![eu scale II](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/eu-scale-II.png)
Pick a side: Bureaucratic Imperialism or Democratic Nationalism
One oddity about the conference on national conservatism held by the Edmund Burke Institute in Washington in July, at which I was a panellist, was that the media treated its central theme of nationalism and nation-states with wary suspicion, as if it were some risky innovation, when it is in reality the status quo of international relations. There are 190 states in today’s world whose sovereignty is undisputed, and only a handful of others. Opinion polls in the great majority of democratic sovereign states show very low levels of support for secessionist movements. And where they are serious political forces—as in Catalonia and Scotland—that usually reflects recent histories of national difference institutionally or linguistically.
Most people still have a mental framework of a world divided into nation-states held together by loyalties called, variously, love of country, nationalism and patriotism. Since the end of the Cold War, however, this framework has been challenged…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins