I’ve long maintained that one of
the worst ideas to ever plague mankind is nationalism. Nationalism, the
identification with one’s nation and its interests typically to the detriment
of other nations, is a natural outcropping of tribalism which, long ago, used
to be on a small enough scale as to not be harmful on a global scale. But,
thanks to population growth, the internet, and all the other streams of media
that know the value of sowing division, tribalism and nationalism have become
so strongly embedded in people’s psyche that they would become virtually
rudderless without these identity markers. When the alternative to being
rudderless is being a detriment to other members of the human race, I, as a
thinking and rational person, would choose to be rudderless. Only I am not; my
county is the world. More on that momentarily.
The thing about concepts like
tribalism and nationalism is that it divides people along often arbitrary
lines. As a citizen of the United States I’m supposed to hate the Chinese for
letting COVID-19 out of their country and wreaking havoc across the globe? Last
time I checked, viruses didn’t have nationalities, doesn’t care what tribe you
belong to, and will potentially kill you regardless. (Funny story – as of this
writing the U.S. has more cases than any other. Americans are the ones
spreading it more than any other nationality, so, I guess we’re supposed to
hate Americans given the preceding logic.) Even within the United States,
citizens are often raised to have contempt for their neighboring state because,
well, because someone drew a line somewhere.
Tribalism and nationalism strictly
ignore what binds people everywhere together – the fact that we’re all people
where by ‘people’ we mean human beings. Undoubtedly it is difficult for nations
to fight a wars if their troops think of the animals they’re fighting as
anything more than that. Here, I’m reminded of a line from the movie Saving Private Ryan (I think) where one
or the troops asks another, “Why are we fighting the Germans if we’re probably going
to be friends 30 years from now?” (I’m paraphrasing). People everywhere have
more in common than they think such as the need for food, clean air and water,
shelter, friendship, intimacy, and a sense of belonging (e.g. tribalism). Of
course there are nuances to these concepts but the point is people often have
to conceptually go out of their way to dehumanize others in order to get a
sense of any self-worth. Why should this be the case?
This shouldn’t be the case because
it is clear that throughout history cooperation between people has been more
productive than going to war or worse, committing to genocide. Squabbling over
irrelevant things like which side of an egg to crack open accomplishes nothing
and wastes time, though to be sure, people have killed each other for less,
such as being a woman. What’s really at stake when people commit wholeheartedly
to tribalism or nationalism is power, that goddamn exertion of power human
beings are so bad at getting over. Certainly, Nietzsche’s Will to Power is more
or less in the nature of all human beings, but it can be nurtured out of a
person as easily as its flames are fanned by manipulative forces. Or, the Will
to Power can be overcome by introspection. I overcame it through self-analysis
when I realized (fortunately early enough) that I didn’t like people telling me
what to do, especially when they didn’t have good reasons for wanting me to do
what they wanted. This allowed me to examine the world through consecutively
larger lenses.
And so I came to a point where I
realized it’s irrelevant that I happen to be American by an accident of birth.
(I find it repugnant when people do this, are proud of something they had no
choice in being.) I could go so far as to say that I have so little in common –
value wise – with my countrymen and
women that I’m actually not American. I’m a simple human being, much the same
as any other, and if I owe allegiance to any group – which I don’t – it would
be the human race whether that person is red, white, blue, or black. It doesn’t
matter which country’s ideology one subscribes to, one is still part of the
whole. We should then act accordingly because the differences one makes along
ideological lines are less than the lines drawn between species (though, even
at that point, we’re all still living things). The more one sees the bigger picture,
the closer we can become. Divisions we’re supposed to prescribe to are
typically driven by the rich and powerful. Recognize this and the less likely we
are to be coerced to kill for them in wars. The only way I could possibly find
myself fighting for my country of birth is if the entire world was at risk,
such as in World War II. The ‘War on Terrorism,’ a situation the U.S. helped
create, not so much. I’m sure I would fight for my own preservation, but until
that’s required of me I have better things to do.
There are still many countries to
visit and many cultures to experience. I find it fascinating to do so because one
never knows when they’re going to come across a situation where they find people
doing things better than they were doing within their own culture. And this is
the value of experiencing other cultures; it allows you to see problems in a
new light and therefore possibly solve them with different thinking. In the
supposed words of Albert Einstein, “We cannot solve problems with the same kind
of thinking that created them,” which he apparently said upon musing about a
post-nationalist, post-militaristic world. It is clear no one culture is
superior to another in successfully propagating the human race or in securing
its future, so why is the idea so widely subscribed to? We already know and we
already know that it’s false.
I owe allegiance to no country
because no country has demonstrated it is superior to any other. (Proponents of
American exceptionalism are easily defeated and will not be entertained here.)
My allegiances are made on a case by case basis. My judgements are cast on a
case by case basis. The world is too rich, too ripe for exploration to remain
within one’s shell for too long. For it’s a myth that the shell offers
protection. It does provide insulation, where being too cozy with one’s own
ideas for too long leads to mental weakness, inflexibility, and worst of all,
controllability. These are not a good things. If humanity as a whole would only
recognize themselves as such, as human, the fewer robots there would be hell-bent
on destroying it all.
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