National Identity Is Made Up [video]
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
- You have a greater interest in reaching consensus with people in the same democracy as you, because their votes determine the laws you follow and vice versa.
- People who live in the same country as you fund the same programs and projects, and therefore share with you some sense of ownership over space programs, universal healthcare, or whatever else your government is spending money on.
- People who live in the same (democratic) country are co-responsible with you for whatever good or evil your government does. (See: points one and two.) It's not a direct, and the responsibility is spread thin, but however little power Americans have over US actions, foreign nationals have even less!
- Game theory explains a lot of this. National identity isn't an arbitrary fiction, nor an arbitrary reality. You can think it's good or bad, but it's here for reasons stouter than "someone came up with it."
> You have a greater interest in reaching consensus with people in the same democracy as you...
> People who live in the same country as you fund the same programs and projects...
> People who live in the same (democratic) country are co-responsible with you...
These all have the form: if democratic nation-states already exist, people will have reason to identify with them. This is plausible, but does not prove that nation-states are "likely to arise in any culture, perhaps in any species that's able".
What it means is that nation-states are a relatively stable arrangement - that, once extant, they by and large convince people to go along with their existence. But there have been many forms of social organization which were stable for long periods of time before modern nation-states came along. Why shouldn't there be many others succeeding it?
So, it sounds like the choices are between many national identities, one (global) national identity, and anarchy from which many national identities will arise given time.
Finally, if you're going to hold the universal single-state together, you would have to crush all civil wars or faction divides before they even started. To do this preemptively is the central tenant of fascism, and to not do it at all will just lead back to having multiple states. So, in the long-term, you'll end up with multiple national identities.
A crucial point of contention here is: what counts as a "nation-state"?
States of various forms have certainly existed and come into existence repeatedly through human history, since about ~11,000 years ago. (That said, it's an interesting question why exactly states formed; there's some reason to think it required rather unusual conditions. The book Against the Grain by James Scott tries to tackle this topic.)
On the other hand, as the video describes it, a nation state is a state with a collective identity tied to a shared language, "race", and set of borders, usually maintained by a collective mythology which imagines this shared identity has deeper roots than it actually has. (For example, Joan of Arc is an important figure in the mythos of the French nation-state; but would most people living in what is now France in the 15th century have identified themselves primarily as "French"?)
I don't know much about native American history. Do you think most native American civilisations fit this description? I can think of plenty of states which don't. Examples of states which are not nation states would include: feudal states (medieval Europe); city-states (ancient Greece); empires of conquest (the Alexandrian empire, the Mongol Khanates); and empires united by religion (the early Caliphates).
Pretty much every example you gave even the Mongols were about a shared identity and were essentially a nation state.
And if we just take Rome then Civis Romanus Sum is the epiphany of national identity in the ancient world.
Self: I look out for my own advantage. Everyone else is of lesser status, possibly and enemy or opponent.
Clans: I look out only for my own family's advantage. Everyone not in my family is of lesser status, possibly an enemy or opponent.
Tribes: I look out only for my tribe's advantage. We may not all be family, the tribe may be made from many clans, but we are one tribe. Everyone not in my tribe is of lesser status, possibly an enemy or opponent.
Nations: I look out for my nation's advantage. We are not all one family, one clan, or one tribe, but we are one culture. Everyone not a member of my nation is of lesser status within my borders, and may be an enemy or opponent.
This is overly simplistic, of course, but nationalism has been the most advanced form of cultural organization we've achieved for a very long time. It's led to the notion of human rights, the idea of rule by law, and the formalization of trade (which has reduced global conflict by a large measure).
Nations and nationalism are good things. They are social constructs, yes, but they are better than degeneration back to tribalism or clannishness. We can observe those regressions in the turmoil of the Middle East.
History suggests a variation on this: Nation-states are likely to arise in a species that practices intra-species warfare when warfare is too costly to be sustained by any smaller unit.
The book Sapiens suggests the word "intersubjective" (I don't know if this came from somewhere else) for things that exist entirely because a quorum believes they exist:
- National identity
- Nations as a whole
- Tribes
- Religion
- Money
- Civil rights
Sapiens also talks about how humanism is completely made up. Who says a human deserves rights? Why should humans not own other humans? Because we built up a moral system on made up beliefs, largely religious in origin.
And that is good. Otherwise why protect weak humans? Why not just behave more "naturally", like animals?
