Ways+of+Connecting

If you want to save yourself the headache of waiting for someone else to finish their post just so you can make yours. Post in the discussions!!! Then copy it into the wiki for all to see.

Ways of Connecting....

In European history the model upon which people connect and make meaning of the world beyond their field of vision has been the nation. While most Europeans over the past few centuries have been unable to see the world 30 miles beyond the place they were born, they imagine themselves as part of a larger whole - a "nation" of people with a common past, present culture, and future.

The idea of the nation didn't truly come to fruition until the 19th century in Europe, but the idea was building since the death of feudalism. We've seen leaders throughout European history attempting to connect people based on language, history, custom...think Charles V (though unsuccessful), Louis XIV, Dutch Revolts, Cavour, Bismarck, German Reunification, etc. Moreover, the concept of nation as a social, economic, and political organizing principle has been exported globally by Western culture. The world today is broken politically, socially, and economically into nations because of colonialism or other Western influences.

But over the past week or so we've been looking at a Europe that is trying to function on a supra-national level (organizing and connecting people on a level above the nation), as is the case with the EU. It's caused many issues - new forms of "othering," for example.

The question to address is, is the "nation" still an effective way of connecting people, motivating people to work for a cause bigger than themselves? If your answer is yes, provide an example of anywhere in the world where the nation is still at the core of an individuals' identity.

If you think the idea of the nation is dead, then what organizing principle will replace the nation? Will we return to local, more feudal/tribal connections? Will be all unite in a globalized utopia?

Freely write thoughts below...

In my opinion, the word or term "nation" is still considered a way of connecting people. Although it might not be as effective as it was in the past, it still does connect people, however minimal that may be. Obviously, our very own nation does have its faults, and many of the people living here are divided. There are many communities, cities, and states that have a variety of different ethnicities, and there are some that have particularly one major group of people. But, however different we may be, all of the citizens of our communities still have a similar background, one that is of American history, even if we weren't significantly involved with it. Because of the fact that we are entitled with the term "nation" and because we are citizens of the United States, that makes us all somewhat a group of people with a similar culture and background. As for the question 'is the idea of the nation dead,' i don't neccessarily think that it is. At least, in the majority of the tribes and countries around the world, it isn't. I don't think a specific organizing principle will replace the nation. Every nation is too different in background, culture, and history, and is therefore impossible to connect all nations to a general term. Every nation will have its own way of ruling, own system of government, and every nation will have their own thoughts and beliefs of their own term as nation. The idea of globalized utopia will never be fulfilled, and is impossible to be fulfilled. We are all secular people, and based upon general evidence, nobody is perfect.

Recently, I guess we don't see too many countries that define themselves solely by their nationality. One extreme case with the involvement of nationalism is the suicide bombing that's commonly found among the terrorists, largely in Afghanistan, Iran, and Israel (Middle East). The ultimate goal for the bombers is to glorify their countries or to shift the balance of power to favor them. But how often do we make connections with them on their method of self-glorification? Rather than showing sympathy for them, many nations unite and fight against the terrorists groups. From this, I can infer that we don't specifically distinguish ourselves by nations, but we often by the common enemies regarding political or economical issues. Also if we look at the the EU, most countries are willing to give up their rights to be in it. That is, abandoning their national identities like Germans, French, Polish etc, and becoming the generalized "EU citizen". Moreover, immigration has become a great issue among the EU countries for so many immigrants flow into the EU countries, wanting to become EU citizens. Thus we can say, the idea of nation is not effective anymore, but the bigger organizations that supurbs national level will identify people. Just like the EU bonded many countries that once resented each other, like France and Germany, with the common currency and free trade, supra-globalized organization may form and connect many nations together with the effort to create similar political, economical, and cultural goals.

Even though throughout a nation there are different ethnicities I still think that the "nation" is a good way of connectin people. The EU countries are just a case where there are so many different ethnicities it seems as though there are no border, but with other countries being part of your country is an honor. In China people take pride in being Chinese and that connects them with other Chinese people. I feel that the nation exists strongly in certain parts of the world, and if it exists it does connect people of the same nationality.

