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As was a very rare oddity in the chat room, a debate, streaming from an essay BYuCnslr, a debate happened in which we argued what exactly a nation is.
We went from it being a state of mind, to a group united under a single goal, to a group recognized by others as being a seperate Nation, to a group not exactly being recognized as a nation but able to claim to be seperate and resist the governemt.
State of mind- When arguing that a nation is a state of mind of a group, you can't just have a group go around saying "we are a nation, now recognize us." Why are they a nation? Is it simular features they have? Simular goals? What goal would they have to have to be considered a nation? If I raised a flag on the top of my roof and declared myself to be the leader of the "Country of Eternal Bliss and Gooberdom" and opposed having any ties to the US government, they'd lock me away. And if I protested, they'd still lock me away. It takes more than just saying that you are a nation to be a nation. Which is why we thought...
Shared goal- Some of us figured that the shared goal would be the goal of being united, tied together in the goal of prospering seperate of any different nation. If some fairly large county declared their Independence from the US, it would be a little bit different from some random dude sitting on his roof declaring to be the king of an unknown country. But even then, you would have the US government saying "No, I'm sorry, you can't do that. Thanks for the laughs, though." If the county resisted, in comes the military. So while that county still may think itself a seperate nation, is it really? It may have a sense of Nationalism to it, but it is still not a Nation. If it was, you can argue that each Religion is a nation, as the members are all united under the same belief system.
Recognition- In the Civil War, when the South broke away from the Union and declared it's own seperate independence, it had a large group of states declare it's alliance to the Confederacy. The Confederacy wasn't a Nation, but they had enough people declare that it was that it thus had the feeling it was a seperate nation. They had land, resources, and the ability to support themselves but did anyone declare them to be a seperate Nation? No. That's why you need recognition by others that you are a nation. In order to do so, it requires convincing others that you are no longer under their rule and that you can support yourself. In some cases, this means opposing them by force.
Resistance- If you are able to create a group of people, to declare themselves independent from a nation, and to be able to support yourself, and resist the other governments attempt to say no, and eventually have other nations recognize your independence, then you've just about got yourself a nation.
That is what a nation is: a group of people with the common goal to prosper, having the means to prosper seperate from the rule of any other government, and being recognized as a seperate nation and able to defend yourself against any governments attempt to assimulate (or destroy) you back into the original Nation.
Ok, now you all can correct me on any statements I've made and we can debate this.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Actually, a friend and I were just talking tonight about why Quebec doesn't just vote for independence. We figured in the end it was all economic.
Does this count as a "shared goal?" Is staying together for the money a separate option?
sidenote: It was interesting to talk with this quebecois friend - I really dont know much about Canada. But ask them sometime about the story behind "Je me souviens..." it's really rather sinister.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Uhhh, did you miss that whole referendum on Quebec separating from Canada? The fact that it was defeated 51-49% They *did* just put it to a vote.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I know they just put it to a vote - it's happened several times, but it keeps losing by a narrow margin.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Kayla, sadly enough I also pointed that out in the chat room last night. I told Bernard that he should quote Eddie Izzard.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Only if you and some other people with guns were on a boat and dropped anchor to claim land, where there already were people. Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I think I could easily start my own nation if I didn't mind starting it in prison and having my country's border be my prison cell walls.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Saying that I started this thread of thought, I should probably say something, below is the finished essay that I turned in, there was a page limit, and so I was unable to put all the facts that I wished to, but still, it is my attempt to define the concepts of a nation, and nationalism.
All people have different definitions of nationalism and of what a nation is. As with the word “love,” very few people are able to give a definite definition to what a nation is, and what is nationalism. Most people know vaguely how these concepts are interrelated, how they relate with the idea of nation-states and what it means to have a national identity, but still are unable to tie these concepts solidly together into a coherent, definitive exposition on the birth of modern states and governments. Thus, this is my essai to find a definition for the concepts of a nation, and nationalism and to explain how the creation of nations by the way of nationalism has shaped modern nation-states and their governments. A nation, in its most simplistic form is an association of people with commonalities that tie them together; in the words of Peter Alter, “…the Nation is a politically mobilized people.” (Alter, 10). A nation consists of a group of people with similar agendas, most likely residing in the same geographic territory, whom somehow identify with each other. However, this definition is not enough; with this generality, a nation is none different from an organization, or a lobbyist group, or even a cult. Nevertheless, with this basis, we can now look at what others in academia define as a nation. The French philosopher Ernest Renan argues that a nation is a living spirit, with memories of it’s collective past and, a desire to live together in the present. The nation is made of individual peoples, and thus the nation is like an individual with its trials and tribulations that it has gone through, and in the collective consciousness, the people of the nation remember them. Renan’s example is with France, every person in France remembers the French Revolution, such as that, every person remembers that a gluttonous monarch once ruled France. Renan also states what nations are not, he states that nations do not have to be ethnocentric. While during the birth of a nation, it can concentrate on the idea of a specific ethnicity, or a specific language, these are not deciding factors later, giving the example of the Germans, and the Anglo-Saxons in the case of race. In the case of language: “The United States and England, Latin America and Spain, speak the same languages yet do not form single nations.” As well as “Switzerland, so well made, since she was made with the consent of her different parts, numbers three of four languages,” (Renan, 50). He then states that religion, while the center of social groups, cannot properly provide a foundation for modern nations, yet again for the same reasons that race nor language can, the best example of this is in the United States