Was the Nation State a mistake?
>standardises language and culture
>creates a massive bureaucracy that cannot but fail to keep in touch with all the different local and regional communities
>constant war and/or propaganda effort to justify itself
>local/regional politics becomes less important, disempowering local communities and forcing them to submit to a somewhat alien power
>it's a leviathan whose great power can easily be abused by tyrants
>a prelude to international superstates that are even more tyrannical
pre-modern peoples saw themselves as belonging to a region or local city-state, e.g. the Romans called themselves after the city Rome, not the land of Italy; the Athenians and the Spartans, etc. This is arguably a more natural form of government because you are not being ruled by a power geographically distant from you and alien to your way of life, but by a local power that you can go and can complain to directly. The Roman Empire (until it was beginning to fall apart) and kingdoms of the middle ages were not run by a centralised bureaucracy, rather, the emperors/kings, even though they had all authority over their empire/kingdom, nevertheless gave the office and power of ruling to local authorities who were able to directly communicate with the local people.
>>1402711
Every expansion of power has brought with it a reduction in the violence experienced by the power under it. Neolithic bands suffered extremely high levels of violence since there was no-one to protect the average guy from the band's psychopath, tribal federations suffered slightly less since tribal rulers can settle band-level disputes, settled kingdoms less violence still, and nation states less yet again. Then you get to the megastates like the USA and China, which have even lower rates of violence since even the component states are prevented from fighting one another.
city states founded by tribe confederations are the most organic emergent civilizations imo
>>1402711
Was the City State a mistake?
Nationalism is like Marxism in its attempts to retcon history in its image
>Greco-Persian war was Nationalism guiz ignore the city states that remained neutral/sided with the Persians
>100 years war was nationalism guiz, nvm that the English monarchy was more French than English (which was the reason for the war since it was a succession crisis), Burgundy joined the English side, and the war of the Roses happened immediately after they're forged into a nation after the war!
>Rome was totally a nation guiz even though they moved the capital out of Rome several times and allowed other cultures to carry on so long as they didn't bother them, what's that? Byzantine empire? that's not Rome silly.
>>1402719
Aren't you confusing internal and external violence?
The nation state brought on a lot more violence, did it not, in the wars between competing nation states; more violence than the wars between competing city states.
>>1402711
Fun fact: there are few nation states in the world. Most took that label out of neologism and
Besides, the powers that be aren't nation states at all
>USA.
>China
>Russia.
The first bases its identity on ideals, so Patriotism. The latter two are Empires in Nation's clothing.
>>1402741
Aren't the USA, China, and Russia acting like nation states though, in the sense of increasing centralisation of power over the states of their empire?
Would nation states even be able to function without modern means of mass communication?
>>1402711
>arguably a more natural
Fallacious argument, natural =/= good. I assume you wear clothes and sleep in a house?
>>1402745
Centralization is not the hallmark of Nation states. Empires did it before them based on universalist philosophies:
>USA
We hold these rights as inalienable and self evident. blablabla
>Russia
Initially Muh Orthodoxy & Third Rome, but then Muh Communism, and now muh Federation.
>China
Initially muh Tianxia, then Muh Communism, and now back to it-is-sort-of-tianxia-but-let-us-call-it-5-nations-one-state
Nations do so based on the idea of National Sovereignity, which has heavy ethnic, homogenizing efforts.
>>1402761
I don't think that wearing clothes and sleeping in houses is unnatural or artificial. My definition of natural is not that romantic definition of naked people skipping through green fields. The desire for clothing and housing comes from natural human desires for modesty and for shelter.
Out of what desire is the nation state born?
>>1402762
thanks
>>1402740
>Aren't you confusing internal and external violence?
When you don't have a state, those are the same thing. The fact that internal violence is (in theory) illegal and punishable in some way is itself clear testament to the value of a state in protecting the weak.
>wars between competing nation states
Less destructive than the wars between smaller actors. Most wars between states involve only the military class and the citizens of the region being fought over, large parts of these countries would experience little or no violence even during wars. this is very different than the experience of two clans fighting one another, where the entire region and population they control are subjected to attack.
>>1402776
>Out of what desire is the nation state born?
the desire not to be killed or held to the whims of the strongest man in the band.
What's a nation state? I'm retarded. Pls explain this to me.
>>1402776
>natural human desires for modesty
>clothing is natural
You were shown you are wrong, and are rationalizing.
Take a step back, cool your head, and recognize this.
Its an anonymous image board, you can walk away any time you want. No need to fight when the battle is lost.
>>1403398
A state that consists of all the people of a given nation, such as Germany (Germans) or Italy (Italians). It is usually contrasted with empires (many cultures under one ruler) and kingdoms (which can be multiple cultures but where the ties of statehood are to the person of the king, not to any abstraction such as parliament or the constitution).
>>1403443
>italy
>nation
Maybe in another century.
Both your examples are bad, since those are different nations that are meant to unite and form one, some doing it better than others.
>>1402740
>The nation state brought on a lot more violence, did it not, in the wars between competing nation states;
Even for something modern, like Russian versus Ukraina is just a lot of sable swiping and a bombed airport.
Nothing more. You can literally drive 10-15 minutes away from the warzone, and there is no war there.
The same applies to Syria, IS, and even more unstable fronts as well.
>>1403398
City state: Tax goes to city. Might have a defence union with nearby cities(Athena, Spartha, etc), but Tax goes to city. And city do what city do.
Nation state: All the cities with common features are country now. They are state now.
>>1402776
The desire for a common identity and a stable politic
