This post is from a low-reputation account and contains an unverified outbound link. Be cautious before clicking external links.

The Localist - Nationalist Continuum

Words
339
Reading
2 min
Listen
Play
9y

asli-yilmaz-350054.jpg
Over the years there's been a growing movement towards growing and eating "local". In parallel, there has been a movement towards greater nationalism. However, you may feel about the validity/morality of these movements they are an inditement of our previous tendency to larger top-down systems. A nationalist does not your average localist make. There may be an overlap of the people in the two camps but there is also antipathy between the two camps, many who oppose, say our current administration e.g (Bill McKibben -- People's climate march). That being said, I raise the idea that the two things are similar as a way to not simply dismiss one or the other. Largely speaking to myself I tend towards the idea that our food system can be made more anti-fragile by becoming more local but I dismiss the MAGA(Make America Great Again) and Brexit crowd as a dangerous precedent. The nationalism of MAGA or far-right politicians in France have dangerous elements but like the localist movement it calls out the flaws of the larger, default, status quo system. Both localism and nationalism may be the incorrect response to the problem, they are, neither of them, panaceas for the rampant inequalities, environmental woes, and misdeeds of the larger systems. One of the tenets of system thinking is to avoid the tendency to point out what others have done to break the system without examining how (y)our own actions could be contributing to the broken system either directly or via unintended consequences. It's why I believe that exposing the localist/nationalist coin is a way towards fixing both our food and international system. Globalism hasn't lived up to its promises and the large "efficiencies" of our food system have contributed to increasing the fragility of our ecosystem.

Further Reading

Globalism

The great unraveling of globalization

You’ll Only Understand Trump and Brexit If You Understand the Failure of Globalization

Localism

The benefits of localism

Thoughts on localism and resilience

Localism - Counterpoint

What's wrong with the "Buy Local" movement

The Localist - Nationalist Continuum | Ecency