David Archard, “Myths, Lies
and Historical Truth: a Defence of Nationalism”
“My claim is not that nationalism gets things right but that it gets them wrong in a more interesting way than has been previously noticed.” [472]
National Myths [473]
Two examples of national myth:
What these two have in common:
a) they’re typical of each nation’s view of its own character
b) they have some basis in truth
Gellner: even though nationalism ‘invents nations where they do not exits,’ nationalism needs “some pre-existing differentiating marks to work on.” That is:
1. A purely subjective criterion of nationality cannot work: the fact that people all (mistakenly) believe themselves to share a nationality may be what unites a nation, but there must be a reason that prompts them to believe they share a nationality (and a way of telling who is and who isn’t a co-national).
2. Not just “any old belief” can do to support a sense of nationality – it has to be one about one of the supposed objective criteria – race, language, territory, etc.
i.e.,
inasmuch as the subjective criterion of nationhood is plausible some version of an objective criterion must be true to some degree. There must be some reason for a group of people to think they are a nation, even if they are mistaken in thinking they are this particular kind of nation. National myths, then, contain a portion of truth, and would probably not be successful if they did not. [474]
National myths are not things like the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus (i.e., entirely fictional and connected to spiritual claims)
Truth [475]
Possible relationship between national myths and the truth:
1. They represent a portion of the truth (i.e., there are some facts to base them on (Dunkirk) or they point to something that used to be true (ethnic homogeneity of national group?))
2. They are ‘concrete universals’, that is, each one “condenses and telescopes the scattered facts and events of history so as to present essential or universal truths in a particularized form” [475]. So, even if things did not happen exactly as described in the Dunkirk myth, they could have happened that way, given general facts about the British.
3. A falsehood could be self-confirming. Thus, a group which believes itself to share a common history will end up doing so if the nation gets off the ground. (This could achieve good ends for the group: “The performance of a sports team may be much improved if they can make themselves believe that they are better”, Britons may come to be the kind of people described in the Dunkirk myth
A sense of social commonality like that of nationality may thus be real enough even though it is supported by mistaken beliefs. Insofar as it is real enough the feeling is constituted by the right kind of beliefs—that each is bound to the other by important ties, shares an identity, and is assured that the others think similarly. [476]
The Value of Myths [476]
Two kinds of good purpose can be served by national myths:
1.
Cognitive: belief in the falsehood leads one to
believe something else that is true.
(Perhaps the falsehoods in Michael Moore’s “Stupid White Men” could be useful
if they led us to believe that our leaders are corrupt)
2. Affective: belief in the myths leads us to lead noble lives or have the right kind of attitudes to other beings.
Myths can enlighten by simplifying, dramatizing, sythesizing, and suggesting what is the case. They may also be effectively hortative in capturing and latching onto our deepest sense of what matters to us....National myths are also clearly a stimulus to action. The members of a nation act within the present in the light of how they think about their own past... Britons are both proud of and seek to live up to the patriotic ideal of ‘Dunkirk’.
Myths versus the Truth? [477]
Is Renan right that a study of history is inimical to nationalism?
1. The impermeability of national myths to intellectual criticism: they will continue to be accepted because they are deeply rooted in popular culture. (And, insofar as they are general claims, cannot be falsified by even a large number of falsifications of particular instances.)
2.
“Truth” is impossible in history: history
always has to be told from some perspective, and cannot ever claim to be fully
objective.
3.
History is about nations, so cannot
really debunk their existence because it presupposes it to even make sense.
Sum: academic attacks on particular myths will not bring them down, because belief in them is not dependent on strict standards of plausibility but rather the function they serve (compare religion and urban legends): e.g. Leonard Thompson’s claim that another Afrikaaner myth declined because the function it served ceased to have relevance.
Practical point: the lumpy carpet syndrome – as one myth is squashed, another takes its place.
Does it matter that national myths are not completely true?
It cannot, I think, be maintained that the continued existence of myths threatens, in a general way, respect for the truth. It is not just that the relation of myths to the truth is more complicated than a simple accusation of error would suggest. Acceptance of myths does not require those who believe them to value the truth any less, nor dispose them more generally to embrace falsity. A readiness to acknowledge that national myths are both hard to shift and may yet serve valuable ends does not commit one to seek limits on free intellectual inquiry, nor to think that myths are useful in all areas of human life. [479]
The Dangers of Myths [479-481]
Three grounds on which a national myth may legitimately be criticized:
1. If it is a “gateway falsity”: that is, if its acceptance leads to a further falsehood which has bad consequences (e.g., the belief that all foreigners are evil or inferior) – a particular risk in countries with a colonial past.
2.
If the myth works to the advantage of those in the
know, and against those not in the know because “benefit derived from
artificially sustained ignorance is unfair.” [479]
Is this true of all national myths? No,
because usually the ruling class believes the myth just as much as the ruled,
says Archard.
3. If belief in a myth is the only thing allowing acceptance to an immoral state of affairs (that would, therefore, vanish if the myth was removed). Say, the belief that blacks are “natural slaves”.
Conclusion:
All communities, save face-to-face ones, are ‘imagined’: ‘Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined.’ [Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 15] We can conclude then by suggesting that it should not be a question of demythologizing nationality but of determining which myths of nationhood it is best for socieites to be united by. [481]