Wallowing in Self-delusion

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Clarissa

February 8, 2016

My primary objection to HRC is that she’s the queen of self-negotiation and incremental baby steps. That might have been necessary in the 1990s, when the Right was on the ascendancy. But right now, the Right is in chaos. It is falling apart. It has never been so vulnerable.

Are people mental or just plain stupid? The Congress is firmly Republican, more and more governorships are falling to the GOP, more and more states go from blue to toss-up to red. In the meanwhile, we sit here fantasizing about an imaginary advantage over people who hold us by the throat and chirp idiotically about political rrrrevolutions.

The nation-state model is eroding, and we have nothing else to offer but the disappearing nation-state. This is not a moment for dumb self-congratulation. This is the time when we need to search frantically for new narratives, not cling to the ancient ones. They are dead. All that keeps them in existence is our nostalgia. It’s time to move on.

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6 responses to “Wallowing in Self-delusion”

thelyniezian

February 8, 2016

Since you call for new narratives, what do you suggest they could be? What can replace the nation-state model? What should?

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1. Dreidel
  
  February 8, 2016
  
  Despite all predictions, the nation-state model will be around in some modified form for a long as human civilization exists. (It may temporarily disappear after a global nuclear war sends mankind back to the stone age, but it’ll come back as the surviving tribes get bigger.)
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    February 8, 2016
    
    Dreidel, for the fifteenth time: a state and a nation-state are not the same thing. Even a state – nation and a nation-state are not the same thing, and they are both just versions of a larger formation called “a state.”
    
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    1. Dreidel
      
      February 8, 2016
      
      For the impteenth time, I AGREE that a state (e.g., Arizona) is a smaller version of a larger similarly governed geographical area (e.g., the U.S.), and that clumsy attempts at an even more encompassing governing entity (e.g., the EU) are the same model on different scales.
      
      I don’t agree that the definition of “nation-state” is substantially different than the definition of “state” or “nation.” Some “experts” define “nation-state” as merely a nebulous sense of national identity by the citizens of a nation, something totally separate from geographical or governmental boundaries, but that wordsmithing is an overwrought twist of the English language.
      
      Individual feelings of national identity may well diminish as people’s interests become evermore global and as national boundaries become less important in their minds — but to define these feelings as constituting a vanishing “nation-state” is simply incorrect.
      
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      1. Clarissa
        
        February 8, 2016
        
        I’m using very specific scholarly definitions as opposed to mundane usage. To give an example from your profession, when people say casually, “John is such a psycho!” it’s not the same as when you actually diagnose Josh with acute psychosis, right?
        
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        Dreidel
        
        February 8, 2016
        
        “when people say casually, “John is such a psycho!” it’s not the same as when you actually diagnose Josh with acute psychosis, right?”
        
        Correct, but “psycho” and “psychosis” are two different words. Look them up in a dictionary, and the first will be defined as slang, and the second as a clinical diagnosis.
        
        “Nation” and “state” have specific definitions in the dictionary. If scholars want to put the two very common words together to form a single term (“nation-state”), and then argue that the two-word term has an entirely different meaning than the separate words composing it, I can’t disagree with that — but I think it’s a poor choice of words to describe what they’re talking about.
        
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