The death of nationalism

[Cheeto]

If you ever studied history you know that people throughout history have changed their defintion of 'my land' several times, usually getting larger and larger. Looking at current attitudes and world events, it seems to me that the globe is on the verge of letting nationalism die and moving on to a new mentality.

First you might have considered your local hamlet to be your land. Which made sense because you probably didn't travel far beyond it, and you certainly didn't have many, if any relatives living abroad. By relatives I mean people who spoke languages like yours, thought like you, and looked like you.

Then the world got a little smaller over a few thousand years and people started considering a region their land. Especially delineated along religious lines. "This is the land of the Jews!" or "This is the land of the Zorostrians!" But still fairly small regions, even within the same religious groups (tribes and such).

Then it all got even smaller with growing populations and territorial boundries by conquering and inter-breeding. Now that Gaul from the other side of the river was mixed blood with your own Lyonians and Normans and it all just got confused so fuck it, you're all French now! Thus was nationalism.

So for a few hundred years we've existed with the notion that each person belongs to a nation, that is the preferred method of social delineation. You are American, French, British, German, Ethiopian, etc. Certain areas still have tribal warfare to be sure, but the majority of the world has shifted towards national interests.

But now we have the populations exploding again, and now travel has gotten even easier. Most importantly communication traveling has gotten even easier. Look at this forum for one example. We are all members of this board, but globally we're separated by thousands of miles. But we all know some pretty intimate details about each others lives (oooooh yeah baby). This pattern extends to the rest of the world, with people from each country communicating freely and easily with people over long distances, and we're realizing there's a lot more in common than we thought.

Governments are starting to reorganize along those same lines (though much more slowly). The EU probably wouldn't have even been concievable a couple centuries ago. Asia is forming an economic union, the US, Mexico, and Canada are working together on some projects (and of course there's the ever present conspiracy rumbling about the north american union, more on that in a bit), even African leaders are talking about uniting to try and pool resources for the greater good.

Therein is the key phrase: the greater good. It's always been about how to organize to best advantages for the largest groups. Natural patterns emerging in social behaviors. Sure you have people who say that it's all about the elite few manipulating the world for their own benefits, but we're talking forces of nature here, working subtly and slowly, but inexoribally. A Rockefeller can no more stop human nature than they could bribe a hurricane to stop blowing.

You also have people who fear the idea of nations uniting. It makes sense to be afraid of it, a large part of our self image has been what flag we salute and what country we call ourselves by, and now we're seeing that idea become subjugated to the idea of being a member of a particular continental union with a billion members each. It's been argued it's just going to become a police state, but people argued the same thing about the end of the American Civil War, hell people argued it about the notion of forming a country wide police force during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I would argue that it's only likely to happen if things DON'T change.

No system survives forever, that, again, is a law of nature. All systems decay and either fizzle out or must be recharged, and in so recharging them, they are slightly different than they were before. So really, we're starting to see the decay of the nationalism system as it tries to survive in a world that is becoming more globalized. In time, we will see the continental unions decay as well, and eventually it will be a globalized system of organization.

I don't fear the end of nationalism, I'm actually interested to see it go by and see what comes next and how it's formed. In the end, I think most people would be more interested in saying "I'm a member of the human race" than "I'm an American" or "I'm a Mesopitmian" or "I'm a Gaul."

Of course by that point, we'll probably have space colonies and be going to war with aliens. Until we all realize that we're all just organisms and then start with galactism and leave planetarianism behind.

But then we have to blow up those fucks in the Andromeda galaxy.

Until we realize we're all just parts of the same kind of stellar gas clouds, and form a system of universalism so we can stop those bastards in some parallel universe.

[Burris]

I like nationalism.

[Cheeto]

I like nationalism.

I've noticed.

[Burris]

Why is that considered negative? Fucking Germany comes around and everyone uses it as an excuse to hate their country. Fuck Hitler, but Nationalism isn't evil.

[Rob]

Yes. It makes complete sense to be prideful of the geographic region and arbitrary borders you had no part in choosing or deciding upon.

It's also equally sensible to consider someone else's self-aggrandizing arbitrary geographic region inferior to one's own based on precious little more than the education and experiences you've received in your own self-aggrandizing region.

I don't know how I missed the logic.

[Burris]

Yes it makes complete sense to dismiss everything that isn't of your viewpoint, by simply looking at it in the most negative light possible.

[Penguin]

This is why I'm one of those people who draws a distinction between patriotism and nationalism.

Nationalism, the way I see it, is a blind adoration for one's own nation. It can do no wrong, and even if it does, well, that's okay because it's us. Most nationalists are the ones who fit the descriptor of someone believing in an arbitrary geographic region being superior. Most of them would consider themselves patriots, but they're most often jingoists.

A patriot believes that there is nothing special about one land that makes people who live there automatically better than anyone else. However, such an individual realizes that no two countries are alike, and some are worse to live in than others. So, the patriot will always fight (diplomatically or otherwise) to ensure that his country's just laws are preserved, unjust laws are struck down, and that the country's power is used wisely.

[President Shrub]

I'd love nothing more than for the planet to achieve a sense of global singularity, so we can all be proud of being bipeds, capable of rational thought and kicking alien ass

[Cheeto]

Why is that considered negative? Fucking Germany comes around and everyone uses it as an excuse to hate their country. Fuck Hitler, but Nationalism isn't evil.

Why is it you consider me noticing you like nationalism as negative? I never said it was evil.

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

>:(

I'd say peace will come through two things : a drastic reduction in numbers of human beings, and a drastic reduction (down to 1) in numbers of nations, religions, groups or whatever.