Abstract

Even though the term “primal pseudos” appears only once in Theodor W. Adorno’s lecture History and Freedom, it is the key for the understanding of Adorno’s concept of nation and nationalism. In the aforementioned lecture the term “primal pseudos” describes the contradiction immanent in the concept of the nation. The critical investigation into the immanent contradiction of the concept of the nation discloses the impossibility of what nationalism wants rather than its falseness.

Highlights

  • In the heat of the period of the Brexit referendum the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage delivered a speech in the European parliament, which became famous for claiming that Belgium is not a nation

  • Farage ended his speech with the statement that: “the days of this project [the European Union, W.A.] are over, we want to live in nation-states not false artificial creations.”

  • The controversial, but conservative, Benjamin Disraeli had already written about the English nation in a similar way as Farage complains about Belgium: that it is not a nation in the simple and naïve sense of a bond between nature and society

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Summary

Introduction

In the heat of the period of the Brexit referendum the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage delivered a speech in the European parliament, which became famous for claiming that Belgium is not a nation. In order to grasp in which sense Adorno speaks of a natural form of society and its transgression into nations, it is necessary to understand his concept of tradition and rationality in relation to two different forms of social organizations.

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