That's fundamentally why we can do it and animals can't. If humans were unable to store or save, billions of people would die off rapidly. As a species we'd largely stop being so generous & kind with each other. Famines would be common (again). We'd never be able to successfully support such an immense population scale. Operating by a year to year razors edge, is incredibly risky and difficult. Inevitably the mistakes will hammer you. Instead of 10 steps forward and 9 steps backwards (leading to quite slow net population growth), today we're able to make 10 steps forward and maybe 1-2 backwards, leading to immense success overall (whether we're talking about % that make it to old age, or % that survive infancy).
If other animals could store their productivity (including surplus productivity) for 50%-100% of their life span (or more), much less widely distribute/trade it for further self-benefit, it seems like it would lead to fascinating consequences over many generations of evolution.
You could include in your list:
-Science
- governments
Think about rights and legal codes. When the law supposedly comes from god, like it did in many ancient societies, it makes no sense to ask whether it is just or unjust, as it can't be changed except by an act of god. When you recognize that law is human made, that doesn't mean it holds no power, but it means humans can change it, and unjust laws can be repealed when enough humans agree they are unjust. So is with nationality. Is not a fact of nature, is a distinction we agree on because it serves a purpose. Is that purpose necessary? Is it just? Is there a viable path towards changing it? Maybe, maybe not. But acknowledging it is made up allows us to at least ask those questions.
But they aren't necessarily even fictions. "Malcom Turnbull is the Prime Minister" is a true statement, even though it is (a) only true in a certain time and place and (b) it is a statement about purely social constructs.
0: Excerpt from his book Simulacra and Simulation - https://web.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Baudrilla...
- Beauty
- Music
- The top of Maslow's hierarchy
1. Your nationality decides the lower threshold of your social security.
2. Your nationality decides where and how easy you can travel.
3. Your nationality decides the justice system you are in.
4. For many people, your nationality, decides your ethnic background, what language you speak, what culture you are raised up...etc
It is of course not made up, at least for modern people who grow up in a world that is organized by nation, already. Of course, it was constructed, because 2 to 3 hundred years ago, the technology we have at the time is not sufficient to organize and control a population of modern nation. When that technology is in place, boom, the national identity comes with it. It is not coming out of nowhere.
The latter being the most frustrating of the two.
People naturally feel like their history and the shared history of their kin is part of their identity, something they can lay claim to in an abstract sense. The events of the past influence your birth and life, as they did for the generations preceding you. There is such a thing as a healthy variety of pride in your identity; obviously we know what it looks like when taken too far, but the cries to eliminate it completely seem to me to be dangerous propositions.
While extreme nationalism is dangerous, nationalism is an effective way, not the most effective, to establish order and reach consensus to tens and hundreds of millions of people. And it is awkward to see that the creator of the video highlight the US exceptionalism to end their argument, which by itself, IMHO, is pretty nationalistic.
The creator went to lengths to describe how powerful of a force nationalism is. The point is that it's remarkable how much effect it has, given that it's a concept without a clearly defined delineation (categorizing languages, shared history, culture, ethnicity, and even borders is a whole other thing) that didn't exist a few hundred years ago.
Taking umbrage to how the author uses the concept of "existence" or "being made up" as basically a philosophical shorthand in the context of deconstructing what national identity really is seems overly semantic. Is the issue really just that it's controversial and click-baity to say "national identity isn't real" as a headline out of context? Because that's irrelevant to the thrust of what's being said.
I'd argue that for the upper class, that distinction has already been made. Rich people already view themselves as trans-national and move their money, resources and influence to wherever they feel it best suits them. They hold meetings in ritzy Swiss mountain towns to discuss common concerns and have residences all over the world, regardless of which country or countries issued them passports.
The reason the discussion about national identities matter is that it creates a useful fiction by which certain groups can be oppressed or otherwise taken advantage of. The US army goes around the world acting in the best interests of many wealthy business owners. The soldiers doing their bidding don't come from those wealthy families, they come from lower classes who view their involvement through the lens of nationalism...they're serving their country. It would be one thing if those wealthy business owners footed the bill for the massive military spending that's representing their interests around the world. But that burden falls largely on the country's middle class while those with the most wealth exert influence to reduce their tax burden.
This may seem like it just describes the US, but it's equally true of the situation in some other countries. Russia's involvement in the Ukraine and Syria is equally carried out by its poorer citizens at the behest of those who will make billions off those wars. And while China has managed to steer clear of active engagements much more so than the US or Russia, their military still protects the interest of their ruling class much more so than it does the interests of the lower classes who inhabit its ranks.
