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The Monday Lament: Imaginary Borders
The future of our nation-states
The Trump regime is facilitating more than the end of the United States of America. The US failure is, after all, past due. As a nation-state, the US is coming apart. Few people realize that the US was one of the first nation-states. That it has lasted over two centuries should be a surprise.
The nation-state is a historically recent development. Its basis is often cited in the Peace of Westphalia, 1643, which defined full sovereignty with nation-states respecting each other’s sovereignty. A similar process in East Asia (in 1005 through the Treaty of Chanyuan) resulted in the same forms between the states of the Song Dynasty and the Liao Dynasty of semi-nomadic groups. [Source]
Nationalism evolved from nation-state sovereignty in the 19th century, leading to international organizations (good) and nationalistic wars (bad). Nationalism is now recognized as a disease inherently tied to racism and authoritarianism, having been a major factor in two massive wars in the first half of the 20th century and overpopulation and planetary overshoot in the last half of the 20th century.
So, the disintegration of the US at the hands of a massively corrupt and grossly incompetent late-stage nationalistic regime would be a surprise if it did not happen. The fact that…
