On nationalism again (767-787)

Once upon a time I claimed that nationalism's essence was in its exclusivity; now I have a better word:  sectionalism.  Sectionalism's rise to prominence corresponded to nationalism's.

In class the argument was put that nationalism comes in two varieties:  top-down (i.e. state-sponsored) and bottom-up (i.e. supported by the people).  Putting the relative merits of this distinction aside, I propose a dual nature of nationalism that defines a sort of continuum for evaluating nationalism's different manifestations, because in its best form nationalism is two-pronged, a champion of the people but also of the state.  People-concern is manifested most obviously in the realism of (for instance) Gustave Courbet or any man with a camera; state-interest is most obvious in the wars of expansion in the mid-nineteenth century (the Crimean War and everything almost-Germany did in the 1870s).  German nationalism is thus more state-interested than people-concerned, and Russian nationalism is closer to the middle of the road.