What exactly happened after the fall of Rome?

[frekk]

What difference does it make what they "consider" themselves as?

If the identity considerations of the constituent members are unimportant, you can really only be advocating an imperialist state of some sort, where the people just passively accept an imposed state. I'm not a big fan of nationalism, but it's at least a bit more progressive than that. You sound like Prince Metternich!

We all know the stereotype of Americans who claim to be pretty much anything (Irish, Italian, Scandinavian, Asian, African...) - anything other than American

Yes, but it's always secondary to being American. These third or fourth or whatever generation whatever they are don't consider themselves actually Irish, they consider themselves Irish-American, ie, Americans of Irish descent. That's a different thing than considering yourself Irish and nothing else, particularly not British, and not to be legitimately represented by any government that is not an Irish government.

I don't understand the concept of "only legally" in this context. You might as well say that something is "only legally" a crime. It's the law that determines whether something is a crime or not; and it's the law that determines someone's nationality.

But how do they get that piece of paper?

Well ... either they are born in Britain and deemed to enculturate to British society to some degree, or, they live there for 5 years (to enculturate somewhat) and then go to pass a test to see if they are sufficiently British to be officially British. The "Life in Britain" test which they must pass includes such questions as:

"To be British means you should ..."
"When was Britain last invaded?"
"What does it mean to be a good neighbour?"
"Where does Father Christmas come from?" (answer: the North Pole)
"What do you do if you spill someone's drink in a pub?"

There are also language components which must satisfy a requirement of "sufficient English".

If you pass, you get to swear an oath of loyalty to the Queen. Then, you're a citizen. Obviously, the process is intended to reflect the idea of the nation as a cultural community with particular values. No doubt, the process is imperfect and many do manage to satisfy the tests without satisfying the intent; but that doesn't change the fact that the guy with the passport either got through this test and was deemed "naturalized" to the British way of life, or he was born on British soil.

Again, you've got the cart before the horse. The law is a social contract in a given community. The community calls it into being; the social contract can't call itself into being. In this case we have a social contract by an established community, that admits new members to that community, on the basis of being sufficiently enculturated within the community. It's not like you can get this thing from a bubblegum machine, you know. There's a basis to it.

Same thing with a crime, as it happens. Murder isn't illegal "just because". It's illegal because most people find it intolerable and, for that reason, laws against murder were established - to enforce the will of the society. There are laws people don't agree with, but they often break them because they don't consider the acts a crime. A law that is disregarded by the vast majority of the population is almost impossible to enforce; there are many old laws on the books that are never enforced. If it's not enforced, it is not a crime in any practical sense, only in a very very technical sense. Spitting on the sidewalk or whistling on Sunday, for instance.

If someone's passport says they're British, then I would certainly consider them British no matter what they sound like.

I can personally attest that your views are very uncommon. I happen to have been born in the UK; I have legal status as a citizen. However, we moved to Canada when I was one year old. I've never even been to the UK since. Both of my parents are Canadian. Nobody has ever referred to me as "British", ever, in nearly 4 decades of existance, despite many people knowing this fact about me.

The problem with the view you're defending is that it plays right into the hands of people like the BNP. They too believe that nationality and culture are identical, and conclude that people who don't match their understanding of "British culture" are not really "British" and have no business being in Britain at all. Which is why they want to deport everyone who follows a "non-British" religion or has skin of a "non-British" colour.

No, I'm relating to you the concept of nationalism and its historical basis. I'm not justifying it. I'm of a more cosmopolitan bent, myself. I think the nation-state is based on a fiction of nation. The BNP are an example of ethnic nationalism but of course not all nationalism is ethnic-based. Civic nationalism focuses on shared ideals and culture rather than skin culture, but it's still nationalism. It still believes in an identity group which can only be legitimately represented by a sovereign nation-state.

This is an extreme example but it illustrates the fatal flaw of this "nationality equals culture" view, because how do you define culture? How do you decide whether two people are sufficiently culturally similar to count as having the same nationality? Do they have to speak the same language? With the same accent? Do they have to like the same music? Do they have to have the same political views? Presumably not. But then what is to stop (say) a British person and an Irish person - or a Canadian and an American - from counting as having the same nationality, if they are culturally very similar?

It's an amorphous and subjective concept, and it really depends on what sort of nationalist you're talking about. The main reason an Irish person isn't perceived as British (to me they are both fictions), is because the political will in Ireland has expressed the desire of the population there to not be British. Same thing with Canada. It's a cultural value of these groups to be non-British or non-American and hold different ideals and different cultural aspects.

Yet they don't have the same nationality, do they? The intellectual psychiatrist from Seattle may have far more in common with the intellectual psychiatrist from Vancouver than he does with the redneck cowboy from Texas, but he shares a nationality with the latter and not with the former. That indicates that nationality is not determined by culture.

Sure. There are always individual exceptions, even whole classes of exceptions, when we're talking about entire societies.

Historically, people like those in your example gave rise to cosmopolitanism - the idea of all people belonging to a universal identity, which might be reflected politically in some fashion. Cosmopolitan political theories generally minimize or reject the national state. From this ideal developed a very wide variety of political theories competing with the concept of nationalism; anarchism, internationalist Marxism and socialism, some forms of libertarianism, proponents of world government, and even some politically charged religious groups. Basically a who's who of "bad guys" according to a nationalist perspective. But also a few less radical groups, such as those who simply believe in the free movement of labour and markets along with products, or some advocates of strong integration in trading blocs and enhanced international cooperation.

