Why Nationalism Feels So Powerful — and Who It Really Serves
Psychology explains how nationalism feels, but why does it exist?
When people talk about nationalism, they usually mean love of country: flags, anthems, and the idea that “our nation” is special. That’s part of it, but not the whole story.
Nationalism is also a way of thinking—a habit of mind—that fuses our sense of self with an abstract group and asks us to treat that group as morally untouchable. Once we’ve done that, we start bending reality to protect it: we ignore certain facts, excuse certain crimes, and reinterpret the world so that “we” are always in the right.
That’s the psychological side.
But nationalism is not just an emotional glitch in human nature. It’s also a historically specific ideology. It arose with the modern capitalist state and continues to serve very concrete interests: it disguises class conflict, legitimizes wars, and keeps exploited people emotionally attached to the forces that exploit them.
This essay puts those two pieces together:
How nationalism works inside our heads
Why it keeps being reproduced by the structure of society
Patriotism, Nationalism, and the Question of Power
Let’s start with a basic distinction.
Patriotism is attachment to a particular place, culture, or way of life. A patriot might believe their country is, on balance, better than others—just as someone might naturally prefer their own family. That’s not automatically sinister. Patriotism, at its best, is mostly defensive: it wants to protect something valued, not dominate others.
Nationalism is different. It is less about affection and more about power and status.
For the nationalist, the key question is always:
Are “we” winning or losing?
Is “our” nation respected or humiliated?
Are “our” people rising or being eclipsed?
The nationalist may speak in the language of justice or freedom, but those ideals usually serve as justifications for advancing the prestige of the group.
Crucially, the object of nationalism doesn’t have to be a literal country. People become nationalist about:
Religions
Races
Civilizations
Political parties
“Western Culture”, “Real Americans”, “the working people”, “terrorists”, “illegals”
The content varies. The structure is the same: a fused identity, a hunger for collective power, and a willingness to bend moral judgment around the needs of the group.
Nationalism as a Product of Class Society
From a certain perspective, this mentality is not timeless. It belongs to a specific kind of society.
Modern nationalism emerges alongside:
The capitalist nation-state
The need for centralized markets and unified legal systems
The rise of mass armies and mass politics
To stabilize these new structures, ruling classes needed an ideology that:
Presented the state as the natural home of a unified “people”
Masked the fact that society is divided into classes with opposing interests
Persuaded workers to see themselves as citizens of a shared nation rather than members of an exploited class
Nationalism does exactly that.
It tells a story in which “the nation” is the main character: a single, coherent subject with one history and one destiny. The conflicts that really shape people’s lives—between owners and workers, landlords and tenants, imperial centers and colonized peripheries—are backgrounded or reframed as secondary.
Instead of asking:
“Who owns what? Who works for whom? Who profits from this system?”
people are encouraged to ask:
“Are we, as a nation, getting the respect, territory, or greatness we deserve?”
This is not a conspiracy in the sense of a secret meeting. It’s a long-term historical process in which certain ideas survive because they are useful to those who run the state and control the economy.
Alienation and the Appeal of Imaginary Power
If nationalism were purely top-down propaganda, it wouldn’t work. It resonates because it plugs into something very real in people’s lives: alienation.
In capitalist societies, most people:
Don’t control the workplaces where they spend much of their time
Don’t control the political decisions that shape their futures
Don’t control the economic forces that determine whether they thrive or collapse
Their experience of powerlessness is not a personal failing; it’s built into the system. But emotionally, it hurts. You feel small, replaceable, vulnerable.
Nationalism offers a seductive workaround: symbolic power.
When “our” army wins a war, it feels like we have done something great.
When “our” nation is praised, it feels like we are being honored.
When “our” enemies suffer humiliation, it feels like we are vindicated.
The less power people have over their material conditions, the stronger the pull of this imaginary collective agency. Identification with “the nation” (or the race, or the civilization) becomes a way to feel big in a world that constantly makes you feel small.
That doesn’t mean people are dupes. It means nationalism is doing psychological work under structurally produced conditions of disempowerment.
Inside the Nationalist Mind
Once this identification takes hold, a familiar pattern of thinking emerges. You can recognize nationalism by its mental habits.
1. Reified collective subjects
“Nations,” “peoples,” or “civilizations” are treated as if they were persons:
“The West believes…”
“Russia wants…”
“Our people are by nature…”
These huge, internally divided populations are spoken of as if they had a single character and will. The real fractures—especially class divisions—are blurred out.
2. Hierarchies of virtue and vice
Entire groups are assigned fixed moral qualities:
“We are hardworking, peaceful, honest.”
“They are lazy, aggressive, untrustworthy.”
These stereotypes justify domination abroad and discipline at home:
Abroad: “We must rule them; for their own good, obviously.”
