>I find it very hard to make the mental leap between religion and nationalities. I think the correct thing to actually discuss is if "nations" are true. Nationality just means you belong to a nation, by definition.
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>If we stopped believing in nations, people would still form groups. Groups would organise and govern, nations are reborn again.
Well, nation-states didn't exist until the 19th century/late 18th century, so there's that.
Just for example, 'Italians' didn't exist until the late 19th century, and it took another 30 - 50 years for people in places like Sicily and Naples to see themselves as 'Italian': most immigrants from Italy to America spoke Sicilianu (featured in The Godfather and Boardwalk Empire) or Napolitano (featured in The Sopranos), not 'Italian', which IIRC is actually Tuscan, the language of Tuscany.
Similiar story in France, where a national identity only emerged after the Revolution and the top-down imposition of French-ness; people largely spoke their regional derivative of vulgar Latin like Occitan or Picard. Hard to talk about a 'nation' when there are around 20 regional languages spoken in your borders. 'French', as we know it, is the language of the ils-de-France urban center that was imposed on everyone else; like wise with 'Italian'.
So I don't think 'nations' are inevitable, they're a fairly recent and well-documented phenomena that we don't really have to guess about its causes and origin.
A kingdom is not a nation-state, a kingdom is a large piece of real estate whose legal identity is that of the monarch's body, or, where breaking the law is a personal attack on the King or Queen (hence, the King's peace). Even if you are King of all England, like Aethelstan was, you are not the leader of a nation because that is an altogether distinct entity, one where the law is ostensibly an expression of the unitary will and identity of the people irrespective of the offices of power (read: a constitution).
So if people don't see themselves as a unitary identity with others hundreds of miles away, the nation will cease to exist. The American Civil War was just such an incident.
Well, nation-states didn't exist until the 19th century/late 18th century, so there's that.
Just for example, 'Italians' didn't exist until the late 19th century, and it took another 30 - 50 years for people in places like Sicily and Naples to see themselves as 'Italian': most immigrants from Italy to America spoke Sicilianu (featured in The Godfather and Boardwalk Empire) or Napolitano (featured in The Sopranos), not 'Italian', which IIRC is actually Tuscan, the language of Tuscany.
Similiar story in France, where a national identity only emerged after the Revolution and the top-down imposition of French-ness; people largely spoke their regional derivative of vulgar Latin like Occitan or Picard. Hard to talk about a 'nation' when there are around 20 regional languages spoken in your borders. 'French', as we know it, is the language of the ils-de-France urban center that was imposed on everyone else; like wise with 'Italian'.
So I don't think 'nations' are inevitable, they're a fairly recent and well-documented phenomena that we don't really have to guess about its causes and origin.
A kingdom is not a nation-state, a kingdom is a large piece of real estate whose legal identity is that of the monarch's body, or, where breaking the law is a personal attack on the King or Queen (hence, the King's peace). Even if you are King of all England, like Aethelstan was, you are not the leader of a nation because that is an altogether distinct entity, one where the law is ostensibly an expression of the unitary will and identity of the people irrespective of the offices of power (read: a constitution).
So if people don't see themselves as a unitary identity with others hundreds of miles away, the nation will cease to exist. The American Civil War was just such an incident.