over attachment to any group identity is usually an indicator of lack of a sense of self, yes you can be religious, or a nationalist, or follow some ideology, but if you put anything head and shoulders above your own critical reasoning you walk down a road of dogma.
I think it is right to point to a psychological element but I think there is something more elemental here than mere individual failing.
A historian alert to psychological factors in the making of history, Roger Griffin, summarised it perfectly:
“Once human beings leave the paradise of the womb they become insecure, exiles in an alien and threatening world, so that a significant part of the way they collectively think and act may be interpreted as the result of a deep subliminal drive to overcome the sense of being exposed and vulnerable; to be ‘inside’ rather than ‘outside’; to feel psychologically ‘at home’.”
We might point to the incredible work of the cultural anthropologist, Ernest Becker, in his book,
The Denial of Death. We are unique in our self-awareness, but this comes, Becker argued, at the cost of knowing our mortality. Becker argued that in order to protect ourselves from the terror of death, we have created shields - “hero systems” - that take us as individuals beyond ourselves; a system in other words that enables us to to transcend life and indeed death itself and to melt into some higher reality.
Consider the French revolution, which was shaped by Enlightenment values, particularly reason. Yet it was hardly devoid of mythical dimensions. As the famous sociologist, Emile Durkheim, noted “the French Revolution instituted a whole cycle of festivals to preserve the principles that inspired it in a state of perpetual youth.” There was the adoption of a national anthem, a new flag, a new calendar, new rituals such as the Liberty Tree. There were new cults - the Cult of Reason and Cult of Supreme Being. For many revolutionaries, the Motherland was projected as a secular sacred spirit. Relying only on rational argument was not enough. Symbolism and myth were called upon to inspire action, create enthusiasm and to fashion a sense of purposeful unity amongst the mass. There needed to be fire in the blood.
Rituals, traditions, myths, symbols are therefore sources of transcendent meaning, frames of reference, sets of common principles that bind people together and provide a ‘spiritual’ refuge.
Nationalists frequently deployed a repertoire of symbols with nationalism elevated to a form of ‘secular religion’. Italian historian, Emilio Gentile defines ‘secular religion’ as a “developed system of beliefs, myths, rituals, and symbols that create an aura of sacredness around an entity belonging to this world and turn it into a cult and an object of worship and devotion.” Anthony Smith, a scholar who wrote prolifically on the subject of nationalism, noted that a national identity gave “cultural fulfilment, rootedness, security and fraternity” and satisfied a human “craving for immortality.” Smith pointed to the “transcendental dimension” of nationalism which “raises the individual above the earthly round and out of immediate time.”
I end with not with a theorist but a man who wrought destruction on the world: Adolf Hitler. Hitler realised how the power of mass action and feelings of community could transform the impotent ‘little worm’ into a ‘great dragon’: “Mass demonstrations must burn into the little man's soul the conviction that though a little worm he is part of a great dragon."
