A review of Masochistic Nationalism: Multicultural Self-Hatred and the Infatuation with the Exotic by Göran Adamson.Routledge, 138 pages (March 2021).
In his 1945 essay, “Notes on Nationalism,” George Orwell contrasted “positive nationalism”—pride in one’s country—with the “negative” and “transferred” nationalisms displayed by supporters of the Soviet Union—the denigration of one’s country and the embrace of another. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their merits, but according to who performed them. “Within the intelligentsia,” he wrote, “a derisive and mildly hostile attitude towards Britain is more or less compulsory, but it is an unfaked emotion in many cases.”
In his new book, Swedish academic Göran Adamson calls this combination of negative and transferred nationalisms “masochistic nationalism,” a term he then uses to analyse developments in modern Western Europe. Masochistic nationalism is defined as unjustifiable hostility to one’s own nation infused with a sense of pleasure and grandeur, combined with loyalty to another nation (or other nations) which are said to offer a more positive example of what nationalism ought to be. Adamson identifies some similarities between positive and masochistic nationalism but, as the title indicates, his focus is on the latter. He argues that many Westerners become fascinated by non-Western cultures because they assume this will provide them with an aura of self-critical virtue. Just as Orwell understood negative nationalism to mean that one’s own country must be wrong, Adamson understands masochistic nationalism to mean that “everything native must be criticised and everything exotic must be hailed.”
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