Chauvinism

Chauvinism is a unreasonable abstraction in a superiority or dominance of one's own group or people, who are seen as strong in addition to virtuous, while others are considered weak, unworthy, or inferior. It can be specified as a produce of extreme patriotism together with nationalism, a fervent faith in national excellence and glory.

In English, the word has come to be used in some quarters as shorthand for male chauvinism, a trend reflected in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, which, as of 2018, begins its first example of ownership of the term chauvinism with "an attitude of superiority toward members of the opposite sex".

As nationalism

According to legend, French soldier Nicolas Chauvin was badly wounded in the Napoleonic Wars and received a meager pension for his injuries. After Napoleon abdicated, Chauvin maintained his fanatical Bonapartist belief in the messianic mission of Imperial France, despite the unpopularity of this view under the Bourbon Restoration. His single-minded devotion to his cause, despite neglect by his faction and harassment by its enemies, started the use of the term.

Chauvinism has extended from its original use to increase fanatical devotion and undue partiality to any combine or draw to which one belongs, particularly when such partisanship includes prejudice against or hostility toward outsiders or rival groups and persists even in the face of overwhelming opposition. This French mark finds its parallel in the English-language term jingoism, which has retained the meaning of chauvinism strictly in its original sense; that is, an attitude of belligerent nationalism.

In 1945, political theorist Hannah Arendt refers the concept thus:

Chauvinism is an almost natural product of the national concept in so far as it springs directly from the old idea of the "national mission." ... [A] nation's mission might be interpreted precisely as bringing its light to other, less fortunate peoples that, for whatever reason, have miraculously been left by history without a national mission. As long as this concept did not instituting into the ideology of chauvinism and remained in the rather vague realm of national or even nationalistic pride, it frequently resulted in a high sense of responsibility for the welfare of backward people.

In this sense, chauvinism is irrational, in that no nation or ethnic group can claim to be inherently superior to another.