The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Thus, Nadezhda Mandelstam, in 1973 can write,
Cézanne was not in the least concerned about endowing his work with a specifically French character. In the Russian icon and in Rublev we see the qualities of the grand European tradition, with Russia, the land and the people, showing through them. Nationalism is at a lower level of consciousness. When it comes to the forefront, crowding out fundamentals, it is a sign not of health but of sickness; not of depth but of shallowness.
And yet, “Christian conservatives” in 2022 can still write statements like National Conservatism: A Statement of Principles, with opening lines like this:
We are citizens of Western nations who have watched with alarm as the traditional beliefs, institutions, and liberties underpinning life in the countries we love have been progressively undermined and overthrown.
We see the tradition of independent, self-governed nations as the foundation for restoring a proper public orientation toward patriotism and courage, honor and loyalty, religion and wisdom, congregation and family, man and woman, the sabbath and the sacred, and reason and justice. We are conservatives because we see such virtues as essential to sustaining our civilization. We see such a restoration as the prerequisite for recovering and maintaining our freedom, security, and prosperity.
We emphasize the idea of the nation because we see a world of independent nations—each pursuing its own national interests and upholding national traditions that are its own—as the only genuine alternative to universalist ideologies now seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.
Fortunately, there are at least a few who can still respond appropriately.
An Open Letter Responding to the NatCon “Statement of Principles”:
In the end the National Conservative statement is neither conservative nor Christian. As critics of liberalism from both Left and Right, we must reject it. We acknowledge the importance of national cultures. We recognise the rightful place of the nation acting in defence of the common good on behalf of its citizens. But we cannot accept the idea that to fight globalisation we must uncritically embrace the nation-state as the one true political form, or the most complete community; or that the best good we can aim for is nation-states re-armed against each other, seeking their own interests in perpetual implied conflict.
We the undersigned uphold the universal principles that underwrite nations, the natural law that is written on the heart of every man and woman in every nation, and the spirit of international friendship and charity that binds us together.
I think those universal principles mentioned in that past paragraph are close to the fundamentals that Nadezhda Mandelstam had in mind. She had the “nationalists” of her day pegged no less than today’s “Christian conservatives.” The willful blindness of it all is eerie, and sobering:
…there was something in their mentality that prepared the way for the debacle to come. . . . thus indulging a veiled cult of power in their desperate search for a way to heal themselves.