Reply #201: On nations and states...

[warren pease]

As I learned it, there's a fundamental difference between nations and states, although the terms are often used interchangeably. A nation is a group of people whose common history, culture and self-identity binds them together, regardless of geography. States are simply political divisions represented as lines on a map.

For example, the Kurds live in at least three countries -- Iraq, Turkey and Iran -- and have no real allegiance to any of them. They do, however, have a strong allegiance to each other, which makes them a nation rather than members of a state.

I think all this has relevance to your post because I would submit that the US is currently a state, not a nation. Nationalism is used to whip the populace into supporting whatever militaristic, xenophobic, imperialist or "free trade" piece of mindless excess the corporate elites and their employees in the white house decide will make them the most money in the shortest period of time.

But it's a phony kind of nationalism in that it has more to do with support for a particular regime or set of ideologies than it does love of country. Nationalism as manifested currently in the US is, I think, more accurately called "state-ism." There are those who fly the flag out of identification with the American creation myth, but they seem significantly outnumbered by those who fly the flag to self-identify as Bushists or pro-war or anti-immigrant or anti-gay or pro-religious nut cases or (insert your favorite wingnut position here).

And many of these are people who accept the controlling power of a warrior state because it validates their personal commitment to violence and aggression. BushCo is the perfect prop for these people, filled as it is by violent liars who ignore the rule of law, dismiss the concept of justice as archaic, are willing to torture people and thumb their collective noses at the entire appalled world community, gleefully embrace corporate imperialism performed by military proxy, and continue the grand American tradition of indiscriminatingly slaughtering little disposable brown people simply because they're things in the way.

Re national self-identity: (Flame retardant: Please note that the following is not meant as a swipe at Dixie, since rednecks infest all corners of the globe.) I have much more in common with people I've met in Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica and Argentina than I'll ever have in common with the archetypal American redneck -- dull, bigoted, quick to shoot, slow to comprehend, BushBot consciousness, anti-environmentalist, humor dependent on what Rush told him that day... This guy might as well live on the moon (and I wish he did) in terms of my identifying with him as part of my nation.

So does that make me German, Costa Rican, Canadian, Italian or... ? If I use the cohesiveness of nationalism as the yardstick, then that's a reasonable argument. Am I an American? Not if that means I have to be glad that I breathe the same air as that redneck.

And not if that means I'm a state-ist whose nationalism is superseded by allegiance to a government that represents lines on a map. But I am an American if that means holding government to its obligation to the nation: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Ahh... Just idle ramblings on a gorgeous fall day in Baja Canada.


wp