Should East Prussia / Kaliningrad Oblast be returned to Germany?

Lone Wolf said:

There's always continuity of language (yeah, France has some difficulties claiming it when it comes to medieval/early modern kingdom) and culture to fall back upon. There is quite a continuity between modern Russia and pre-revolutionary one, though there isn't any institutional continuity, and isn't really much practical, either [though, of course, there's always that Mysterious Russian Soul (tm)].

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Culture and language don't have much to do with the state, though.

ParkCungHee said:

How can something be both real and not "purely an idea"?

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Maybe Taillesskangaru should answer that one?

I think we can go with a materialistically/idealistically neutral statement:

"Given that the average nation has the same level of reality of Gotham City, why should it be given special treatment?"

Traitorfish said:

Culture and language don't have much to do with the state, though.

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Would ethnic or cultural tensions still exist in your communist pixieland society?

Do families exist? If so, why they but not nations?

SiLL said:

Do families exist? If so, why they but not nations?

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If you mean families as in biological relationships, of course they exist. If you mean families as a cultural or social phenomona, they only exist as a shared subjective experience, not as an objective reality.

The latter.
Is it no objective reality that the people who share a particular subjective experience of a family also do stuff as an expression of this shared experience?
If Daddy and mommy take care of little Dorothy until she moves out while grandpa frequently visited his granddaughter - is that no objective reality?
And do nation not just as much express themselves in very real and "objective" terms?
If we understand the word "nation" not in some romanticized or idealized fashion, not in terms of some fantasy, but in terms of the objective realities a nation finds its expression in - don't nations then also objectively exist?
In conclusion: The assumption that nations don't exist seems to be based on the assumption that only words describe something which exist if this something is some kind of physical entity. Words can also describe action of physical entities rather than physical entities themselves though. Does a raindrop falling off the sky not exist? It obviously does. And I suggest that nations exist just as much, just that the action - or rather bundle of actions - they describe is a bit more fuzzy than the raindrop-example.

Nations are a product of shared subjectivity, not objective reality. They exist in the same way that art criticism can exist; it's not objective, but if enough people agree on the definitions then it can be said to exist, but only so long as everyone agrees. The term "social construct" exists for a reason.

As said, that entirely depends on what you want the word nation to describe. The idea. Or the reality of it. I don't think we are really disagreeing, you merely insist on the word nation merely referring to the idea if you say nations don't exist.
edit: And this brings us to where the comparison to an art critic stumbles. It is common agreement that with art critic we refer to the idea. I don't find such an agreement when we speak of nations. And that there is no such agreement is I think demonstrated by how many people struggle with the notion that nations weren't real for they will instantly think of the many very real expressions of the idea of nation they encounter every day of their existence.

SiLL said:

As said, that entirely depends on what you want the word nation to describe. The idea. Or the reality of it. I don't think we are really disagreeing, you merely insist on the word nation merely referring to the idea if you say nations don't exist.
edit: And this brings us to where the comparison to an art critic stumbles. It is common agreement that with art critic we refer to the idea. I don't find such an agreement when we speak of nations. And that there is no such agreement is I think demonstrated by how many people struggle with the notion that nations weren't real for they will instantly think of the many very real expressions of the idea of nation they encounter every day of their existence.

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I would term nations a shared subjective reality, along with families and art criticism. As a part-time film critic at one point in my life, I know all about shared subjectivity. That's better than being entirely subjective - this pie in this shop is the best pie, because screw you, that's why - but not as exclusive a club as objective realities - pies exist.

The expression of the idea of nations in the actions of people exist just as much as the pie exist. And if we replace "expression of the idea of nations in the actions of people" with simply "nation", a nation does just as much exist as a pie. And is this kind of way to understand nation not also the way we use it in everyday talks?
If I say "France is richer than Congo" I am not saying the shared idea of France is richer than the shared idea of Congo, but I am saying how the objective physical expression of the idea of France is richer than the objective physical expression of the idea of Congo.
Yes we all get the existence of nations is not some natural law bestowed upon us from the heavens, but the product of a shared experience or idea or what have you. That doesn't necessarily make it less real than a pie though. It merely has different implications for its nature. I.e. describing a bundle of social interaction rather than a mere physical object. Put differently, it qualifies the physical objects concerned and puts them into a specific context.
So there we have pie and there we have an apple pie which is thrown out of the window. Both are as real as the other.

A nation is a social construct. You yourself call it "a bundle of socia interaction." If that's not a social construct, I don't know what is.

Yes, we tend to say "France is richer than Congo," but, in general, we humans are both lazy and stupid. When people ask me how I am and I say "I'm good," I don't mean that I am a wholly ethical, moral and benevolent person. I mean "I feel slightly less unfit for existence than when I woke up at 6:00AM, thank you for asking, now let us proceed to the point of this conversation. I'm not paying you to talk." When you say "France is richer than Congo," you actually do mean that "the shared idea of France is richer than the shared idea of Congo," you just don't realise you're saying it.