So while everything you've said is true, it's also important to have this conversation to better recognize when these tendencies towards tribalism are being abused by those that understand them. Yes, our natural tendency is to seek a simple heuristic that separates an us from a them and to adjust that heuristic in response to the things that threaten us. That simple formula has worked well over the majority of human history. But as our social structures have become increasingly complex, it stops working well for those that aren't actively exploiting it.
Out of curiosity, can anyone find any examples of groups of humans which do not experience tribalism and its artifacts?
But wouldn't rewinding the clock to the very beginnings of our species get rid of basically everything that could divide people into groups based on social constructs? I think that's what the parent comment was getting at by "artifacts of tribalism". In that sense it's trivial to consider an ancestor who has never thought of any number of things that split us today. How many potential ways of defining our "tribe" are we ignoring today that were crucial to our ancestors or will be crucial to our descendants?
How do you really define experiencing an artifact of tribalism anyway? Once you've invented or have taught the concept of "being French", does it count as experiencing it? Even if you don't believe that concept has merit, or if you're only distantly affected by historical events surrounding France?
Another thing that occurs to me is that complete mutual aid (which required abandonment of tribalism) may very well be "unnatural"! However, if the goal is total equity in society, this isn't an excuse: we're capable of complex problem solving and as a result we're likely capable of "overcoming" our baser instincts, if tribalism can be counted among them. A quotation from The Dispossessed comes to mind, when UKLG is describing the world of an anarcho-communist faction that had, instead of being subjugated, gone to a barren planet and eked out a life there for centuries despite its very harsh climate:
"They cut back very hard indeed, but to a minimum beneath which they would not go; they would not regress to pre-urban, pre-technological tribalism. They knew that their anarchism was the product of a very high civilization, of a complex diversified culture, of a stable economy and a highly industrialized technology that could maintain high production and rapid transportation of goods. However vast the distances separating settlements, they held to the ideal of complex organicism. They built the roads first, the houses second. The special resources and products of each region were interchanged continually with those of others, in an intricate process of balance: that balance of diversity which is the characteristic of life, of natural and social ecology." (pp. 95-96)
For the thought experiment, creating a United States of the World would require either literally taking over the world or some amount of agentic sacrifice from every nation absorbed into the uber tribe. The case for California is similarly unrealistic but for different reasons, you can choose to occasionally give a member of a tribe lopsided benefits and deny them at other times. This is especially true when the alternative is compromising the perceived security of people who are already members of the tribe. Put more succinctly, the California idea is bad because it would lead to infighting and can be handled in a non-binary fashion.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07zz5mf
The philosopher and cultural theorist Kwame Anthony Appiah argues against a mythical, romantic view of nationhood, saying instead it should rest on a commitment to shared values.
He explores the history of the idea, born in the 19th century, that there are peoples who are bound together by an ancient common spirit and that each of these nations is entitled to its own state. He says this idea is a mistaken one, illustrating his argument through the life story of the writer who took the pen name Italo Svevo - meaning literally Italian Swabian. He was born a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and became a citizen of the new republic of Italy, all without leaving his home city of Trieste. Appiah argues that states exist as a set of shared beliefs rather than membership of some sort of mythical and ancient group. "What binds citizens together is a commitment," he says, "to sharing the life of a modern state, united by its institutions, procedures and precepts."
The lecture is recorded in front of an audience at the University of Glasgow. The series is presented and chaired by Sue Lawley. Future lectures will examine the themes of colour and culture.
"An extensive aggregate of persons, so closely associated with each other by common descent, language, or history, as to form a distinct race or people, usually organized as a separate political state and occupying a definite territory."
This usage dates in English back to the 1300s, with a first example that I won't type because I'm not sure where the letter thorn is hiding; the second is "All naciun and lede aglit vr lauerd for to drede," from Crsor M, 1300. (Geeze, I need a magnifying glass or better cheaters.)
It enters English from French, and before from Latin (that is an 'L', right?): nation-em, "breed, stock, race, nation", from nasci, "to be born".
But it goes on to say, "In early examples the racial idea is usually stronger than the political; in recent use the notion of political unity and independence is more prominent." An example is from 1872, "In Switzerland four languages are spoken; yet the Swiss certainly make one nation."
From reading David Reynolds, my understanding is that the use of "nation" to mean a culturally-related (or "racially", or "historically", or something) group of people that ought to be a political unit, and vice versa, that a political unit ought to be a somehow-related group of people, is a relatively recent thing, possibly a gift of Woodrow Wilson following WWI. (Think of the phrase "nation-state".)