What if you have two people from Glasgow, one of whom regards himself as proudly British, and the other is a staunch Scottish nationalist who wants to break away from Britain? Would you say that they are of different nationalities - one counts as British and the other doesn't?

In what sense? Legally, they both have British citizenship. Some observers will say they are British, some will say they are Scots. They consider themselves, in one case, Scottish, and in the other, British. I would say one is a Scottish nationalist and the other a British nationalist and they both conceive of themselves as members of a fiction, but only one is a legal fiction, and both are in contest over the possession of that legal fiction.

I hope you weren't looking for an absolute truth here!

But from the perspective of a worldview that embraces self-determination as the legitimate basis of the state - the nation-state worldview - one IS Scottish, and one IS British.

Exactly - this is the kind of intolerance that the view you're defending can lead to.

I'm not defending anything, I'm explaining the nature of a belief system which has had incredible impact on the modern world. Shaped the map that you see. Right or wrong, nationalism is a set of views that works a certain way. You may not agree that God exists or is a trinity, but that is what Christians believe. If someone explains to you how that belief operates, they're not necessarily defending it.

If you think that being of a certain nationality entails holding certain views or behaving in a certain way, then inevitably you're not going to want people who hold different views, or who behave in a different way, in your country. But I don't see any reason to allow that kind of person to dictate the meaning of words such as "nationality".

Well, what does nationality mean to you then? It must mean something, if you believe in the need for the nation-state system. Unless you think it's just a convenient way to govern ourselves, which would be odd, as it would seem to be quite inconvenient, especially given the bloody history of the past century.

Well, I would simply say that the Kurds are not a nation, they are an ethnic group many of whom want to be be a nation. And yes, in the minds of nationalists, the nation precedes the state, not vice versa; but as I say, I don't see why nationalists should dictate how we use these words, any more than sexists should dictate how we use gender-related language or homophobes should dictate how we use sexuality-related language.

History dictates the meaning of words. It's not the nationalists who are trying to change their meanings; it's the nationalists who dreamed up the words and their meanings in the first place. Technically, "nation" refers to being native-born and that's what the term meant for a very long time.

I'm not a big fan of trying to polish up a cat turd and attempting to sell it as delicious chocolate. We can change the meaning all we want, but it won't change the historical origins of the national state or the fictions it rests upon.

Speaking of definitions, I'd like to point out that when I say "nationalist" I mean it in a very historical and technical sense. I don't mean the common usage of "jingoistic hothead" ... I mean a supporter of the nation-state system. Not all of these people are jingoistic; many are quite liberal.

The problem with that is that you haven't really given a clear definition of nationality. If you say that every nationality deserves its own state then you are making a moral claim about every nationality, and that commits you to the view that these nationalities are real entities, not simply convenient fictions that people choose to believe in for whatever reason.

No, it doesn't. They are convenient fictions that people choose to believe in - not for whatever reason, but to legitimize the concept of the sovereign nation-state.

Without those ideas, there's no reason to hold to the national basis of the state. If being British or American or Canadian has no meaning and they aren't distinct entities, there's no reason for those groups to organize as sovereign political entities (ie nation-states). They could organize many other ways, join together into larger entities or split apart into smaller ones. It's probably even more efficient to do just that. The real question here is, would you miss the sovereign nation-state if it disappeared and was replaced by something else? If so ... why? You may not; but many other people definately would, and you have to think about what they believe in order to understand the ideological basis of the national state.

You could, I suppose, hold to some sort of historic reason for the national state to exist - it's here, so let's just freeze it in place with this specific territory for all time. That'll keep everything fair and everybody happy, right? Of course, Prince Metternich tried that and it didn't really work out all that well.

But the very vagueness of national identity on your definition of it makes that highly implausible. Should Scotland break away from the UK because many Scots are nationalists? What about those Scots who are not nationalists? What about Northern Ireland, where only a minority want to break away? If Kurds deserve a state because they are a nation, what about Texans? Don't they count as a nation, and if not, why not? Or Cockneys? Or Millwall supporters?

I'm being very general because there are many, many different ideas about what national identity is. It's extremely subjective. I could be much more specific if we were talking about a specific form of nationalism. For instance, your Scots - the former is a Scottish nationalist, the latter is a British nationalist. They each identify as being a member of a different nationality and have very different perceptions of what that nationality is. Nationality is an imaginary fiction, so you get a lot of different ideas about exactly how it is constituted.

 

[Plotinus]

Apologies in advance for not responding to everything - I don't have much time at the moment.

If the identity considerations of the constituent members are unimportant, you can really only be advocating an imperialist state of some sort, where the people just passively accept an imposed state. I'm not a big fan of nationalism, but it's at least a bit more progressive than that. You sound like Prince Metternich!

You misunderstand, perhaps because I didn't express myself clearly. We're talking about what constitutes national identity, not what brings about national identity or statehood. My point was that the mere fact that someone considers themselves to belong to a certain nation does not, in itself, mean that they do belong to a certain nation. Someone who is under a delusion that he is Napoleon Bonaparte does not, in virtue of the delusion, actually become French, any more than he actually becomes an emperor. Now undoubtedly throughout history many nations have come about because groups of people have believed themselves to constitute a nation, either actually or potentially, but the mere belief was not constitutive of nationhood, was it? It was a cause of the nationhood, which came about subsequently.

So I'm not saying that people's beliefs or wishes either have been or should be unimportant in determining the formation of nations - I'm saying that they are distinct from those nations.

But how do they get that piece of paper?

