This talk is brought to you by the Tamistic Institute.

For more talks like this, visit us at tamistic institute.org.

Thanks very much, Bridget.

And I'm delighted to be giving another Tamistic Institute talk for Trinity College students.

Last time I was with you, we were actually meeting physically, but discussing the fantasy

world of Narnia, and now we're meeting virtually, but discussing the very real world question

of nationalism. Why this topic? Well, I'm not sure why you're interested enough in this topic

to turn up, but I can tell you why I've been interested

enough to prepare this talk. Although I love reading and teaching medieval theology, I do

occasionally take a look at the world in which I'm living, and the twin ideologies of globalism

and nationalism are clearly at the forefront of a lot of people's minds. We'll come to define

nationalism shortly, but I'm interested in globalism as well, or internationalism, broadly

speaking, the idea that all forms of nationalism are problematic, that we are simply citizens of the

world, and that any other conception of community leads straight to totalitarianism.

And as we'll see, Catholic thought and teaching has traditionally had a lot to say in favour of a certain kind of globalism.

And so I found myself asking to what extent Catholics should value nationhood or nationality in their political thinking, if at all.

As well as this in an Irish context in recent years, I found it interesting to see how contemporary political leaders have struggled to deal with the centenary celebrations of the foundational events of the Irish Republic, like the

Easter Rising of 1916 and so on. How does an internationalist technocrat give a speech honouring

members of a movement that was romantic and nationalist and violent? Well, with a certain amount

of incoherence.

And seeing this played out on several occasions, I found myself asking whether I, who certainly

see all the benefits of internationalist technocracy, could do any better.

...