I think it would be impossible for humans to simply forget their history as part of a national group. Nationalism has become the way people define themselves, from the way they look to their cultural traditions. I don't know the sociological history behind his, but it seems that people tend to connect to people with shared attributes that can be concretely defined, such as physical traits (as opposed to more nebulous concepts, such as common goals). However, I also believe that it is possible to connect globally and still retain national/cultural values. An example on a micro level would be Stevenson: Sometimes, when I'm walking through the halls, I see a large group of people of Asian descent traveling together, or maybe a couple of guys wearing yarmulkes. These students choose to associate with people that they can share a common bond with, a history created by centuries of nationalism. Yet, at the same time, these students all attend Stevenson, they all have the common goal of learning (to some degree), and they probably all associate with people of different nationalities or cultures. And while there may be friction and racial tension at times (cough, Heoun), we are all for the most part open to the idea of working together.

Even at its height, the nation has never be much of a success. The point of group living is to facilitate a better quality of life, which the nation cannot well account for due to its sheer size and the innate diversity this creates. Many venerate the diversity of a state, but this really only creates friction that further incites and debases humans into far lesser beings than what potential we hold. Indeed the state cannot exist without at least two major factions, the rulers, who must maintain some sort of authority and therefore must be separated from the second group being, the ruled. This becomes problematic not due to the division itself since humans operate naturally based off the concept of leadership, but because the rulers of a nation will inevitably find dissent of their power. To provide support for this unstable conglomerate, nationalism is inherently based off of unification through separation from "others." This leads to unneeded fears and does a very poor job at facilitating acceptance of reality and is a testament to the weakness of insecurity of men. The reason nations are son successfully able to use threats to life and well-being to their advantage is because we fear these obscure and unpleasant ideas and nothing is done to counter this. As such, the nation can unite, but only with a certain volatility that must ultimately cause disintegration. What is most frightening is that the nation encourages the success of and indeed was created for worldly men. These are men so insecure that they rely on external assurance of their success and must utilize external means of pleasure.

What must then be realized is that humans have been brought dangerously out of their natural state and made to believe in arbitrary falsehoods. Men in authority are generally the weakest of men, while those at the bottom are arguably stronger, though not necessarily stronger the further one descends. The most frightening element of the nation is the economy, which was really the original motive for a nation. In short, money doesn't work. It serves as a cleft between authority and the others. By providing material value to a person, it facilitates the rise of whomever can collect the most person, who, despite certain laws, is not going to be the most virtuous person. In fact no nation that has ever existed that used money, including all current states, has ever rewarded most the most virtuous person. Why? Quite simply, the virtuous person has no need for material wealth, and the most wealthy have not the virtue to part with their material wealth, especially without reward (which makes the parting rather redundant). This is a parallel to the structure of a nation and can be explained for the same reason. While no form of human organization will fix our problems, some can mitigate their proliferation.

The most sensical method to use would of course be the classic tribal construct, where the wisest essentially would be the ruler. Individual groups would decide their mode of living, from communal, with no official ruler other than a universal council counseled by the wise man, to chieftan, of course with the chief ruling while consulting the wise man. Though the communal method is preferred, the actual structure would be more flexible and fit to error than the state method for the simple fact that everybody, including the chief, would personally know everybody. Therefore, dangerous authoritarianism would be far more difficult, though not impossible and communities would be far closer knit and progressive due to their reliance on each other for survival. The worries of uniting polarized populations would be eliminated, and even if an authoritarian ruler did rise, it would be very easy for even a small alliance of tribes to put him down since the spread of this mode of government would be virtually impossible or slow at the very best, giving much time for effective response. Economies would be dependent on solid ground rather than the arbitrary and unstable construct of money, leaving wealth far more stable a well-distributed. If international trade were to be maintained, this would further be facilitated. This would also leave more minds able to focus on what is beyond this world, whether being with science, art, even math, rather than focusing so much on the problems of this world. It would hence also form a more cohesive cultural reality and a more realistically applicable religion where its meaning defines community and provides ultimate meaning to life.