Well ... either they are born in Britain and deemed to enculturate to British society to some degree, or, they live there for 5 years (to enculturate somewhat) and then go to pass a test to see if they are sufficiently British to be officially British. The "Life in Britain" test which they must pass includes such questions as:

"To be British means you should ..."
"When was Britain last invaded?"
"What does it mean to be a good neighbour?"
"Where does Father Christmas come from?" (answer: the North Pole)
"What do you do if you spill someone's drink in a pub?"

There are also language components which must satisfy a requirement of "sufficient English".

If you pass, you get to swear an oath of loyalty to the Queen. Then, you're a citizen. Obviously, the process is intended to reflect the idea of the nation as a cultural community with particular values. No doubt, the process is imperfect and many do manage to satisfy the tests without satisfying the intent; but that doesn't change the fact that the guy with the passport either got through this test and was deemed "naturalized" to the British way of life, or he was born on British soil.

But the same point applies again. Yes, it may be true that in order to join a certain nationality one must pass certain cultural conditions. But those are criteria that one must meet before they allow you to join the nationality. They are not constitutive of that nationality. If they were, then passing the test would in itself make you British - indeed, merely being capable of passing the test would make you British! And clearly, meeting these criteria cannot be necessary for being British, since it's possible to be British without meeting them, in virtue of having been born in Britain. I can't imagine any circumstance in which I would voluntarily swear an oath of loyalty to the Queen, but that doesn't make me any less British.

So with these nationalisation procedures, surely what is happening is that the cultural tests are used to determine whether the applicant is someone who the authorities want living in the country and enjoying all the rights of citizens of that country. That is a purely pragmatic matter, on the grounds that someone who doesn't meet these criteria is likely to be more of a problem to society than an asset to it. It doesn't reflect an ideological belief that meeting these criteria is somehow a necessary or a sufficient condition for being a national of that country, and even less does it follow that meeting these criteria is the same thing as being a national of that country.

Again, you've got the cart before the horse. The law is a social contract in a given community. The community calls it into being; the social contract can't call itself into being. In this case we have a social contract by an established community, that admits new members to that community, on the basis of being sufficiently enculturated within the community. It's not like you can get this thing from a bubblegum machine, you know. There's a basis to it.

Well, first, surely the notion of a "social contract" is something of a legal fiction: it's not like there was a time when a group of ancient worthies sat down and said "Let's put together a state - here's the contract, everyone sign it." But even putting that aside, obviously the community that existed when the state came into being (a) wasn't a nation until the state existed, and (b) is not identical with the community that exists now and which is the nation. I don't see why we can't say that a community once existed - using the term "community" as loosely or accurately as we like - and that this community became a nation. Why does it have to have been a "nation" right from the start?

Same thing with a crime, as it happens. Murder isn't illegal "just because". It's illegal because most people find it intolerable and, for that reason, laws against murder were established - to enforce the will of the society. There are laws people don't agree with, but they often break them because they don't consider the acts a crime. A law that is disregarded by the vast majority of the population is almost impossible to enforce; there are many old laws on the books that are never enforced. If it's not enforced, it is not a crime in any practical sense, only in a very very technical sense. Spitting on the sidewalk or whistling on Sunday, for instance.

I wish the law against spitting on the pavement were properly enforced, at least in the country in which I have the misfortune to live. But at any rate, here again you're confusing causation with constitution. Yes, of course laws come into being because people consider certain behaviour to be unacceptable. But again, the mere fact that it is considered unacceptable is not the same thing as its being illegal. We can distinguish between the social disapproval which leads to an action's becoming illegal and the illegality itself which results. Similarly, we can distinguish between the factors which lead to someone becoming a national of a given country and the person's nationality which results. And we can distinguish between the factors - cultural and otherwise - which lead to a given nation's emergence and the nation itself which results.

No, I'm relating to you the concept of nationalism and its historical basis. I'm not justifying it. I'm of a more cosmopolitan bent, myself. I think the nation-state is based on a fiction of nation. The BNP are an example of ethnic nationalism but of course not all nationalism is ethnic-based. Civic nationalism focuses on shared ideals and culture rather than skin culture, but it's still nationalism. It still believes in an identity group which can only be legitimately represented by a sovereign nation-state.

I apologise for attributing the view to you then: but still, you are suggesting that what you're describing is "the" understanding of what nationality is, whether one likes it or not. I just don't think that's necessarily the case.

Well, what does nationality mean to you then? It must mean something, if you believe in the need for the nation-state system. Unless you think it's just a convenient way to govern ourselves, which would be odd, as it would seem to be quite inconvenient, especially given the bloody history of the past century.

It doesn't mean much to me beyond a legal and political convention. As I say, to my mind, being British means nothing more nor less than having a British passport, and so for all other nationalities. I think that if one widens the concept of "being British" to include other factors then one is going down a very dangerous slippery slope. I don't particularly believe in any need for the nation-state system. I suppose two considerations come to mind: first, the difficulty of governing an enormous area (which doesn't really seem that much of a problem if you have a federal system), and second, the fact that different countries can act as checks on each other. If there were a single world government and Hitler came to power, there would be a bit of a problem. But these are purely pragmatic considerations. Other things being equal, I'd be quite happy to live under a world government - in fact I'd probably prefer it for a whole host of reasons.

