III.

Primordialism

The first we may term “primordialist”. Actually, where it is not used as a pejorative adjective, primordialism refers to a number of different views, whose only common element is that they tend to regard nations as intrinsic to the human condition. One variant of this view was that of organic nationalism. Organic nationalists hold that the nation resembles an organism in nature. This means that not only must one have a nation but that one must belong to a particular nation, namely, the one into which one is born and to which one belongs throughout life even if one migrates elsewhere.

A second variant is the sociobiological version proposed by the anthropologist Pierre van den Berghe. This holds that ethnic groups and nations, along with races, are ultimately products of individual genetic reproductive drives. The mechanisms that lead to the formation of such groupings are twofold. On the one hand, biological evolution creates the need for inclusive fitness through nepotism and endogamy, so as to maximize the influence of an individual’s genes. Such mechanisms are mirrored in myths of descent, which are a common feature of ethnic groups and nations. On the other hand, the cues of cultural signs of colour, language, dress and the like which help to orient our drives, create the various kinds of cultural community with which we are familiar. However, for all its conceptual parsimony, this approach has been criticized for being biologically reductionist and for failing to explain how very large groups like nations can be derived from extended families and sustained over the long term. Critics also point to the fact that myths of descent rarely correspond to what we know about actual lines of ethnic descent. Moreover, insofar as it appeals to cultural signs to differentiate types of group, the sociobiological model appears to resort to alternative, and for some, preferable, cultural explanations.

A third variant can be termed “cultural primordialism”. Its main exponent has been the sociologist Clifford Geertz. Geertz argued that, in order to explain the severe problems of post-colonial states in Asia and Africa, we need to distinguish, on the one hand, the drive to build states on the basis of efficiency and “civic ties” and, on the other hand, the retention of “primordial ties” to certain “cultural givens”. Geertz defined nationalism as the drive to create efficient states with civic ties, in accordance with the modernist emphasis on “nation-building”. However, he felt that, in the developing states, it was undermined by the overriding importance attributed by people to basic identity cleavages—ethnicity, religion, race, custom, and territory. This kind of approach may help us to grasp some of the problems of new states in Asia and Africa and the passions that primordial ties can and do generate, but, by sundering ethnic and cultural identities from nationhood and treating them as ineffable and overriding “givens”, Geertz tended to preclude the possibility of causal historical analysis.