Who said Basque difference?

neutral liberal-democratic framework produces nationalist closure as its inherent opposite.” (UE 20) To summarise, therefore, Laclau and Badiou, and Zizek as well, doubt about the very morality of deploying the discourse of liberal-humanist ethics for the purposes of eliminating political and intellectual dissent. In fact, for these authors, (1) the first requirement to develop critical thinking is to call into question the very standard of humanist civilised normality that the universal liberal democratic framework constructs in order to secure the self-righteous up-holding of its own high morality. Then (2), the second requirement is to confront liberal democracy’s own self-appointed internal and external uncivilised monsters (anti-cosmopolitan nationalism, xenophobia, religious intolerance…) so to speak, but to confront them rationally, though explanation and not condemnation.

It is thus once these requirements are clear that we can venture into the final part of this seminar which will begin with (1) an analysis of the ambiguous and contradictory nature that defines the modern notion of Nation and will end dealing with (2) the question of multiculturalist difference.

The nation’s pre-modern phantasmatic presence The modern notion of Nation is not only ambiguous and contradictory. In fact, that nationalism itself is a complex object of study materialises in the fact that the very concept of nation has proved "notoriously" and "extremely" difficult to define; - as both Benedict Anderson (1983) and Peter Alter (1989) respectively emphasised quite awhile ago. Peter Alter said that nationalism is ambiguous because it is polymorphic and multiform, and conceals within itself “extreme opposites and contradictions: it can mean emancipation and it can mean oppression.” Nationalism is then a controversial object because, as a conclusion of the mentioned ambivalence, it can be considered as an anomalous historical development or even as a political aberration, which becomes, he continues, “synonymous with intolerance, inhumanity and violence. (...) And yet at the same time, it could just as often engender hopes for a free and just social order”.

This is why, as a conclusion, his main proposal remains that “only with 10