I suppose all this just illustrates how difficult it can be even to agree one what these supposedly important and all-pervading concepts even are. But one point puzzles me: if we accept the definition of "nation" which you suggest is the prevalent one, then surely this existed in antiquity. The Romans thought that being Roman was not merely a matter of being subject to the emperor, but of behaving in a certain way - of observing the dictates of pietas. To fail to show deference to the gods and ancestors, for example, was to be un-Roman. So isn't that the same as the culturally-based concept of nationality that you've been describing? In which case, what grounds are there for saying that this concept is a modern one?

 

[frekk]

My point was that the mere fact that someone considers themselves to belong to a certain nation does not, in itself, mean that they do belong to a certain nation. Someone who is under a delusion that he is Napoleon Bonaparte does not, in virtue of the delusion, actually become French, any more than he actually becomes an emperor.

Apples and oranges. Napoleon Bonaparte is not a cultural quality, he's a specific person.

If I say "I'm a Frekkite" and 10 other peope do and we define what that means on the basis of certain qualities we share - who are you to say we aren't Frekkites? We made the word, we attached meaning to it, and we say we are a group. That pretty much makes us one. A nation is self-proclaimed.

Now undoubtedly throughout history many nations have come about because groups of people have believed themselves to constitute a nation, either actually or potentially, but the mere belief was not constitutive of nationhood, was it?

Of course it was. What else constituted the nation other than the ideals of this group of people who believed in the concept of that nation? It didn't just assemble itself out of nothing at all. (At least, this is how nationalists see it).

But the same point applies again. Yes, it may be true that in order to join a certain nationality one must pass certain cultural conditions. But those are criteria that one must meet before they allow you to join the nationality. They are not constitutive of that nationality.

I fail to see any distinction. Those are the criteria that are considered to be constitutive of the nation, which is why you must meet them to be considered a constituent.

If they were, then passing the test would in itself make you British - indeed, merely being capable of passing the test would make you British! And clearly, meeting these criteria cannot be necessary for being British, since it's possible to be British without meeting them, in virtue of having been born in Britain.

Yes, there are two standards at work there - one is called jus soli, by right of the soil, and implies that, for most cases, there will be an ethnic background. It's a mechanism originally intended to reflect a concept of (somewhat dated) ethnic nationalism.

The other is civic nationalism, that is what is reflected in the naturalization process.

I can't imagine any circumstance in which I would voluntarily swear an oath of loyalty to the Queen, but that doesn't make me any less British.

You probably don't need to make any such demonstrations. Other groups - well the social construct says they must do this to prove something.

So with these nationalisation procedures, surely what is happening is that the cultural tests are used to determine whether the applicant is someone who the authorities want living in the country and enjoying all the rights of citizens of that country. That is a purely pragmatic matter, on the grounds that someone who doesn't meet these criteria is likely to be more of a problem to society than an asset to it.

Why do the authorities care if so-and-so knows where Santa Claus lives? What does this knowledge, or lack thereof, have to do with whether the individual is an asset to society or not?

There are tests that involve that sort of thing, but they aren't part of that particular part of the process in any way, shape, or form. The authorities have different tests to make that determination. A dangerous person who wanted entry to the country can study online for the Life in Britain test - the answers are publicly available.

If it was just based on people who were deemed safe and productive, then the tests would be quite different. Knowing where Santa Claus lives has nothing to do with that.

Well, first, surely the notion of a "social contract" is something of a legal fiction: it's not like there was a time when a group of ancient worthies sat down and said "Let's put together a state - here's the contract, everyone sign it."

Of course.

But even putting that aside, obviously the community that existed when the state came into being (a) wasn't a nation until the state existed, and (b) is not identical with the community that exists now and which is the nation.

(a) is only because you are using a colloquial definition that has little to do with the political or historical concept. The Kurds, and all other self-determination movements, consider themselves a nation, not yet a nation-state, but a nation.

Let's just look at the etymology of this word, nation.

nation
c.1300, from O.Fr. nacion, from L. nationem (nom. natio) "nation, stock, race," lit. "that which has been born," from natus, pp. of nasci "be born" (see native). Political sense has gradually taken over from racial meaning "large group of people with common ancestry." Older sense preserved in application to N.Amer. Indian peoples (1650).

So nation is, originally, a concept of a race of natives. It had nothing to do with the state until quite recently - and this was largely due to nationalist self-determination movements which produced the concept of the nation-state, which you seem to now believe means just a state. Historically, this is quite a reversal of terms!

Yes, of course laws come into being because people consider certain behaviour to be unacceptable. But again, the mere fact that it is considered unacceptable is not the same thing as its being illegal.

No, it has to be sufficiently unacceptable to become illegal. If it is not sufficiently unacceptable, it will not in any practical sense be considered a "crime" whether it is on the books as one or not.

For instance, driving to church on Christmas Day is, in the UK, a criminal offence, according to the Holy Days and Fasting Days Act of 1551 which has never been repealed. Everyone must attend the church on foot on Christmas Day - to do otherwise is a crime, technically. But nobody, not a judge in the country, considers it a crime. It is not offensive to the law anymore. Why is it still on the books? Because to get it off the books means you have to pass a bill overturning it, which costs time in Parliament and taxpayer money. Since, for all practical purposes it no longer exists as a crime, there is no sense in doing this. It would be a pointless formality.

This is obviously not the same sort of thing as murder. Murder is not a crime only as a pointless formality; it is widely perceived as a crime. To be a crime, it can't just be on the books as one. It has to remain an offence against society. You can insist otherwise, but you're not talking about the real world and it would never hold up in court. And if it wouldn't hold up in court, we can't really say that it is a legal truth.

