BLAST Off: Nationalism in a New Age Magazine

When I began BLAST  I did not except to read a magazine that placed a nationalistic and an English-centric mindset throughout the pages of the magazine. BLAST applied the tropes one constantly encounters in a nationalistic magazine; it constantly references the nation’s greatest writer; speaks on its greatness and how their country continue that traditions yet, the “BLAST manifesto” carry out these tropes in an unoriginal way. It just reiterated its superiority. BLAST claims, “The Modern world is due almost entirely to the Anglo-Saxon genius-its appearance and its spirit” (39). I except that the magazine is not only trying to clarify that they are developing a new ways of letting the world be, however, the English are specifically can understand the way that everyone in Europe-and soon the world-should view things. Especially the different subjects, like art, that is supposed to be mastered by another country, but the English can do it better.  

It is strange and alarming that this sense of nationalism sprung up at the time because it seems that modern writers constantly maintained and wanted to be disconnected and alienated from their sense of time and space. The jump from feeling outside the norms and trying to find their place in the world is very stark from the Manifestos. It is hard to draw the conclusion that the writers at the time found their identity by remaining nationalistic, even the American Ezra Pound. I find it weird that a purposefully and blusterous type of magazine of BLAST that want to be on another plan from all people relies on nationalism, the most generic way of expressing oneself to do it.