Wgu Nationalism Source Analysis

An individual’s nationalistic views and beliefs can compete with another to form contending nationalist loyalties. Source I portrays the contending religious and civic loyalties in a nation. The author of the source claims that the principal of national unity should be raised above all other divisions and criticizes the idea of communalism, which regards religious nationalism as the main source of belonging. For an example, the conflicts between individuals with different religious beliefs should be perceived as conflicts between those individuals in the nation instead of perceiving it as conflicts between two different religious groups; solely interpreting the individuals with their religious identity. The author’s ideology of nationalism is heavily derived from a strong sense of patriotism and centered
on the idea of nation as a whole; unity of the nation.
The author of the source speaks that the exterior forms of nationalism, in this case, religion, should be disregarded to form a stronger and peaceful nation without “sectarianism”, which will potentially cause the nation to segregate in its own divisions.

The dangers of nationalism are many and can be devastating for a nation of any kind and it is certain that the government can play a significant role when it comes to nationalistic views of that nation. Depending on how the government organizes its nation, the civic nationalism of that country can drastically alter from a republic to a total dictatorship. Source number II clearly reflects the danger of nationalism by the utilization of reflecting irrefutable state of corrupted nationalistic views in North Korea. The source--which consists of a picture of militants in North Korea forming their flag--is titled as “Blind nationalism”. After, a quote is followed which says
“support your government”, but in contrast, the sentence after the statement criticizes the government of North Korea in a sarcastic way. The creator of source II clearly portraits his anti-ultra nationalistic views and tries to discourage the use of it. The reason why the creator states North Korea’s nationalism as ‘Blind’ nationalism is clearly evident from his quote. The nation is glued tightly together although their nationalism is not defined as ‘source of belonging in a nation’ and the government has discriminated and made use of its power to work against the ‘weak’ out of strong greed. The ‘blindness’ of the citizen is caused by the extreme isolation from other nations making it easier for the government to modify their beliefs, values, identity, and moreover, the country’s nationalism. With all of these factors joined together, the citizens of the country will not have a broad spectrum of view when it comes to the meaning of nationalism itself, furthermore, the definition of nationalism will significantly alter. To this day, nationalism in North Korea defined as ‘Kim Jong Eun’, the dictator of North Korea.

Source III is a political cartoon which consists a singer who is about to sing a song about his love for many aspects of America that have actually originated from outside of America. Moreover, contrasting to the meaning of the song, it is named as “America is for Americans”. The title of the song reflects the ethnocentric views of America and their idealism of a nation, which is described by the ‘melting pot theory’. The theory describes the assimilation of immigrants into American culture, melting them into the American culture only for them to fit in. It is evident that the creator of this source is critical of the underlying aspect of nationalism in America and their strong ethnic centered views. While it’s the aspects of multiculturalism brought by many immigrants are the key factors that formed America’s current national unity, America refuses to accept the cultural pluralism.