2 - The religious effects of culture: nationalism

Summary

[T]he role of the modern state … is primarily spiritual, even other-worldly, and its driving force is its collective faith, a faith in its mission and destiny, a faith in things unseen, a faith that would move mountains. Nationalism is sentimental, emotional, and inspirational.

(Carlton J. H. Hayes, Essays on Nationalism)

If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.

(Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life)

All religions rise out of the deification of someone's nationalism.

(Molefi Kete Asante, Afrocentricity)

The discursive connections between religion and nationalism have long been recognized. Perhaps no one has explored their relationship as persistently as Carlton J. H. Hayes, a prolific historian of nationalism, who did his most important work during the inter-war years of the 1920s and 1930s. While Emile Durkheim is not noted for his reflections on nationalism, his theory of religion sheds light on the question of religion and nationalism. Between Hayes and Durkheim, we can account for most notions of how religion and nationalism are related. The conceptual territory that they have configured and carved-up between themselves has the form of a question: “Is religion the principle – motive, force, and secret-soul – of nationalism or is nationalism the principle of religion?” This question defines the intellectual ground on which Said strategically engages nationalism as a religious–cultural effect.