At home: “Anyone who questions our way of life is a danger to the nation.”
3. Moral exceptionalism
Acts are judged by who performs them, not by what they are.
When “our” state bombs civilians, it is “regrettable but necessary.”
When a rival does the same, it is proof of barbarism.
When “our” government lies, it is for security; when theirs lies, it reveals their true nature.
Practically, this double standard is crucial: it allows ruling classes to wage war, impose austerity, and crush dissent without losing the moral loyalty of their population.
4. Selective perception and rewritten history
Nationalism is not just a set of beliefs; it’s a filter on perception.
Atrocities committed by “us” are forgotten, minimized, or justified.
Identical atrocities by “them” become defining features of their identity.
History is rearranged into a coherent story in which “our” group is fundamentally heroic, victimized, or destined for greatness.
Facts that don’t fit this narrative often become literally unthinkable. They feel like an attack not just on the nation but on the self.
The Material Engines of Nationalism
Where does this ideological machinery get its fuel?
1. The capitalist state
Modern capitalism needs:
Centralized infrastructures
Standardized law
Stable, governable populations
The nation-state provides these. Nationalism, in turn, presents the state as the natural expression of a unified “people,” rather than as a contested instrument of class power.
2. Imperialism
Capitalist states compete for:
Markets
Resources
Strategic territory
That competition often leads to colonial domination, proxy wars, or outright conflict.
To make this palatable, ruling classes need citizens who will:
Fight and die in wars
Accept heavy taxation and rationing
Ignore or justify atrocities
Nationalism supplies the emotional glue: the sense that “we” must stand together against external threats, and that any internal dissent is betrayal.
3. Social fragmentation and crisis
Capitalism destroys many older forms of community—village life, extended family structures, local economies—without providing stable new ones. People experience:
Isolation
Precarity
Rapid, unpredictable change
In this context, nationalism offers a ready-made answer to the question “Who am I part of?” It promises a huge, eternal “we” at the exact moment everyday forms of “we” are breaking down.
And in periods of crisis—mass unemployment, inflation, social collapse—the appeal intensifies. Nationalism promises order, strength, and meaning in a world that feels like it’s falling apart.
How Nationalism Weakens Class Consciousness
All of this matters politically because nationalism doesn’t just coexist with class struggle; it actively competes with it.
It tries to redefine a worker’s primary identity:
From: member of an exploited class with shared interests across borders
To: citizen of a nation with shared interests with “our” capitalists
The effects are predictable:
Anger that could be directed at exploitative employers is redirected at foreigners or other vulnerable minority groups.
Workers are mobilized to defend “their” ruling class in imperialist ventures.
Solidarity between workers in different countries is weakened by suspicion and chauvinism.
Material analysis (who owns what, who profits how) is replaced by moral myths of national virtue and destiny.
In moments of crisis—especially war—nationalism becomes an invaluable tool for ruling classes. It turns potential class enemies into patriotic foot soldiers.
For the working class, it is a political trap: it recruits them into battles that ultimately strengthen the very forces that keep them disempowered.
Can Nationalism Be Overcome?
If nationalism were just a bad idea, we might defeat it with better arguments. If it were just a moral failing, we might defeat it with appeals to decency.
But nationalism is rooted in:
The structure of the capitalist state
The dynamics of imperialism
The alienation and insecurity of everyday life
So overcoming it requires more than personal enlightenment. It requires transforming the conditions that keep reproducing it.
That means:
Building international working-class solidarity strong enough to resist being divided along national lines.
Moving toward collective control of production, so that people’s need for power is met in real life rather than in fantasies of national glory.
Creating democratic, egalitarian institutions that provide genuine belonging and participation, not just symbolic citizenship.
Supporting anti-imperialist struggles that dismantle hierarchies between nations and weaken the material basis of nationalist ideology.
None of this is easy. But without it, nationalism will keep returning in new forms, because the underlying alienation and powerlessness will still be there, looking for a flag to cling to.
Loving Truth More Than Flags
Nationalism feels powerful because it offers a simple answer to complex problems:
“You are part of a great ‘we.’ Your enemies are out there. Your duty is to stand with your own.”
It offers pride without power, belonging without equality, meaning without transformation. That’s why it’s so attractive—and why it’s so useful to those who benefit from the status quo.
Seeing through it doesn’t mean having no loyalties, no attachments, no sense of home. It means refusing to place any “we”—nation, race, party, civilization—beyond moral and factual scrutiny.
It means, in the end, trying to love truth and justice more than flags and myths.
Until we do that at scale—and until we reshape the material world so that people have real power over their own lives—nationalism will remain what it is now: one of the most effective ways of getting the oppressed to fight for the glory of their oppressors.