faustuz

Hah! I think that’s a very profound question indeed, and you should come visit us here in the good ‘ole US of A to find the answer. To give you a hint, you may find the slow death of local loyalty and the rise the corporate state (with regards to sports teams, in any case).

Hugo Holbling

Thanks for agreeing i said something worthwhile - i don't feel such a jackass now.

I appreciate the example of US football but i don't think my comments are so easily disposed of. Take a look at all those other sports in which the US competes against other nations (or states, as seanie rightly says). Alternatively, look at sporting events between European nations (or states), or the upcoming cricket world cup. My point is that no matter how integrated we or how relativistic our relations become, sports seem to bring identification with a nation back to the fore.

The example of franchises is a good one, but (*warning - handwaving argument*) if you saw the way football is supported in the UK, perhaps you'd see why i'm as skeptical as Gurdur that nations have had their day. As for rivalry between towns and cities - that is not even on the way to sickbay. In the Netherlands, Ajax and Feyenoord fans would regularly try (and sometimes succeed...) to kill each other.

faustuz

Hugo,

Here in the US we don’t get nearly as fanatical about our national teams. Sure, when they win we stick out our chests, when they lose we’re just sort of surprised. But I’ve been in a few other countries during major national sporting events. I was in New Zealand when the Cricket championships were held there, and New Zealand beat Australia. I couldn’t believe people could go so nuts over Cricket of all games. I was in France not long after the Bleus took the world cup, on a day when the national team had lost some sort of match, and I swear it was a national day of mourning – and it wasn’t even a world cup match! Trust me, it’s not that big a deal here.

To make sure that this ties back into the topic at hand, I don’t think we Americans are really all that nationalistic at all. Sure, we talk it up a lot. And I know from the perspective of many people in other countries we can seem downright jingoistic. But the sense of national identity isn’t really there. For about a year after the 9/11 attacks we were a national unit, but the feeling has already faded.

It’s not a surprise really. Most of us haven’t been here that long. How many generations back can an Englishman trace his English-ness, or a Frenchman his French-ness? Most Americans can’t trace American identity back more than a few generations, assuming they were born here at all. Identity grows from roots, in this country there are shallow roots. So, again I say, if you want to see a Nation-less nation, come visit.

Hugo Holbling

Thanks for expanding your comments, faustuz. I wonder if you can explain why there appears to be such a difference between the US and Europe in this regard? (I mean this as a question, not a challenge, and based on our discussion, not an empirical argument...). This may take us back to the OP.

faustuz

You know, the more I think of it, the less I think that it does apply to the original topic (the America example that is, not the sports team example in general, which may still be interesting in that context). Americans lack national identity because they are relative newcomers to this nation. They or their parents or grandparents grew up somewhere else, spoke a different language and had customs other than those considered American. This has led to a nation with little national identity, and may create symptoms similar to those being observed around the world, although those are caused by different reasons (i.e. globalization).

xoc

The idea of the rise of market-states over and against nation-states raises the question of what each gets their definition from. That would be to compare the market and the nation(or a culture). Where is the power to govern and form a state? The power is first with the hearts and wills of the people, or enough of the people- then a state can be made.

What are the benefits of the state? Security for one. A common reason for aggregation of different peoples is fear of a common enemy. A band of tribes would no longer need to fear an enemy tribe as their numbers exceeded it. But this reason for banding together is not based on a common culture, but rather a common fear, and a common need- the need for security. The US is currently trying to act multi-laterally- the idea that they should try to act multi-laterally instead of uni-laterally is very popular amongst all the nations(including the US)- those opposed to it are American nationalists, and in minority. The benefits of the multi-lateral action over uni-lateral action is one of security. The notion of the US acting as the self-opposed World_Police is one that puts America in a bad light the world over. In submitting proposals and such to the UN, the US does not act on and in support of it's sovereignty but rather acts as a lesser unit to a greater party, the coalition of nations. This is suggestive of a new "State", a State above the states that governs international relations within it. Nations now go to the UN to plead their cases against other nations, and it acts as a decision-making body that influences the nations it is composed of.

