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> People have done that very successfully without nationaliam Of course, nationalism is not the only way. You can unify your society based on religion, brute f
by Georgelemental 4y ago
> People have done that very successfully without nationaliam
Of course, nationalism is not the only way. You can unify your society based on religion, brute force, a common enemy, etc. Generally these methods aren't even mutually exclusive.
> to claim the special, irrefutable case of 'natural'
Loyalty to family and tribe is natural, because it's an instinct that has been honed by millions of years of evolution. Applying that loyalty to a much larger group (the nation) is a a recent, artificial innovation.
> manipulating and lying to people
Have you ever seen a law? Touched a law? Seen a law? Heard a law? No, and you don't know anyone who has? Yet laws are real, they can send you to jail. Laws, like nations, are social constructs; they exist as long as society collectively believes in them.
> most places get along fine without it
Almost all modern countries are nationalistic to a significant degree.
> a fake 'them'
Of course, buy that doesn't mean you automatically hate the 'them' and want to genocide them. My neighbors across the street are a 'them' relative to my family, I don't want to murder my neighbors.
- wolverine876 4y ago> Of course, nationalism is not the only way. You can unify your society based on religion, brute force, a common enemy, etc. Generally these methods aren't even mutually exclusive. No, you can unify them on universal human rights, on believing in each other's freedom, which is what has unified the US (again, see the Declaration of Independence), almost all of Europe, the entire advanced democratic world. It's achieved levels of unity undreamed of in history - again, just look at the EU! Look at the US-Europe relationship! US-Japan, etc. > Loyalty to family and tribe is natural, because it's an instinct that has been honed by millions of years of evolution. Same claim I addressed before. Just repeating it doesn't change it.
- Georgelemental 4y agoIn Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America [a Nation], When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people [a People -> a Nation] to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God [religion] entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator [religion] with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed [note that it is the governed as a collective People who give their consent, not individuals. If you think your government sucks but everyone else likes it, the majority can overrule your individual objection], --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People [People again] to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism [brute force - it's not necessarily a good thing. In fact, all alone it leads to nothing but despotism. But it works], it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good [public good - the good of the People as a whole, not just of individuals. https://www.etymonline.com/word/public https://www.etymonline.com/word/public]. He has forbidden his Governors [through brute force] to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. [brute force] He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public [belonging to the People] Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. [brute force] He has dissolved [brute force] Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness [brute force] his invasions [brute force] on the rights of the people [People -> Nation]. He has refused [brute force] for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise [People -> Nation]; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without [brute force], and convulsions within [brute force]. He has endeavoured to prevent [brute force] the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing [brute force] the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners [distinction between Foreigners and not-Foreigners; People -> Nation]; refusing [brute force] to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions [brute force] of new Appropriations [brute force] of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. [brute force] He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. [brute force] He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass [brute force] our people [People -> Nation], and eat out their substance [brute force]. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies [brute force] without the Consent of our ["our" -> People -> Nation] legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. [brute force] He has combined with others to subject us [brute force] to a jurisdiction foreign [foreign -> outside the Nation, not of the People] to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws [the laws of the People and the Nation]; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: [brute force] For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: [brute force] For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: [brute force] For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: [brute force] For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences [brute force] For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province [neighboring - not part of the Nation, not of the People, but not an enemy either], establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: [brute force] For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: [brute force] For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. [brute force] He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. [brute force] He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people [our people -> People -> Nation]. [brute force] He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. [brute force] He has constrained our fellow Citizens ["our fellow Citizens" -> People -> Nation] taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country ["their Country" -> a Nation, with a People], to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren ["Brethren" - analogy to family/tribe. A People], or to fall themselves by their Hands. [brute force] He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers [our frontiers - the limits of the territory claimed by the Nation. They are "ours," they belong to the People], the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. [brute force] In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury .[brute force] A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people [a People]. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren [the British and Americans were once a common People, as they shared the same Nation, the British Empire]. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity [one People]. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation [Separation - the injustices promulgated by Britain require the American People to separate from the British People, and form a new Nation], and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends ["them" != enemies]. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world [religion] for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People [People] of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War [brute force], conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence [religion], we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor [a People]. ----- Of course, rights and freedom are essential, they are all over the Declaration. But nationalism and the other stuff are also mentioned many times. In the future, I would avoid making grand, sweeping statements about historical documents whose contents you are unfamiliar with.