I apologise for attributing the view to you then: but still, you are suggesting that what you're describing is "the" understanding of what nationality is, whether one likes it or not. I just don't think that's necessarily the case.

I'm describing the historical background behind the development of the idea.

Nationalism is, in many senses, a dying notion - at least in the first world. You're perfect example. You say, "It doesn't mean much to me beyond a legal and political convention." But this isn't the historic rationale behind the development of the national state - its the rationale behind the emergent dismantling of the nation-state concept in favour of continental federations. Your British passport isn't even just a British passport any more; in reality, it functions as an EU passport that happens to have been issued by a British office (under EU guidelines). You even say, "I don't particularly believe in any need for the nation-state system."

But one point puzzles me: if we accept the definition of "nation" which you suggest is the prevalent one, then surely this existed in antiquity. The Romans thought that being Roman was not merely a matter of being subject to the emperor, but of behaving in a certain way - of observing the dictates of pietas. To fail to show deference to the gods and ancestors, for example, was to be un-Roman. So isn't that the same as the culturally-based concept of nationality that you've been describing? In which case, what grounds are there for saying that this concept is a modern one?

Well, Romans had a somewhat different sense based around what they called "fides", which meant someone who was loyal, reliable and steadfast in his political relationships - and a Roman citizen was supposed to be someone who was loyal and reliable to the Roman state. The Romans imagined (perhaps more correctly) that the state had called the community into being, rather than the other way around.

Nationalists do not have "fides". They are loyal to the state only so long as it is representative of what they imagine to be the constituent elements of what they consider to be the nation. An ethnic nationalist, faced with a government of civic nationalists, wishes to reconstitute the state in a new form, and vice-versa. A nationalist who feels that the state is not representative of what he considers to be his nation (Kurds in Iraq, for instance) might wish to separate and so on. The state is merely a tool by which the nationalist expresses the sovereignty of his nation. If it does not serve that purpose, to the nationalist, it's rule is not legitimate.

For a Roman, the state was his identity. Without the state, that identity would be meaningless. The Roman identity couldn't, and didn't, survive the collapse of the state. Notions about the legitimacy of that state's central authority did persist (Kaisers and Czars and so on) but the identity associated with being a Roman person by birth or by adoptation of custom did not, because it was dependant on the existance of the state. The state was the central, defining element of their fiction of identity. With nationalists this is not the case. They do not depend on the state for their identity, they merely desire the state to express it. In that sense, your beliefs about the state are similar in a few ways to what Romans believed about it. You derive your sense of being British from the state, rather than the state deriving its Britishness from you. You're open to people who are culturally quite foreign being British, too, so long as the state says they are and they seem like they won't cause much trouble. And so on.

Granted, there's a fine line between modern nationalism and some previous sorts of identities. But it can be a very important distinction.

 

[Plotinus]

Apples and oranges. Napoleon Bonaparte is not a cultural quality, he's a specific person.

The point was that believing yourself to be French does not, in itself, make you French.

If I say "I'm a Frekkite" and 10 other peope do and we define what that means on the basis of certain qualities we share - who are you to say we aren't Frekkites? We made the word, we attached meaning to it, and we say we are a group. That pretty much makes us one. A nation is self-proclaimed.

It may make you a group, but it seems hard to accept that it makes you a nation. Do Goths constitute a nation? (I mean the black fingernail brigade, not the early Germans!)

Why do the authorities care if so-and-so knows where Santa Claus lives? What does this knowledge, or lack thereof, have to do with whether the individual is an asset to society or not?

There are tests that involve that sort of thing, but they aren't part of that particular part of the process in any way, shape, or form. The authorities have different tests to make that determination. A dangerous person who wanted entry to the country can study online for the Life in Britain test - the answers are publicly available.

If it was just based on people who were deemed safe and productive, then the tests would be quite different. Knowing where Santa Claus lives has nothing to do with that.

Well, it does seem baffling (although if they really use the name "Santa Claus" and not "Father Christmas" they have no right to be safeguarding British culture, that's for sure). I suppose you're right, this sort of thing is operated on the basis at least that meeting certain cultural conditions is a pre-condition of nationality, although I don't accept that that is the same thing as holding that meeting those conditions is either the same thing as or even part of having that nationality.

Let's just look at the etymology of this word, nation.

nation
c.1300, from O.Fr. nacion, from L. nationem (nom. natio) "nation, stock, race," lit. "that which has been born," from natus, pp. of nasci "be born" (see native). Political sense has gradually taken over from racial meaning "large group of people with common ancestry." Older sense preserved in application to N.Amer. Indian peoples (1650).

So nation is, originally, a concept of a race of natives. It had nothing to do with the state until quite recently - and this was largely due to nationalist self-determination movements which produced the concept of the nation-state, which you seem to now believe means just a state. Historically, this is quite a reversal of terms!

Fair enough, although I'm wary of the assumption that etymology is necessarily an indication of meaning, as we all know plenty of counter-examples to that.

No, it has to be sufficiently unacceptable to become illegal. If it is not sufficiently unacceptable, it will not in any practical sense be considered a "crime" whether it is on the books as one or not.

Right, but that misses my point, which is that no matter how unacceptable it may be, that in itself doesn't make it a crime. Example: most people think cheating on your wife is a Bad Thing, but it's not a crime. So we can distinguish between the public sentiment and the legislation, even if the former is a precondition of the latter. That seems to me to be analogous to the relation between whatever brings a nation into being, and the nation itself.