Nations still claim sovereignty for themselves; yet states and provinces within nations also claim some level of power that the federal government ought to stick out of. And the municipality has it's lesser state and compass of authority. These are not as distinguished as countries, but when we look at the culture and attitudes of the varying parts of which a nation-state is made, we see civic pride, New England customs, and other culturally distinct groups, unique to their position. It is much harder to speak distinctly about the "culture" of a nation than the culture of an area, if we consider how many disparate elements must be included to form one "culture" for a nation. An American constitution will do to say what "America" is, or is supposed to be- a unifying creed of a nation. But describing a nation and it's laws does not describe it's people. The culture the US expresses is often called "Western"; but this Western culture is also the culture of other Western nations, and is somewhat an inheritance of America from it's European forefathers, growing and processed through Hollywood to become a different "Western" culture than the Western culture of centuries earlier. This is the culture of most of the richer nations, and most of what forms the UN, the Western State. It is the values of freedom of expression, freedom of religion and choice etc. that are extolled in this State.

THe threat, as it is often understood to the "Western State" (or western nation-states), is the opposing world-view: Islamic conquest. The Koranic view stresses the difference between the secular state and the state that accepts submission to God's law. This is foundational to Islamic culture, in the MidEast, and their understanding of us. We can not guess how deep this loyalty might be felt; but Middle Eastern nations, like our nations, also tend towards the pragmatic. They also have fear of the US, and the UN. They also want peace. As with them, our fear and need for security comes into conflict with our love of our culture, and national and regional identity. The battle between the secular and Islamic values of West and MidEast tends to lead to real battles; which most rational parties on both sides know they want to avoid. If nation-states start acting together as power-blocks, there may be less threat of war because of the fear of war's aftermath. If Invading Iraq meant invading the rest of the Middle Eastern world, there would certainly be less chance of it happening. Official long-standing organisations like the UN have more power now than the alliances-of-war did in the past- their existence is testimony to the gradual and irreversable force of globalisation.

How are nations distinguished? Culturally, by languages, by common beliefs, by a common market, by a set of laws. Yet the progress of the market has been to globalisation, and nations remain divided or stay as one in spite of either the same or different languages. But laws are long in writing and slow to overturn, and people are used to a nation as is; they fear change, fear amalgamation. Movements for seperatism and new amalgamations suffer under a heavy sludge of inertial history. Nation-states are going nowhere soon, but their sovereign power is being given up by the nations themselves(that is, not used in deference to the UN say), in favour of a new world order,
a global economy, Western culture and these world interests. If the power of the nation-state submits continually to the coalition, then it could end up with a sovereignty equal to the sovereignty of the Queen of England; just a figurehead. There need not be an official "market state" for it's power to be known.

junkyardgod

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/his...state1918.html

John Page

...but isn't economic activity just warfare with money and aren't religions warfare with belief? Didn't the USSR fall because it lost the economic war? Didn't the PRC falter because it lost the economic war? Sports are war at play.

They (whoever they are) say a war is never won without landing troops that occupy territory. You can measure imports and exports and the expansion of US economic hegemony backed up by war$ to protect its regional interests.

Subversion of democracy (of the one man one vote kind) is the real risk IMO. Businesses use $ to lobby government thereby controlling foreign policy in a short sighted manner.

Within this increasingly global process, we need to maintain our sense of identitiy as citizens. Its useful to have several sub-groups, especially when Welsh to plead the minority case and remain proud when it is at times ignominious to proclaim Britishness. As for Catalonians, history has taught us not to place too many Basques in one exit.

One plays to win and to survive, it seems to me we are only just understanding the game, let alone devising a set of sensible laws to play by. Malthus rules!

Cheers, John

Keith Russell

John:

Malthus was wrong.

Keith.

John Page

Keith:

We're all wrong! You mean about correlating violence with population pressures?

Cheers, John