Of course it is a social construct, so what? Social constructs are a thing is what I am saying. They rest on ideas, but are things doing things. Matter interacting. People interacting.
Richness is quantifiable. How does an idea correspond to quantifiable?
Again, I can not stress this enough - you simply choose to identify the term nation with why there are nations - mere ideas. I choose to identify nation which what actually results from those ideas. I see no reason why I have to identify something with the reason of its existence rather than with its actual physical state of existence. And in this physical existence we find the money France has and Congo doesn't. Not in some nationalistic fantasy.

Mouthwash said:

Would ethnic or cultural tensions still exist in your communist pixieland society?

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I don't really see what that has to do with anything.

SiLL said:

And do nation not just as much express themselves in very real and "objective" terms?
If we understand the word "nation" not in some romanticized or idealized fashion, not in terms of some fantasy, but in terms of the objective realities a nation finds its expression in - don't nations then also objectively exist?

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To say that a nation "finds its expression" in X, Y or Z is to presume that the nation exists to begin with, which can hardly be admitted as evidence that the nation does in fact exist, that the relationship of "expression" is real and not simply imagined. I may as well argue that, because the sun's movement across the sky "expresses" the toil of the Cosmic Dung Beetle, the Cosmic Dung Beetle must therefore exist. Its simply begging the question.

In conclusion: The assumption that nations don't exist seems to be based on the assumption that only words describe something which exist if this something is some kind of physical entity. Words can also describe action of physical entities rather than physical entities themselves though. Does a raindrop falling off the sky not exist? It obviously does. And I suggest that nations exist just as much, just that the action - or rather bundle of actions - they describe is a bit more fuzzy than the raindrop-example.

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I already said that "real" does not mean "physical", so this objection doesn't really make any sense.

ParkCungHee said:

"Given that the average nation has the same level of reality of Gotham City, why should it be given special treatment?"

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Denying the reality of Gotham City won't hurt Obama politically. Generally speaking.

Traitorfish said:

I already said that "real" does not mean "physical", so this objection doesn't really make any sense.

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Fair enough, my bad. Still, physical presence with a not so much distinct physical form like a pie has seems to cause a lot of confusion for some

So speaking of objections that make no sense....

Traitorfish said:

To say that a nation "finds its expression" in X, Y or Z is to presume that the nation exists to begin with, which can hardly be admitted as evidence that the nation does in fact exist

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That is not the evidence nor am I clear on why you would think so. The evidence is what can be actually observed. That a chair standing in front of me is the physical reflection of the idea of a chair is not caused by me assuming that there are chairs (well in a way it is, but I'll just hope we have some common sense mutual understanding here) but the chair standing in front of me reflecting what I assume chairs to be. Likewise, I can observe how the idea of a nation find its expression in physical objective reality. That there is even a thing I can call nation necessitates me to first give the word nation some meaning. But the actual physical existence rests on actual observation.

Traitorfish said:

I may as well argue that, because the sun's movement across the sky "expresses" the toil of the Cosmic Dung Beetle, the Cosmic Dung Beetle must therefore exist. Its simply begging the question.

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I am not saying that the physical reality of nations makes the idea they are based on a physical reality. I am not saying that the sun movement proves the reality of Cosmic Dung Beetles, I am saying that the sun movement is the actual Cosmic Dung Beetle (which makes it not much of a Cosmic Dung Beetle... but this analogy is not very suitable anyway as the entire point of the physical reality of nations is that they rest on ideas whereas the sun movement will not only happen if we believe in Cosmic Dung Beetles... and even if it would, the analogy would still stink but oh well, I hope it died with your objection)

I don't think you understand how inductive reasoning works. That you chose to presume something is real, and find in your observations realities which appear coherent with that presumed reality, is not evidence that the thing is itself real. You say that you observe certain phenomena and in them find your idea of the nation reflect back to you, but nowhere in that is the reality of the nation actually suggested, any more than a Christian's personal experience of divinity in worship suggests the reality of that divinity.

Traitorfish said:

I don't really see what that has to do with anything.

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To be blunt, would there still be a concept of "nations?"

Traitorfish said:

I don't think you understand how inductive reasoning works. That you chose to presume something is real, and find in your observations realities which appear coherent with that presumed reality, is not evidence that the thing is itself real. You say that you observe certain phenomena and in them find your idea of the nation reflect back to you, but nowhere in that is the reality of the nation actually suggested, any more than a Christian's personal experience of divinity in worship suggests the reality of that divinity.

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Lol... I know people who say continentals are clueless about cognitive biases...

Mouthwash said:

To be blunt, would there still be a concept of "nations?"

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What do you mean by this? That there would be some concept identified by the term "nation", that contemporary concepts of the "nation" will persist, or that there will exist concepts which we are best equipped to understand by analogy to our concept of "nation"?

Lol... I know people who say continentals are clueless about cognitive biases...

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If you spend enough time around Analytics, you'll learn that Continentals sacrifice Christian children to the devil Baphomet.

Traitorfish said:

What do you mean by this? That there would be some concept identified by the term "nation", that contemporary concepts of the "nation" will persist, or that there will exist concepts which we are best equipped to understand by analogy to our concept of "nation"?

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Uh... the second one. But no state, obviously.

Then I don't believe so, no.