by similarities of behavior and feelings of sympathy and belonging. Given
its intrinsic intolerance of diversity, the communitarian democracy threatens
creative advance by individuals or groups. A third variation which I have
called social liberalism combines the merits of a common culture and a commit-
ment to diversity. In this model of nationhood the integration of persons
is achieved because they are diverse, but complementary; that is, the various
members diVer in such ways that they Wt together as a more inclusive
whole. The favorite analogy is with a living body; hence the designation ‘‘organic
nationalism’’ for this idea of a free, egalitarian, democratic, and passionate form of
social union. The point to stress is that the interaction of its citizens is not merely
external and instrumental, but inward and constitutive, so transforming one
another as to make the aggregate a uniWed whole and a fulWllment of creative
advance.
To be members of such a nation is to be joined together not only by
ideas, but also by what Edmund Burke called ‘‘public aVections’’—the whole
range: fear, joy, pride, shame, anger, devotion, and revulsion. Not that all
members will at all times react to events in the same way, as they did in grief
over JFK’s assassination and the shattering events of 9 / 11. At times some Americans
will feel shame for what others take pride in, as happened during our bitter
divisions over war in Vietnam and Iraq. But both the shame and the pride spring
from a common sense of nationhood. You cannot be ashamed of your country
unless you love it.
- 3 Blair’s New Nationalism
‘‘I like to think of myself,’’ Thatcher once said, ‘‘as a Liberal in the nineteenth-
century sense—like Gladstone.’’ Her repudiation of Tory paternalism Wts
her libertarian mold. Tony Blair’s repudiation of socialism, although not explicit,
was no less thorough. Does that make him a liberal too? If so, it would be as a
fellow traveler not with Gladstone, but with David Lloyd-George. His was a
liberalism heartily committed to capitalism, but, as he showed in word and
deed, a capitalism modiWed by far-reaching reform. This social liberalism
advances Blair beyond Blatcherism, distinguishing him from libertarians as well
as socialists.
The socialist favors equality of condition, in accord with the ancient
admonition, ‘‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’’
Even after having served as prime minister, Attlee assured me that he still thought
that, as he had written before the war, the ultimate goal basically should be equal
incomes for all. Some on the Labour left today may still share this faith. In sharp
encounters with modernity 711