Nationalism is, in many senses, a dying notion - at least in the first world. You're perfect example. You say, "It doesn't mean much to me beyond a legal and political convention." But this isn't the historic rationale behind the development of the national state - its the rationale behind the emergent dismantling of the nation-state concept in favour of continental federations. Your British passport isn't even just a British passport any more; in reality, it functions as an EU passport that happens to have been issued by a British office (under EU guidelines). You even say, "I don't particularly believe in any need for the nation-state system."

Right! But what do you mean by "nationalism"? I'm puzzled by what seems to me a slight inconsistency in what you're saying. On the one hand you say that you're expounding a certain understanding of the term "nation" which you don't share (so taking "nationalism" to be the holding of this definition of "nation"). But on the other hand you seem to argue as if this is the usual understanding of the term "nation" and "nationalism" is an attitude towards the nation as thus defined.

I suppose I must accept that the understanding of nationality that you've described probably is the prevalent one, then, or at least more prevalent than I would like to think.

Well, Romans had a somewhat different sense based around what they called "fides", which meant someone who was loyal, reliable and steadfast in his political relationships - and a Roman citizen was supposed to be someone who was loyal and reliable to the Roman state. The Romans imagined (perhaps more correctly) that the state had called the community into being, rather than the other way around.

Nationalists do not have "fides". They are loyal to the state only so long as it is representative of what they imagine to be the constituent elements of what they consider to be the nation. An ethnic nationalist, faced with a government of civic nationalists, wishes to reconstitute the state in a new form, and vice-versa. A nationalist who feels that the state is not representative of what he considers to be his nation (Kurds in Iraq, for instance) might wish to separate and so on. The state is merely a tool by which the nationalist expresses the sovereignty of his nation. If it does not serve that purpose, to the nationalist, it's rule is not legitimate.

For a Roman, the state was his identity. Without the state, that identity would be meaningless. The Roman identity couldn't, and didn't, survive the collapse of the state. Notions about the legitimacy of that state's central authority did persist (Kaisers and Czars and so on) but the identity associated with being a Roman person by birth or by adoptation of custom did not, because it was dependant on the existance of the state. The state was the central, defining element of their fiction of identity. With nationalists this is not the case. They do not depend on the state for their identity, they merely desire the state to express it. In that sense, your beliefs about the state are similar in a few ways to what Romans believed about it. You derive your sense of being British from the state, rather than the state deriving its Britishness from you. You're open to people who are culturally quite foreign being British, too, so long as the state says they are and they seem like they won't cause much trouble. And so on.

Granted, there's a fine line between modern nationalism and some previous sorts of identities. But it can be a very important distinction.

That's pretty interesting then - thanks.

 

[attackfighter]

cheating on your wife is a Bad Thing, but it's not a crime

In Korea it is. Americans are kind of sexual deviants, so I don't think they really see it as a bad thing. Americans also often denounce something and than do it anyways, so maybe their legal system reflects this.

 

[Kadazzle]

I'd just like to chime-in and say that the discussion here is very interesting.

 

[RalofTyr]

What happened after the fall of Rome?

The more things change, the more they stay the same. People still worked and farmed. Merchants still traded goods and taxes were collected and paid, but paid to the German Kings that ruled Rome.

The fact that modern Europe looks kind of what it looked like under Rome, is more due to geographical and traditional controls than coincidence. For the next five hundred years after the fall, countries like France, England and Germany were not at all united and were small principalities.

 

[Yui108]

What happened after the fall of Rome?

The more things change, the more they stay the same. People still worked and farmed. Merchants still traded goods and taxes were collected and paid, but paid to the German Kings that ruled Rome.

The fact that modern Europe looks kind of what it looked like under Rome, is more due to geographical and traditional controls than coincidence. For the next five hundred years after the fall, countries like France, England and Germany were not at all united and were small principalities.

What about the treaty of Verdun? It divided up germany, france, and the low countries pretty close to the modern day.

 

[Masada]

What about the treaty of Verdun? It divided up germany, france, and the low countries pretty close to the modern day.

And England ruled France? And Germany advanced the border into the East. And so on. The Treaty broadly defined what I gather were pre-existent geographic, linguistic and cultural divisions.

 

[Dachs]

What happened after the fall of Rome?

The more things change, the more they stay the same. People still worked and farmed. Merchants still traded goods and taxes were collected and paid, but paid to the German Kings that ruled Rome.

Actually, the tax system broke down after a few centuries in the Frankish lands and slightly more rapidly in Italy and Spain. :3

 

[shortguy]

And merchant activity on any real scale collapsed as well, I believe.

 

[Dachs]

And merchant activity on any real scale collapsed as well, I believe.

More or less. After the Carthage-Rome trade spine was broken in 439, the massive volume of West Med trade dropped off pretty substantially, and Vandalic piracy only exacerbated the issue. North African wares were still getting into Italy and Spain in very limited amounts again after Justinian's Vandalic War, but real revival would have to wait for the tenth century or so. Further north, it was much more drastic, save in the Rhineland and in the north of Merovingian Francia.

 

[Sharwood]

YES! Finally, an argument about something I've been studying in depth for the better part of three years, and am actually asked questions about by tutors at university.

I've read some of the debate that frekk and Plotinus are having, but not all of it. It's quite large, so I skimmed pieces. Apologies if I repeat something.

A large part of the confusion both of you have is caused by the interchangeable use of the terms; nation, state, and nation-state, in the English language. Even in my International Relations classes, we'll often use them interchangeably, which can certainly lead to confusion. So I'll define them all first, giving examples, then go into the history.

