First, it would serve us well to define "nation." I agree with Mr. Renan in the sense that "Ethnographic considerations have... played no part in the formation of modern nations," and also that linguistic and religious considerations are equally inconsequential. I also agree with his argument that it is the wish of the people that creates a nation, though I disagree with the idea that a nation is "a soul, a spiritual principle." I posit that a nation is a social organization; and, like clubs, nations have entirely arcane prerequisites for membership.
What defines a nation is its exclusivity: in the case of the USA, the world is filled with people who want to be Americans, people that cherish and love the idea of individual freedoms and personal accomplishment (life, liberty, etc.). Likewise, France, for instance, is highly desirable for some, and Qatar is intensely desirable if you are a wannabe Olympian.
What does membership get you? Besides a home team and stuff like that, membership gives you access to all the primo perks of citizenship, such as a police force and a school system.
We adopt the notion of legitimacy practiced by the Concert of Europe, i.e. the notion that "if we say it's legit., then it's legit." Essentially, nationhood is a product of (1) the desire of the people to be a nation and (2) arcane and arbitrary exclusivity. You can't be a nation and let everyone in.
By this measure, the USA falls easily within the realm of nationhood.
“Essentially, nationhood is a product of (1) the desire of the people to be a nation and (2) arcane and arbitrary exclusivity. You can't be a nation and let everyone in.”
ReplyDeletehttp://robot-aliens.blogspot.com/2009/01/usa-is-totally-nation.html
I think that what you say is true—you have to feel like you are part of something. Also, the idea of exclusivity makes sense. My only question is: Is that it? Are these the only requirements? I ask that because nations have been bound, at least in the past, to geographical locations. Poland, though it disappeared, still existed in the two criteria you offer above. But when it was reconstituted, it was reconstituted in the rough area it had been before it was partitioned. Also, let me muddy the water a little more. Would you think it consistent to say that the Jews, as a named category in MEH, subject to great persecution and prejudice, are a nation? Or, do we say, with them that they are a tribe? And that Israel is a the Jewish nation?
“Luckily for the Austrians, there is no such thing as the centrifugal force; it is a fictitious force in the sense that it only exists in non-inertial reference frames, and I believe the Austrian Empire is at least mostly an inertial frame of reference. Ms. Coffin and Mr. Stacey could have evidently paid some more attention during high school science courses.”
http://robot-aliens.blogspot.com/2009/01/on-nationhood-762-767.html
This sounds intriguing, but I don’t follow your argument. Could you articulate it a bit more clearly so that I could chew on it some?
3. The argument that no perpetrators of the capitalist machine are endowed with the magical ability to understand the proletariat's will doesn't seem to be based on anything. Also: remember that Marx's family was pretty solidly bourgeois, and he didn't think that this precluded him from an understanding of the proletariat.
4. Unemployment during the Great Depression went over twenty percent (according to the Encyclopedia Britannica article), but the revolution count by the end of the thirties was still zero. Suffice it to say that ten percent unemployment alone is not enough to incite a revolution.
5. It's difficult to believe that the mighty warriors of the proletariat who will destroy the oppressive capitalist regime are--right now--starving in the streets. This sort of polarization is not going to lead to revolution.
http://robot-aliens.blogspot.com/2009/01/to-makaveli.html
3. Even if Marx came from a middle class family, he did not have a middle class existence—he had to scrimp, faced starvation, and had a pretty hard life—admittedly, one he chose… So, maybe he has a better idea than many about what immiseration is, given his family’s experience of it.
4. Does Nazi Germany count?
5. I don’t follow the argument here. The claim isn’t that it will happen right now, but at some indeterminate point in the future… Out of curiosity, if you saw rioting in the USA based on economic distress in the next year or two, would you see this as indirect evidence in support of Marx’s claim or not?
(A) Just as Tsar Nicolas took the assault on the state to be an assault on his person, (B) the Concert of Europe viewed an attack on a state of Europe as an attack on Europe in its entirety; (C) thus the power in Europe was centralized and personified.
http://robot-aliens.blogspot.com/2009/01/ground-control-to-major-tom.html
I don’t quite get how (C) follows from (B). I think this is because I don’t think that (B) follows from (A). It is one thing to argue that when my person is attacked, that I then defend myself, as the absolute arbiter of my will. But wouldn’t the situation in Europe be something along the lines off: attack me, and my arm goes up to defend me, whilst the rest of me stands in awe at the cool kung fu move “I” just did. It was my arm, but it acted independently of me, much as Ash’s hand did in Evil Dead II.
The sacking of Rome was due to workers rising up against their oppressors just as much as the conquests of Napoleon represented the gilded heel of oppressive decadence striking against the unarmed peasantry of Europe. The mechanism for creating unrest among the workers then neglects several aspects of the world that reverse his mechanism: the constant drive for innovation, the cultural imperative (at least in the United States) for production and consumption, and the availability of credit.
http://robot-aliens.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-thoughts-on-marx-man-and-dialectic.html
But Marx would argue you have confused classes here—the class is “barbarian invader” much like the source of much of the slavery that Romans used to move their economy. Wage labour is a late invention—yes, people got paid, but for Marx, what determines the type of mode of production is the dominant way in which labour is organized. The latifundia were a determining and pervasive aspect of the later Roman Republic and empire. Also, the mechanism that you mentioned to stave off the “end” are ones that Marx himself mentions. He just argues that there will come a time when they won’t help anymore. How is credit these days?