While the nation continues to unify men to an extent, though it is arguably not so cohesive as before, this is irrelevant as, to any extent, the nation beneficial to us as humans, and really was never meant to be so, but rather to facilitate the weak, debased, and often corrupt. Essentially this leaves the recursive society as the only such which can facilitate us to the greatest as it is self-encapsulating.

Everyone on this planet has a national identity or some nation that they associate themselves with. This country or nation might not be the country or nation that they belong to at the moment; however, it is something that they feel a part of. Organized religion is a huge part of creating nations. Even in the U.S. there is a sense of nations being formed. The United States is home to people of many different nationalities and religions. I know from personal experience that even though someone might not believe everything that their organized religion or nation believes, one can still have that sense of belonging to a community. I think it is very important to have a congregation or "nation" of people to belong to because it is not easy to find your way in a big, multi-national, and very diverse country.

Personally, I feel that the idea of national identity will never die however it has definetely been weakened as the peoples of the world have adopted others cultures and fused ideas. However, in a world where diversity is prevalent in many if not most places, the effects of globalization seem to have also taken the opposite effect and have strengthened nationalism. One may think that "black, white, asian" would become more commonplace labels when we are moving towards a global scale of communication however, as we experience new places, peoples, and cultures, people identify with these roots and have a reverse affect on globalization. For example, it is quite easy at Stevenson to identify which nation a person of Asian descent is. Simply by hearing their last name can tell you if they are Korean, (Kim, Li, Kwak, etc.) Chinese, (Xhou, Lu, Lin) or Japenese (Kashiwakura, etc). In a world where we are exposed to all this diversity, national identity is very strong. If one does not notice it where they live, that is because they are in a homogenous population of people all from that same nation, but if person from Canda, for example doesn't feel a strong national identity, when they enter the global scene, for example traveling to China, they would instantly see themselves as Canadian and realize their national sentiment. This is why I believe the nation state is not dieing at all, in fact is strengthening itself due to globalization.



=
I think the nation will survive as an effective way of connecting people. The growth in technology is making the world much smaller and more interdependent with new means of transportation and communication. T//echnologies such as radio, television, satellite television, videos, telephones, fax machines, and the internet easily penetrate state-borders. //  However, I feel that this globalization is actually bringing national sentiments. There is definitely a stronger effort to buy American especially to support our economy. Like we read, I see that the growing migration because of globalization, making it easier for them to travel to distant lands, is creating an “other.”In France, the culture is so important; they made laws to separate church and state in order to distance the other. Even in the U.S. there is controversy over illegal immigrants taking jobs from citizens. It is quite possible that the European Union will simply fall apart during the coming decade, just as the Soviet Union did. I don’t think nations will allow their sovereignty to be sacrificed to be in the EU and will not want their distinct cultural identities (currency, language, laws) to be overpowered. =====