A nation is a group of people with a common heritage, a common culture, a common language, who recognise others sharing these commonalities. The French are a nation, the English are a nation, but the Singaporeans are not. This is because the Singaporeans don't share a common culture, heritage, and language, in the same way that the English and French do. Admittedly, this is growing over time, but Singaporeans, while living in the state of Singapore, do not yet comprise a nation.

Also, note that I said English, not British. The British achieved nationhood a long time ago, but not all the inhabitants of Britain fulfill all the criteria for nationhood. One can say of many English, Scottish, Welsh, and even Northern Irish nations, that they are also members of the British nation. But one cannot say this of all of them, as some are uniquely Northern Irish, without being British, rather than both. Nationhood need not be exclusive - one can be a member of more than one nation.

Moving on to the state. Maximillian Webers' definition, provided by Masada, is a very good one, and is still currently in use. Although, it is not entirely correct, as Weber is actually describing a sovereign state. Not all sovereigns are states - they are now, but not historically - and not all states are sovereign. Still, it's a decent enough definition.

a 'state' if and insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds a claim on the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in the enforcement of its order

A sovereign state is an administrative unit which successfully claims the sole, legitimate use of violence within its territory. In other words, it has the sole right to commit violence on its own people. A sovereign state has the right to arrest and punish its citizens for crimes. I can't legally go across the street and handcuff my neighbour, locking him in a small dark room for years due to an offence he has committed. The state of Australia, however, has the right to do that any time it wishes. This is an exercise, by Australia, of its state sovereignty.

Sovereignty is not necessary for the existence of a state, however. A state is merely a geographical territory which falls under the control of one overarching entity. Thus, one can claim that the United States of America is a state. The individual states which comprise the United States are also states, but they are not sovereign states, and therefore don't possess the legal rights of the Untied States, China, Australia, or even an unrecognised sovereign state like Taiwan.

At the extreme, one can even call city councils states, but obviously their authority is vastly diminished. There may even be a cut-off, in theoretical terms, below which an entity cannot be considered a state. If there is though, I haven't come across it. After all, prior to nation-states, there existed city-states, such as Athens, Rome, Danzig, etc. The inhabitants of Athens weren't part of the Athenian nation, as no such nation existed. They were members of the Greek nation, who just happened to live in the Athenian city-state. In Danzig, the city-state was comprised of people from multiple nations, primarily Germans and Poles.

As for the nation-state. A nation-state is a nation - such as the English - which is also a state - such as England. England is a state, comprised of the English nation. This makes England a nation-state. Japan is a state, comprised of the Japanese nation. This makes Japan a nation-state. The Karen in Myanmar are a nation, but they are mambers of the Myanmarese state. Therefore, the Karen are not a nation-state. This is also true for groups like Native Americans, Uighurs, Aborigines, etc..

On the flip-side, Myanmar is a state, but there is no Myanmarese nation. Myanmar is a state, comprising several different nations. It is therefore, not a nation-state. The same argument is true of China, Afghanistan, and many African states, among others.

There are also states and nations in transition. I've already mentioned the British nation, which makes up a large part of the state of Britain. It may be enough that one can call Britain a nation-state. Singapore is certainly transitional, as it started as a state comprised of many nations, and is slowly forging a uniquely Singaporean nationhood, which would make it a nation-state - although, Singapore may well qualify as one of the world's last city-states.

I hope that explains what all these things are. If not, ask me, I'll try and answer better.

As for the argument over when nation-states developed:

Nations have existed for millenia, as have states. Many times, a nation would exist in only one state - Persians only lived in Persia - but just as often, they'd exist across multiple states - the Greeks lived in separate city-states, rather than one "Greek" state. Also, states often comprised groups from multiple nations - Persia - or a small group of just the one nation - Greek city-states. Prior to the French Revolution, a state possessing only one nation, and with all - or at least, the vast majority - of that nation being part of a single state, was incredibly rare. Scandinavian nations might qualify, as may Japan, but they also may not. I don't know enough about their history pre-nation-state.

Even then, they could not be considered nation-states, as the fact that the nation and the state were perfectly aligned was an accident. Sweden tried for centuries to build a state comprising more than just the Swedish nation. It merely failed.

The Thirty Years' War led directly to the creation of the sovereign state in Western Europe. Prior to that point, sovereignty had been entrusted to the Emperor and the Pope, and they often contested just which of them had it. The Peace of Westphalia granted the German states the right to govern their own peoples as they wished, free from outside interference in domestic concerns (theoretically anyway, as interference still continued). In other words, they now possessed sovereignty over their own states. As Louis XIV famously said; "I am the state." It was the prince who ruled the people of the state, and as such he was sovereign. And he who possessed sovereignty over the state, in effect was the state.

The first modern nation-state was France. Prior to the French Revolution, there had been a distinct policy among French monarchs of Francisation - I'm not sure if that's the correct term, as, since France did this first, it's only everyone else who I've seen given their own name for it, such as Germanisation, Russification, Anglicisation, etc.. This basically meant enforcing the teaching and use of "French" -in other words, Parisian - language, customs, laws, etc.. In this way, the French nation developed out of the disparate nations previously comprising France; Basques, Provencals, Bretons, etc..

This meant that, like the Swedish example earlier, France was a state comprised of French nationals, but, unlike Sweden, it was a nation-state. That is because the French state did not rule over only French nationals by accident; the French state created the French nation intentionally, as a state policy. This policy was repeated by the British, not only in Britain, but also many of their colonies, with India being the prime example.

