OZ Conservative has a well written and interesting article on Michael Ignatieff. The differences between the liberal, nationalist and conservative views on citizenship are looked at in detail.

From the article;

Ignatieff is a liberal. As such, he believes that individuals should be self-defined. Therefore he rejects ethnic nationalism (in which national identity is based on a common ancestry, culture, language and so on)

This is the argument that accidents of birth or geography should not define citizenship. Oz Conservative quotes Ignatieff to display that his take on the liberal side of civics, ie Cosmopolitanism is really quite traditional and conservative in its view. Ignatieff is quoted;

It is only too apparent that cosmopolitanism is the privilege of those who can take a secure nation-state for granted ... The cosmopolitanism of the great cities - London, Los Angeles, New York, London - depends critically on the rule-enforcing capacities of the nation state ...

"In this sense, therefore, cosmopolitans like myself are not beyond the nation; and a cosmopolitan, post-nationalist spirit will always depend, in the end, on the capacity of nation-states to provide security and civility for their citizens."

"I am a civic nationalist, someone who believes in the necessity of nations and in the duty of citizens to defend the capacity of nations to provide the security and rights we all need in order to live cosmopolitan lives.

This is where Ignatieff confuses the intrinsic property of a polity and government system with the emergent properties. Civic identity is a result of individuals pursuing their social, cultural and economic identity.

A conservative reading of that social organisation design pattern would see no difference between the intrinsic and emergent properties of society. The government, law and order, society and culture are all one entity. We see this when conservatives make claims that "our legal system is an Australian value".

Gary Sauer-Thompson writes on this;

Conservatism understands that nationality and society are rooted in biological, cultural and historical heritage. The difference between these two concepts becomes particularly obvious when one compares how they visualize history and the structure of the real. Nationalists are proponents of holism.

Nationalists see the individual as a kinsman, sustained by the people and community. which nurtures and protects him, and with which he is proud to identify. The individual's actions represent an act of participation in the life of his people, and freedom of action is very real because, sharing in the values of his associates, the individual will seldom seek to threaten the basic values of the community with which he identifies.

The liberal viewpoint would be that the emergent property of social organisation does not exist. It is utterly defined by the individuals pursuing their interests. This is the dominance of the intrinsic over the emergent, which is why liberalism and nationalism so often come into conflict.

Again Gary Sauer-Thompson has a discussion of that phenomenon;

The essence of modern liberal thought is that order is believed to be able to consolidate itself by means of all-out economic competition, that is, through the battle of all against all, requiring governments to do no more than set certain essential ground rules and provide certain services which the individual alone cannot adequately provide.

I recently discussed this same issue from an Australian Republican perspective. While the absence of privilege may seem a liberal value, which it is, it is the ground work for enabling the creation and interaction of the emergent properties in a complex system that create social cohesion.

This is a systems view of social interaction and cohesion. In a Harpurian manner the highest form of social organisation, and consequently prosperity, can only be achieved through individual members in the system having the liberty to pursue their social, cultural and economic interests.

The point of greatest cohesion, is the one of greatest interaction and interdependence which by default is an intrinsic system of maximum liberty.

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