Patriotyzm i nacjonalizm

Abstrakt

Nations are fellowships of culture that undergo a historical formation. The formation of national culture is a dynamic, complex and long-term process that is characterised by continuity and innovation (contribution given by successive generations). The development of culture is an expansive process. Now expansiveness is an essential and immanent property of culture. Innovations, new elements or changes in culture contributed by its authors may take on the character of creative expansion or aggressive expansion. Creative expansion manifests itself in tendencies and actions performed by members of society with a view to create further material and symbolical values, their dissemination and protection of the cultural heritage of one's own nation. These attitudes and actions make up what we call patriotism. Now aggressive expansion consists in tendencies and actions that are designed to develop one's own culture at the expense of another nation. Florian Znaniecki distinguishes four kinds of aggressiveness: territorial, economical, assimilative, and ideological. It is this aggressiveness of attitudes and behaviour towards other nations or their culture that constitutes nationalism. In the history of the development of culture in particular nations the key role is played by national ideologists – intellectual and political elite – as authors of national ideologies and organisers of social forces that tend to make them come true.