Nationalism

"After about 1950, musical nationalism in Mexico declined rapidly when new aesthetics and their corresponding styles emerged"

-Leslie Bethell, A Cultural History of Latin American Music

It is interesting how this kind of trend transcends cultures and subjects and can be applied to many things.  Life has a way of just carrying us along and taking us to new and exciting places that cause us to forget some of the emotions that went along with the old stuff.  This made me think of the paintings that we have been looking at in class by various artists. Art, as a whole, has kind of evolved together.  You have the painters in Latin America immitating what is happening in Europe, then they kind of go off on their own nationalistic, cultural kind of paintings, and then we see it coming back to what is happening in the art world around them with impressionism and the more modern looking, make-you-think kind of painting.

There is nothing wrong with this, it is just an interesting observation.

A tie that I was able to come up with as far as people being super into the whole nationalism scene and getting way involved is what was happening right here in the United States after 9/11 happened.  I still can remember the surge of country music that was all geared towards nationalism, what it means to be an American, and how great America is.  I remember all of the American flags that I saw flying, some even attached to the windows in cars, and how everyone just seemed to pull together and find pride and courage in their nation and their country.  

Toby Keith demonstrates this in his song "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" which was just one of the many songs that came out at this time.

Well, times are changing.  And while I am not saying that we do not have nationalism or that people do not care about their country, it has just moved in a different direction.  Song writers went back to writing about love and being cheated on, the American flags on the cars were replaced with BYU ones or other things, and we as a people have gone back to worry about ourselves and those closest to us and not focussing on the nation as a whole anymore.

I don't know if that came out right and I wasn't trying to offend anyone so I apologize if I did.  To me it seems like nationalism is mainly important when the country is faced with extreme difficulties, or when competing against another country in sports or the olympics!

What is your take on nationalism?  Has it declined like it did after the 1950's in Mexico's music, or like I am claiming it has here in the US in the last few years, or do people just show it differently?