Yes, it is somewhat vague and fuzzy because it's an ideological spectrum.
C'mon man...please be serious.
We allow vague and fuzzy in ideologies. I understand that. There has to be something genuinely coherent though about the ideology or else it's just a nothing label.
Socialism is vague and fuzzy and has many different forms....right? But somethings we can say about all of them are....
1. They fundamentally reject the concept of private ownership of capital or "means of production" as it's understood in capitalism.
2. They fundamentally embrace the concept of collectivism in regards to capital or "means of production" as it's understood in capitalism.
3. Collectivism can be seen as, generally speaking, the division of ownership of private property, capital, or "means of production" (which is a somewhat antiquated concept hence the quotes) amongst those who engage in the labor of services or production.
Now I'll gladly admit that is a very vague description of an socio-economic ideology....but I can, at length, go on to describe any of those terms like "capital" and "ownership" or even "labor" if need be. Socialism can take many forms and socialists utilize many different methods....but I can't think of any type of Socialism that has been tried or even imagined that does not contain those 3 elements (and I could probably give you more if I wasn't just going off the top of my dome here late at night).
i genuinely appreciate that you didn't try to blow past my request and I do think you're genuinely trying to give a good faith answer here....
But do you see the problem of labeling something as Christian Nationalist without any clear or even basic agreement on what that actually means?
It's something that the left seems to be doing a lot....and it prevents any real political discourse. I'm sure you remember back when "white supremacist" meant "someone who is both racist in belief of white racial superiority and desires a white-only ethnostate where all non-white people are either removed or completely divorced from political and economic power"....and then that definition grew, and grew, and grew. Eventually people didn't really understand what it meant....because it was applied to anyone supporting Trump. Non-white voters for Trump literally were described as "multiracial white supremacists" regardless of whether or not they were multiracial or white supremacist racists.
It may seem like it's not a big deal to mislabel people like that if it furthers a specific goal....but it sows division, it increases the political divide, and almost as bad....people become unable to actually spot white supremacists. Seriously.
Most Americans have at least some Christian Nationalist sentiments Only about ten percent or so could be considered to be strong adherents, with most people having much weaker sentiments.
What are the sentiments though? What makes one a Christian Nationalist?
As I said, "Christian Nationalism" has more to do with manipulating symbols of religion to support xenophobic and authoritarian nationalism, and isn't necessarily about advancing a specific doctrine.
Ok...
Can you give me an example of this symbol manipulation at least? Real or hypothetical?
The actual substance of religion may be relatively unimportant (which explains why Brevik later converted to Neopaganism, however, he was baptized in the Lutheran state church at age 15 and his manifesto makes use of Christian Nationalist themes and symbols).
Again....themes and symbols.
A theme is typically a recurring idea or abstraction (freedom, justice, masculinity, etc) that occurs throughout a communicative or artistic expression....and that's as broadly as I can define theme to try and give you as much room as possible....
Xenophobia is the irrational fear of others....again, as broadly as I can define it. We wouldn't just say a rational fear of others...right? Because there are definitely times when fear of others is entirely justified. If a Jewish student is being chased and harassed and threatened with violence by a mob of Palestinian and Muslim students on his college campus... and no one was doing anything to help him or prevent this from happening....we wouldn't call him xenophobic for not wanting more Muslim or Palestinian students on campus, right? His fear is entirely rational....just as it would be in reverse (a mob of Jewish students chasing around a Palestinian student). Those are rational responses to real circumstances.
I'm honing in on themes and xenophobia because we know what authoritarianism is....and Christian themes (or perhaps religious themes) maybe political themes, and accusations of xenophobia are something I've also noticed come up a lot in descriptions of Christian Nationalism. The problem is that it's overly broad....specifically the moral judgment of xenophobia. I tried for awhile to understand what people meant by "transphobia" in political discourse and ultimately concluded based on context....it's just someone who disagrees with a self claimed trans person (or more often a self claimed trans activist) in any discussion of gender, sex, trans activism, and any way it intersects with politics.
The accusation of transphobia became a moral label of bigotry that inherently implies that a self proclaimed trans person can never possibly be incorrect about any of the above topics. That's the only meaning I can possibly derive from it's contextual use.
In many ways....accusations of racism were likewise broadened so far that I saw people essentially deferring to black people on any issues of race and it's intersection with politics (real or not) as if black people were suddenly infallible experts on all things about who and what is racist. I won't name them, but a poster on here literally told me they would automatically defer to a black person on any accusation or assertion that something is indeed racist...as if the possibility of a black person being incorrect on race or racism was non-existent.
Believe all women is another example of this recent phenomenon on the left.....where moral authority to the degree of infallibility was just handed out on a certain political issue.
I'm only bringing these things up to help you avoid doing the same when I ask the following....
Authoritarianism + themes + xenophobia seem to be consistently associated when I tried to find an explanation of Christian Nationalism. We understand what authoritarianism is....but do you think you could narrow down the themes into something that would apply to all Christian Nationalists? The same goes for xenophobia....can we narrow down that idea so it would apply to all Christian Nationalists?
I'm not trying to give you the hardest questions in the world here....even if it looks that way. I ultimately concluded Christian Nationalism wasn't a real ideology because I couldn't narrow down these concepts to something coherent....even if it's extremely vague like my 3 tenets of socialism at the top.
That doesn't mean that you cannot narrow them down into something of substance that we can actually consider....or perhaps someone else can....
Do you think you can create a coherent description of Christian Nationalism by taking authoritarianism + themes + xenophobia and narrowing down the kinds of themes and what sort of xenophobia we are talking about?
That's a good faith question that I'm sincerely asking you... since I do believe you were sincere and honest in your reply to me. It's so rare to see that these days instead of people who appear to prefer to pretend they're really understanding the terms they're using. I was genuinely surprised that you agreed it seemed vague and rather unclear....the way I see it. Please take this response as a genuine attempt to help you describe it without the problems these terms and ideas seem to run into these days.
