Moral Boundaries in a Globalized World: A Critique of Nationalism

This article explores the moral and ethical limitations and partiality inherent in nationalism in an increasingly interconnected world, focusing on Benedict Anderson’s famous definition of nationalism. Drawing on existentialist philosophy, it first focuses on the relationship between language, culture, and society, emphasizing that human subjectivity is shaped by the relationship between them. From an interdisciplinary perspective, it takes nationalism as a discourse and critiques the essentialist understanding of culture that gives soul to imagined communities and the exclusionary moral framework that this understanding entails. It draws attention to the sedantarist metaphysics that nationalist ideology establishes between the nation and the territory, and to the fact that this metaphysics draws an unbridgeable boundary between “us” and “them.” Against the moral partiality of nationalism, the paper discusses cosmopolitanism as an alternative moral stance that transcends national boundaries and analyzes its applicability. The absence of a central global sovereign institution and the inequality-producing nature of capitalism are highlighted as obstacles to both a cosmopolitan morality and global justice. As a solution to these limitations, the article stresses the need for new transformative languages and narratives that transcend the limiting discourse of nationalism and give rise to a global moral and ethical consciousness.