[Word of the day: "Natiform": Resembling or having the form of buttocks. Thanks, OED!]
Money is a little harder, but IME most people eventually acknowledge that the value of money is simply that we all acknowledge it has value.
Whether people admit that nations are "made up" depends on how you press the point. That the precise boundaries of nations are a product of messy history rather than some ideal truth, most people will admit. But most people will push back if you insist on a broad sense of "made up"; for example, that no privilege ought to be given to "what's good for the country" in national policy, but only what is good for humanity, is a fairly unusual position.
Consider Kennedy's famous line, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country". To someone who thinks countries are made up, this is nonsense. Countries are valuable if they serve humanity, not vice-versa.
People are least likely to admit that their own religion is made-up; almost all religions claim legitimacy by asserting they reveal some sort of fundamental truth.
[1] https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2017/SOC286/um/Schmitt_1996_-...
[2] https://fee.org/articles/carl-schmitt-the-philosopher-of-con...
Everything is understood in a context. That doesn't mean that the context isn't useful. The human bran economizes everything also how it looks at the world.
It's a solid enough concept to understand ourselves in a bigger context and like most other things it has good and bad sides.
I think postmodernism has a lot of useful perspectives, but it always annoys me when it gets misused politically like this disguised as some great antrophological insight.
A much more useful and precise way of looking at national identity is that it has emerged as a consequence of more complex social structures.
It's not something you get to decide it's made up because there is an infrastructure and a reality that supports it.
You can discuss the flaws till the cows come home for all I care, just not sure what the point is if you can't actually point to anything concrete to do about it.
Oppose oppressive policies whose basis (whether stated or not) is nationalism.
H.R.997: English Language Unity Act of 2017 https://projects.propublica.org/represent/bills/115/hr997
H.R.140: Birthright Citizenship Act of 2017 https://projects.propublica.org/represent/bills/115/hr140
H.R.3600: Census Accuracy Act of 2017 https://projects.propublica.org/represent/bills/115/hr3600
Actually, you asked for examples of nationalist policies to be opposed, which I provided.
What in the content of those pieces of legislation is "fringe"? If anything, the fact that they are even on the legislative agenda indicates a normalization of nationalist policy proposals.
It's like saying personal identity or team idenity is made up which it is but we don't call for the deconstruction of that just because some people are mass murderers or some teams have hooligans.
Individual examples aren't arguments in them selves.
You cannot not have a national identity as a concept whether you want it or not the second you introduce other nations or other personal identities or team identities.
You have to show as a concept that it's worse than it's good, saying that it's made up (which is all the video really do) is not an argument. All identities are made up to some extent.
National identity is indeed made-up. Would the Times prefer, say, racial identity? Religious identity? Corporate identity? Political faction identity?
There is nuance, of course. Paying my taxes and helping my neighbor doesn't preclude sending aid to Africa.
But nuance is precisely what the title (article is behind a paywall, so I can't read it) dispenses with. There is no balancing of obligations between self, kin, kith, town, state, nation, and humanity as a whole. "Just drop that whole 'national' thing, post-haste."
The reality is: humans are social animals. Groups will form identities, or be dissolved and split into groups that do. And as long as the prisoner's dilemma and tragedy of the commons are things, there will be multiple competing groups, rather than one big one.
This doesn't mean "therefore, genocide." Quite the opposite: good fences make good neighbors. I wonder if those who are so free with their ingroup designations exercise the same fast-and-loose mentality when writing put options. Just as hedges allow investors to take on more risk (because they can take only the risks they want to), fences allow neighbors to share vegetables over the side wall without worrying about finding Fido in the petunias or whatever.
It's sad to see the perfect made the enemy of the good, especially when the good is really good.
The thing is, finding a (usually existential) reason to work together is part of what led to the nation-state.
Don't knock division. It has its place.
What division does is it stops contagious phenomena from running rampant through the world. Division (we call it "quarantine") stops infectious diseases. Division keeps your codebase sane. Division protects startup A's funds from those profligates at startup B.
In particular, division is, if not a solution, an emergency fallback for the prisoner's dilemma. If Bob and Alice have defected on each other for the last hundred turns, maybe it would be better for everyone if they stopped playing.
I don't have to find ways to divide ourselves. I'm saying that if you do away with nations, everyone will be forced to, because division is a good thing.
Small example. I was browsing news site recently, dailywire IIRC, and saw an ad for some merch they are selling, like coffee cup or something, with "Liberal tears" slogan on it.