The French Revolution also removed the sovereignty from the prince, and gave it to the people. This created the idea of national sovereignty; that is that it is the nation who enjoys sovereignty, not the state. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars spread this concept, which is usually known by a much shorter term: nationalism.

After this early stage of states creating nations, nationalism led to nations creating states; Germany, Italy, Greece. Recently, there has been a trend among developing nations to go back to the Anglo-French model of the state creating the nation; Singapore, China, Pakistan. Such attempts, on both sides, are not always successful.

Whoo! First day back, and I write an essay. Hope it helps clear things up, and hope I still know what I'm dong after months on the shelf. As I said earlier, if you want anything clarified, ask.

 

[Yeekim]

snip

Hey, nice to see you back. Were you incarcerated for an attempt to rape another minor or something?

I suppose I must accept that the understanding of nationality that you've described probably is the prevalent one, then, or at least more prevalent than I would like to think.

Several languages (well, my own at the very least ) don't even have a word for "nation" (one which would encompass all meanings the English word does). We use "ethnicity" and "state" respectively - and a Russian or Finn who holds Estonian citizenship is just that: an "Estonian citizen", never "Estonian" (though these things obviously get hazy and can change within just a generation). I am not a good enough polyglot to say whether this is rather an exception or a rule, though.
Let's just remember that some "nations" (states) like US, UK or even France have originally formed on the basis of multiple "nations" (ethnicities), while some like Estonia, Sweden or Finland, have formed on the basis of just one - which is why word "nation" has different shades of meaning in those respective languages.

 

[Sharwood]

Hey, nice to see you back. Were you incarcerated for an attempt to rape another minor or something?

Actually, I was hit by a bus after running in front of it to shove a minor out of the way. Feel bad now?

And I didn't rape her, she wanted it. If she didn't, she wouldn't have worn her hair like that.

 

[My Pet Hamster]

Okay, so what we can derive from that is: loads of farmers started farming and made towns and cities.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Okay, so what we can derive from that is: loads of farmers started farming and made towns and cities.

...Over the course of the next 1000 years. Remember that when the coined economy collapsed, so did most trade mechanisms, and thus most cities. It wasn't until cities began to form and grow again nearly 800 years later, for a variety of reasons, that a precious-metal--based-economy was adopted again.

 

[fugazi]

That's a very good explanation, Sharwood. Better than any of my teachers have given us. I feel tempted to copy/paste it and print it out, and hand it to them for their lectures. Might make the life of many yet-to-be history students easier

The problem with the term nation is that it is highly attached to 'cultural groups'. I don't want to open up a can of worms here, but culture is hard to define. If at all definable. What is culture? What is a cultural group? When does one become a member of a cultural group and does a cultural group need to recognise itself or can it exist without one's own self-awareness?

I never feel at ease when talking about nations, as culture is something we all feel and experience differently.

 

[Sharwood]

That's a very good explanation, Sharwood. Better than any of my teachers have given us. I feel tempted to copy/paste it and print it out, and hand it to them for their lectures. Might make the life of many yet-to-be history students easier

The problem with the term nation is that it is highly attached to 'cultural groups'. I don't want to open up a can of worms here, but culture is hard to define. If at all definable. What is culture? What is a cultural group? When does one become a member of a cultural group and does a cultural group need to recognise itself or can it exist without one's own self-awareness?

I never feel at ease when talking about nations, as culture is something we all feel and experience differently.

Muchas gracias seignor. Yesterday I got told by one of my tutors that I'd make an excellent academic, and now I'm getting it from a student. Choke on that, high school teachers!

'Cultural groups' are different entities to nations, as a nation must share more than just a common culture, whereas a cultural group, by definition, shares a culture. All nations are cultural groups, but not all cultural groups are nations. Some are far smaller - there is a habit in Australia currently of referring to the 'culture' of footbal clubs, and once who get past the incongruity of calling drunken rapists who wear uniforms and kick balls a culture, it's technically correct - whereas others are far, far larger - Westerners comprise a cultural group, as distinct from Hindu-Buddhist, Confucian (probably the largest), Middle Eastern and other supra-cultural groups.

It would seem that the four sociology classes I took for my sub-major paid off after all. As for what culture itself is, that's beyond me, as even my lecturers couldn't agree on it, and I wasn't interested enough to pursue it outside of university. But I can tell you that one need not necessarily consciously recognise themself as part of a cultural group to be a member. It is enough that other members of that group recognise you as a member.

Feel free to print it out if you want, but I'm not sure how useful it would actually be in Dutch. The history would be fine, but the theoretical terms are probably completely different - as Yeekim said, Estonian doesn't even have a transliteration of the English term 'nation' - so you'd probably need a linguist who also happened to understand the theory to translate it before you gave it to them, to avoid potential mistakes..

 

[fugazi]

I actually went the route of International Relationships and had a few of heavy culture based courses, and I think actually read or heard pretty much the same explanation you gave for cultural groups before. I just can't shake it off that it's very hard to define what it is. Yes, I see it and even experience being part of certain groups myself, but how can we test this if we don't even know how to define what culture is?

Sorry, I'll stop knocking this thread off-topic but thought the notion of the complexity of 'culture' and the background mechanics of all this nation-state in practice deserved a mention.

I still think your explanation would be great. IR is basically given in English, as that's the language of choice for the study. Also, if you went to a Dutch university you should have an easy time as lots of classes are mostly in English. I wonder how my major will be, I think it will be just English