist in our irrational emotions.  Translated into a form of nationalism, Romantic Nationalism, focuses on a common “soul” beyond law and individual rationality.  It is closely related to Racial Nationalism, and that a “race” of people makes a nation.

It was interesting to me to learn that the United States flirts heavily with the idea of a racial nationalism when it comes to white people.  Also how they tried to do this in the late 1800s by pushing a “folk” culture and conquering the great frontier in the west.  Although this is contradictory, considering majority of the “folk” people were African American.

Lastly, we talked about the Blues. As a 1-4-5 progression, the blues is eventually translated into yodeling blues music, and in many ways was white people impersonating black “folk” music.