Yes, the nation-state didn’t exist until the 19th century. Penicillin is even younger. Computers are younger still. Yet we greatly enjoy the benefits of young technology. The newness of something isn’t reason enough to ditch it especially since the post-nation state is even younger than the nation-state. So we aren’t talking about going back to some time-hallowed tradition but embracing something even newer.
I would love to participate in a serious discussion of the nation-state but all I ever get are the same two very vapid objections. One is that the nation-state is an imaginary community, meaning, a recent invention. Which, duh, but so bloody what? As if the post-nation state were a form of government that spontaneously arose in nature thousands of years ago. Whatever comes after the nation will be just as invented and even newer, which in and of itself is neither good nor bad.
The second objection is invariably that the nation-state made the two world wars possible. Again, yes, obvs. The Stating the Painfully Obvious Prize goes to everybody who makes this observation. One would think that if we already paid this humongous price for the nation-state model, then let’s keep it around to reap the benefits. Especially since nobody is advancing an argument that warfare will end once the nation is gone. The nation-state didn’t come into existence because there was no war. To the contrary, it was invented in response to endless warfare that was consuming Europe. War is the natural state of humanity, which sucks bullets (no pun intended), but any fantasy about a complete elimination of warfare is just simply dumb.
No interesting, meaningful objections to the nation-state are being advanced by anybody anywhere. Nobody is trying to list the benefits of the new form of statehood. It’s all childish, inane talk.
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