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MISTAKES MADE AS AN ANTI-NATIONALIST YOUTH


  • The particular is much less good than the general: look how much smaller it is.

  • Independence is necessarily nationalist.

  • Independence is divisive. It can only put up arbitrary walls.

  • Scottishness is an insular and bigoted thing.

  • Very Scottish art - set here, with Scots phonemes and concerns - is insular and uninteresting. (Unlike British or Greek or Indian art, which can be universal.)

  • Abandonment of Scotland is virtuous: it’s transcendence.*

  • How we imagine our groups is irrelevant to improving the world. Nation is only a delusion.**

  • Of course self-determination is secondary to welfare!

The big one was my conflating an opposition to Scottish nationalism with a contempt for Scotland. It was also very stupid to overlook how self-deprecation – being an anti-Scotland Scot – tied in to a wider devaluation of Scottish things. This actually put me in line with the British elite, like so many other ‘individualist’ Scots in history. Overcompensating, á la Trainspotting.




* But “In all parts of history, the bourgeoisie tend to side with the colonisers for personal and group advancement.” - Kelman

** It is actually a delusion with teeth.

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