I mean, can you imagine that in Germany, some political party will be selling "CSU voters tears" merch? I think people would be outraged, and not just CSU voters, but across the spectrum.
In a sense, the lack of national identity and total prevalence of political faction identity is what stops americans from having a sober talk between parties.
It's interesting to watch, but kinda sad.
Many still make a big deal out of linking that to national identity today.
> Religious identity <
Back in the 17th century, many considered that it was a good idea to combine religious and national identity. There were just too many intra-national disputes, attempts to blow up Parliament, beheadings, etc. Religious freedom was seen as a good idea when it meant the right to leave a kingdom that had a religion that would not tolerate you to go to a kingdom that would.
> Corporate identity <
As corporations become more powerful than nations, it seems inevitable that international political organizations of corporations will emerge to govern the exercise of the powers that nations no longer dare to exercise. Think of these as the Corporate Security Council and Corporate General Assembly.
These systems of identity and power come and go. Given the rate of change and disruption we see, that the current system of national identity and purpose will prevail indefinitely is not certain.
At present, we justify our allegiance to states or alliances with our beliefs that to do so is moral and to do otherwise may be treasonous. But our citizenship is most often determined by the relationship between our place of birth and lines on a map, neither of which has any obvious link to moral concepts, so the current system has some features that can give us serious identity issues.
In the Western world, before the lines on the maps became so important, religions were important, and before that, for which prince one would fight determined nationality, and geographical boundaries were likely to change without notice.
Each of the many ways of dividing us up will serve some goals and restrict progress toward other goals. It is possible that we are living in an era in which a new system of nationhood will emerge. We cannot expect to get a good one by accident, so an article to stimulate a little thought about such things is welcome.
National identity is not made up. It is human nature. If you don't identify yourself by one thing, you will identify yourself by another. And nation is formed around that.
- The idea of "nation" before the second half of the second millennium and after that point is quite different. Nation as in nascere, in the biblical sense, denoting bloodline, is quite different from how modern nations define being a national.
The other def, national identity is carried by the bloodline through the father.
But I believe that one way or another every society converges to a nation anyways. By the bloodline. When there are enough marriages several generations later.
No, the defining characteristic of a nation is a group of people united by a shared identity grounded in any or all of descent, culture, history, or language.
> and anyone with a high school or better understanding of English etymology should know that.
Anyone with a high school or better knowledge of language should know that etymology may suggest meaning, but is not a reliable guide to it.
Wrong.
> Anyone with a high school or better knowledge of language should know that etymology may suggest meaning, but is not a reliable guide to it.
Right.
But then you lost me with language and culture being heritable (as opposed to strongly influenced by the people you grow up around, who of course are usually related to you).
Your comments seem to be objecting to the term "Nation" (which comes across as a pedantic nit-pick), as well as a nativist argument around heritable traits (which sounds vaguely racist, but dressed up in fancy language).
Perhaps instead you meant cultural heritability, like language, foods, etc? The problem is that culture isn't carried in the genes, and disperses quite freely across the world, from ancient to modern times, and cultures actively spread and market their traits over geographic and even linguistic boundaries, so culture is not a very good feature to use to define a nation via heritability.
Human identity has been complex and probably confusing since the first time identity was contemplated, so we invented models like "nation" to serve our political ends (usually to mobilize members of one "nation" against other "nations").
[1] https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/
[2] https://curiosity.com/topics/everyone-on-earth-is-related-cu...
Also, the Out of Africa conjecture Is Made Up: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-out-of-afr...
> the first occurring about two million to 1.5 million years ago during the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene epochs; a second during the mid Pleistocene, roughly one million to 500,000 years ago; and ending with the spread of modern humans, 50,000 to 30,000 years in the past.
> The new findings, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, casts doubt on the second migration out of Africa. "[The researchers] are not denying that it happened," Trinkaus says, "just that it was less important than movement across Eurasia."
The degree of second migration is what was brought into doubt, not that all humans today share a common ancestor from the 3rd migration.
Prior to the French Revolution, the idea was that political power devolved from the top (usually by divine right) and whatever people happened to live within the reach of the ruler should do what they were told, if they knew what was good for them.
The boundaries of the state would shift along with the power and influence and military success of the ruler. The modern idea that some people might object to living under one ruler (and thus one state) rather than other, based on some idea of shared history, would have been a strange idea to those used to living in autocratic societies.
Nationalism has been so successful at adhering the support of the masses to the establishment that few today even think to question it.