By: Harsh

I think the nation idea is semi-dead. And i say this because I believe that you can never unite all the people because doing so would force conformity, a new common culture, everyone would need to have the same chances [or they should think they do] with a lot of other complications. And if the nation's purpose is to unite an exceptional amount of people like the whole world, then i can conclude that nationalism would fail and call it dead. YET, nationalism can still be used to unite small groups of people. There will always be people that upset with the status quo and want to change it. The leaders [of their tribe if you wish] would be implementing nationalism to unite the group and lead it to its goal. When you change the status-quo YOU Have an enemy. Someone that likes things the way they are and want them to stay that way. So its immpossible to unite them under your leadership because you are offending them. Sure you can act like Bismark and fool the masses into thinking that you are actually helping them, but not everyone will fall into your conditioning. I say this because even if some advertising genius who married a propaganda, had nationalism, had money, had power, had stratagy; even that man [or woman] can not convince his enemy that he is right and that they should join forces because he is not going to be the only one with that sort of life. Point being, the whole world will not fallow your path! OK, up till now i was reffering to nationalism at a buisness or company/indiviual level. The concept changes radically when it comes to actual nations. Actual nations are defined by boundries. BUT FIRST: [assumptions] Every one wants to be connected. Now in the age if information technology and mass media, people find it easier to connect with others due to social networking systems. I can make friends and play games with people in Russia, or even trade philosophical ideas with people in Finland. I can appreciate websites that are awesome with others with sites like Stumbleupon.com or even share my views on countless wiki's that are poping over the net. Connecting with others is gtting so easy that i dont really feel tat urge to connect with people that live in my community. Proof: You dont see people outside anymore, they are inside doing stuff on computers or watching tv. THIS poses major problems for nation builders. They will have harder time connecting people that already have connections. NOT saying its not possible. JUST saying that it will be harder, and if you are in a country like India or China, uniting the people and makeing them do stuff will be much harder. NOW, indians [ken] will argue that every indian loves india and i agree, I am nationalist to india, but i dont think i would DIE for it. If it paid me 1$ a day and i knew i could get better wages in america I would not like it. Growing up indian gives you a culture and identity that you dont want to lose or change. But its the culture that unites then, not the nationalism. The culture can be manipulated, but that change will not go unargued. All in all, nations will have a harder time when you have stuff lke the internet conneting people.

BLARGH! /me smashes head into computer. IT IS SOOOOOO ANOYING TO SEE A BOX COME UP OUT OF THE BLUE SAYING ANOTHER PERSON IS EDIT THE PAGE. MAKE IT STOP! Even if you move the stupid thing it still pops up!

Martini

The idea of the nation is and always will be a need for humanity. The fact is that everyone need something to be proud of. At some point in everyones life, they need to be able to stick it to someone in another county, town, city etc. I remember hearing on the radio about a small town called Walkaroosa (not sure if I spelled it right) who had the best holstein heifer in the world. In that small town they were able to hold their heads high and go "we have the best holstein heifer in the world" and no one could say otherwise. Unfortunately the heifer died the next day but thats beside the point. Between people and nations in general there needs to be some sort of sense of pride. Take our classmate Tom May, I say the United States in the biggest superpower in the world with the greatest minds. We invented the car, the phone, the atom bomb, the list goes on. Yet he can match me by saying that England was the county that The Beatles, Iron Maiden, The Who, and Queen came from. That is something that keeps the sense of nationalism and pride together. If we were all the same place in a so called "Utopia" no one would have the sense of pride. You would say "I live in the country that has the tallest building in the world" and the rest would go "so do we." It's all about who's country has the nicer things, and the competition to go along with it.

I belive that organizeing a country as a nation is starting to fade away. There are to many other culters migrating to other people because of veriouse reasons. Since I belive that a nation is no longer around I think that as we saw in the video that it is possible for those tribal situations may occur. For example, there are so many ethnicities in the united states that eventually those groups of people may just seperate into their own seperate groups

Along with a lot of people, it seems like, I would have to agree with the fact that the nation is beginning to become less and less important. With the new overwhelming numbers of immigration, theres no set culture in very many places anymore, causing less and less of a want to call a place a "nation". Yet, obviously there is always going to be that sense of "nation" depending on geographical measures. There's always going to be an underlying sense of "my country is better than your country" attitude among people in a nation, yet I don't believe that the nation is going to be as defining as it used to be. Before, nationalism was a huge factor in the way of life. Now, there is just too much cultural difference within a nation for that same sense of national pride to be shown. I mean, in any given neighborhood there could be an Indian family, an Asian family, and a white american family living next door to one another. Sure, they'd all be technically part of the same "nation", but culturally, they all are probably going to be part of different religious backgrounds, and most likely will not all have the same accent or even language. With this, I feel like many people are becoming more tied into their cultural roots than developing on the concept of the nation. So, while geographically the nation is still what a person calls home, technically it is not what they feel culturally tied to.