Constitution, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof… Peter Alter states that there are two different nations: the cultural nation, and the political nation. The political nation is based on the individual and his free will to affect the community the person is in as a politically aware citizen able to affect his own socio-economic status; while the cultural nation is based on a common culture or a common heritage and customs, for example the Indian Nation within the United States. Benedict Anderson expands upon Renan’s and Alter’s definition of a nation by stating that a nation is an “imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign,” (Anderson, 6). He says that a nation is imagined because it is not a definite tangible object that a person could grasp; any single citizen would not be able to meet the whole population of the nation within his lifetime. However, the people of the nation are connected with each other because they perceive that they are together, of a united nationality with definite geo-political borders. Now that the nation has been defined, the question is to what makes them, and what holds them together. Thus, if a nation is an association of people with commonalities that tie them together, nationalism must be the common political ideology that does it. In its simplest form, nationalism is what gives the people of a nation, or of a nation that is to be born a sense of identity to build themselves. Men by their nature are collective creatures, they need to be in groups, be part of a greater identity, and with nationalism, people become part of a greater group, they become part of a larger intangible society that they cannot grasp, but know is there. The problem with this, as Peter Alter points out is that it is very possible, that things are carried too far and as in the case of the Germany during the Third Reich, nationalism can become an “exaggerated and intolerant form of thought in relation to a nation,” (Alter, 6). This can happen with all nations, such as many times in the United States with the Alien and Sedition Act, Chinese Exclusionary Act, among many other examples. Alter also states the examples of Karl Deutsch stating that nationalism is ‘a state of mind which gives “national” messages, memories, and images a preferred status…’ (Alter, 7), but no matter whose definition, it is agreed that the nation is in the center of nationalism and nationalist thought, making a clear difference between those that are part of the nation, and those that are not. Nations and dynastic realms instated official policies to promote their own nationalism, monarchs that aren’t ethnically part of the nation that they rule naturalized themselves into their local nationalism, taking up the customs, and languages (for in the past many of the royal families spoke French). Countries such as Russia instate official languages for all of the provinces, which were promoted through the public education system, which forced the assimilation of all minorities, at times repressing them, but attempting to bind the nation together through commonalities. With the official nationalism, nations compete against others in a world of Social Darwinism, in which a nation has either to conquer or be conquered, thus a policy of imperialism is established. Japan is an example where they decided that if they did not promote their own nationalism and colonize places such as Korea and Taiwan, they would be eliminated in the new world of Social Darwinism. As Stanley Kubrick said in the [u]Guardian[/u], “The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.” With the definitions of a nation and nationalism, it is possible to find the relationship between these concepts and the nation-state as well as how national identity plays a role in the creation of nations. Alter states that nations were born in four phases, the first phase, is where the nations had a shared political history, such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France, they all had pervious autocracies whom ruled by divine right. Anderson describes a similar ‘wave’ of nationalism of dynastic states that become nation-states. Alter’s second phase is the cultural phase, in which states such as Prussia become nations (in this example Germany) because they have the same culture. Anderson talks about how print capitalism in local vernaculars makes this happen as groups start identifying with those of the same culture and language, while before all print was in Church Latin throughout all of Europe, these nations developed their identity through their common language and common heritage. Alter’s third phase is where nations secede from the mother country, such as the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, Ireland breaking from the rest of Great Britain, these states form their identity by their common history of repression from the European Empires. Alter’s fourth phase is the decolonization of the major empires, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, et cetera. This coincides with Anderson’s third wave with the Creole pioneers breaking from the mother country (such as the United States), in which the European descendants that are born in the colonies are taken as lower class from those born in Europe. The creoles decide that the Europeans being so far away have no right to make policy decisions for them (in the case of the American Revolutionary War). Anderson’s last wave, which consists of post-colonial states becoming nations after the power void of the European powers leaving, these include almost all the states in Africa, as well as India among others. In all of these examples the growing nations associate with their local groups, by way of making a clear distinction between the ‘us’ and then Empirical ‘them.’ The people of these nations rise up to take a hold of their own politics and generate their own identities. Ernest Renan in his essay “What is a Nation” claims that a nation is a “daily plebiscite” in which the individual actively participates within the society that he is in, constantly making choices; as a person existence confirms life, a person’s choices within a society confirms the nation. Beyond that, a nation is also a peoples’ wish to live together with a common political goal. And what of nationalism? People may have a picture of different parts of nationalism in their head, waving a flag, voting, fighting for their country; but beyond that, nationalism is and ideology that binds a nation or a group wishing to become a nation together. It gives them a definite sense of who they are, a sense of “us.” In the words of Peter Alter, “nationalism exists whenever individuals feel they belong primarily to the nation, and whenever affective attachments and loyalty to the nation override all other attachments and loyalties,” (Alter, 9). Nations and nationalism are two very hard concepts to define and understand. As with that, there has been much discussion over what each one is within the world of intelligentsia. However, it is agreed that the birth and growth of nations through nationalism has been an important part in shaping the modern world. As with this thought, every nation promotes itself through nationalism, saying that it is the true moral nation, as in the words of Arthur Schopenhauer in [u]The Wisdom of Life[/u] “Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.”
The major documents I used were Renan's Qu'est-ce qu'une nation? (What is a Nation?), Peter Alter's "What is Nationalism" and "The Nation-State as a Form of Political Organization, as well as Bendidict Anderson's book "Imagined Communities."
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