Us and Them

Abstract

In the eyes of antimodernists, whether conservative or radical, modernity is a liability. It is open to the charge of uprooting indi viduals and peoples, depriving them of a sense of history, tradition, fellowship, human relationship, and faith. Yet some scholars insist on the substantial difference between the two basic notions of nationhood and citizenship, a difference that shaped political consciousness of Europe. They draw the dividing line between what they take as the French version of modern citizenship, or citizenship based on the jus soli (the right of territory) principle, and the German version of it that rests on the jus sanguinis (the right of family) principle (see Brubaker, 1992, 1999; Greenfeld, 1992). Both lead to a kind of modern mystique, though.

Nationalism is patriotism misliked and patriotism, nationalism liked.

—Bernard Yack, cited in Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity