It seems to me that one way or another, the days of our mechanically drawn, artificial nation-states are coming to an end. What seems likely to emerge from this failed experiment in social self-organization are more organic, cooperative collectives of like-minded people who occupy the same micro-climate and perform the same sort of specialized social tasks within a specific density of population. These smaller organic collectives will manage their own local policies, needs and resources as they perform their higher service for the larger global community of humanity. There will also exist a larger global infrastructure to make overarching policy decisions as they relate to the shared global commons, so that the resources and ecosystems we share will be managed thoughtfully and interdependently, in ways that benefit all life on Earth—not just humans. The nation-state concept has failed miserably for three reasons: First, it artificially shoehorned disparate peoples, cultures and local economies into a one-size-fits-all approach to social management based on an artificially drawn border. This renders local communities helpless with regards to self-determination, even though they may know what works best to help them meet their community needs, based on their unique environmental, economic and social attributes. Second, it failed to appreciate the absolute interconnectedness of the planets rivers and oceans, soils and atmosphere, animals and plants. With artificially drawn external borders creating boundaries to our ability to influence the way others treat our shared planet, we cannot effectively manage the environmental problems that weve created. Third, the need to defend nation-states against tribal encroachments and the boundary squishiness that resulted from careless carving up of coherent peoples has facilitated a constant state of war and defensiveness. Naturally self-organizing communities dont need to fight to retain reluctant members, or to aggressively keep people out who feel an affinity toward a given community. The United States and China arguably represent the last remaining massive nation-states in the modern world. I would look to both these systems to implode from within before long. As for Russia, its in the throes of regrouping and reclaiming the native peoples it surrendered when the USSR broke up, as well as regurgitating those who never felt truly a part of Mother Russia, because theyd been conquered.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 16:30:09 +0000
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