Nationalist myths function as symbolic insurance against unbearable uncertainty.

Evidence

Benedict Anderson (1991) was fascinated by early nationalists’ enigmatic desire to self-sacrifice for the idea of an imagined community. Today’s ominous surge of a galvanized nationalism is predicated, I will contend, on the rise of speculative communities in financialized societies. The exclusionary nationalist myths of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and company are proving popular not (only) because they help restore an injured ethnic identity. At a time when societies have little choice but to submerge in a politics of smoke and mirrors, such myths offer speculative communities much-needed symbolic insurance for hedging an otherwise unbearable uncertainty. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 241

The exclusionary nationalist myths of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and company are proving popular not (only) because they help restore an injured ethnic identity. At a time when societies have little choice but to submerge in a politics of smoke and mirrors, such myths offer speculative communities much-needed symbolic insurance for hedging an otherwise unbearable uncertainty. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 241

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses the standard identity-politics reading of contemporary nationalism; echoes the reading of financialized populism as speculative betting rather than interest-voting. — connects to: Political myths are functional tools for coping with uncertainty, not mere lies — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 68; Moral responses to catastrophe get displaced by nationalist ideology that shields power structures. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 218; Nationalist myth functions as insurance hedging individual anxiety about uncertainty — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 454
• QUESTION: How exactly does a nationalist myth function as ‘symbolic insurance’? Is insurance the right metaphor, or does it smuggle in a hedging logic that flatters the phenomenon?
• DEEPTHINKING: The reframing of nationalist identity as a hedging instrument, not an injury-restoration project, is a dense paradigm shift resisting one-line summary.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 241