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Features

Introduction

Throughout the West, populist political parties are challenging the status quo. In response, political parties on both the Left and the Right claim that the populist challenges, many of which look to national histories and cultures for inspiration, are a “threat to democracy.” The established parties warn against “ethnocentrism,” which they claim fosters racism, stereotyping, discrimination, or xenophobia. Most likely, unless a credible alternative is offered, these political debates will continue for years.

One credible alternative is “personalist nationalism.” In his classic 1871 book, Democratic Vistas, America’s Walt Whitman espoused a personalist nationalism. He focused on the quality of Being, according to a person’s “own central idea and purpose.” He proposed a “healthy average personalism . . . the object of which should be to raise and supply through the States a copious race of superb American men and women, cheerful, religious, ahead of any yet known.”[1] For Whitman, it is only in the national context that a person can realize his or her true self: “The literature, songs, and esthetics of a country are of importance principally because they furnish the materials and suggestions of personality for the women and men of that country, and enforce them in a thousand effective ways.”[2]

Similarly, in a 1980 speech to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as UNESCO, Pope John Paul II explained how culture is the specific way of man’s existing and being. “Man always lives according to a culture which is specifically his, and which, in its turn, creates among men a tie which is also specifically theirs, determining the inter-human and social character of human existence.”[3]

Pope John Paul II urged UNESCO delegates:

"[W]ith all the means at your disposal, watch over the fundamental sovereignty that every Nation possesses by virtue of its own culture. Cherish it like the apple of your eye for the future of the great human family. Protect it! Do not allow this fundamental sovereignty to become the prey of some political or economic interest. Do not allow it to become a victim of totalitarian and imperialistic systems or hegemonies."[4]

This pillar of Global Governance Watch, provides resources in four areas critical to the success of personalist nationalism: Law and Liberty, Law and Religion, Law and Sovereignty, and Law and Economics.

[1] Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas (1871), in Specimen Days, Democratic Vistas, and Other Prose, R. Shafer, ed. (Doubleday-Doran, New York) (1935), 294-295

[2] Id., 292.

[3] John Paul II, “Address to UNESCO,” June 2, 1980, https://inters.org/John-Paul-II-UNESCO-Culture

[4] Id.

Documents

Resources

Commentary

Personalist Nationalism

America's "Judicial Coup"

March 21, 2025

In what El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has called a "judicial coup," The Federalist cites specific examples supporting the claim of judicial overreach aimed at the Trump Administration's "America first" agenda.
The Judiciary and the Fight against Administrative Rule

March 21, 2025

John Daniel Davidson of The Federalist explores the complicity of the judiciary in supporting "administrative rule" in the United States.
Originalism Trends in 2024

March 20, 2025

Mike Rappaport, Director of the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism, offers an overview of the growing influence of originalism on the Supreme Court in 2024.
Corporate Media's Complicity in the COVID Cover-up

March 20, 2025

Jordan Boyd of The Federalist criticizes The New York Times's attempt to minimize the role it played as a "willing accomplice in a corporate media-wise plot to run cover for bureaucrats' tyrannical takeover of...cities, states, and country."
The Legacy of William Ropke

March 17, 2025

The Express Tribune commends William Ropke's 1933 courageous 1933 lecture upholding liberalism in the face of rising fascism in the Third Reich, with warnings that are still applicable today.

Total Records: 34

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