Our nations are in trouble. They’re really having a hard time these days, and they need our help.
You see, once upon a time the nation state was the biggest, baddest, most important unit of humanity there was. The nation was everything: language, culture, religion, history, government, law, economy, military might, and territorial integrity.
That is all over now. Advances in technology and trade in the After Age have dragged nations into a forced intimacy with each other against their will. If once nations were lone cowboys riding the range, independent and free, today they are commuters packed into a subway car, gritting their teeth as they stumble into each other with each twist and turn of the track.
Socially, economically, culturally, technologically, and environmentally, nations are now utterly intertwined and dependent on each other. Like players in a never-ending game of Twister, their every move is limited and compromised by the interlocking relationships between all of them.
This does not mean nations are irrelevant. Nation states are and will be the building blocks of global peace and prosperity in the After Age. Not to mention our beloved homes. But they are now part of a network of relationships between them that has eclipsed any individual nation in power and influence. It is to this network that every nation and its leadership must ultimately pay homage, whether they want to or not.
Yet most nations – and their people – would prefer to behave as if this were not true. They would prefer the illusion that they stand alone, free to behave however they want.
This is understandable. It is, after all, a difficult thing to accept, that we are tied to others, stuck in a web of relationships we did not choose, and from which there is no escape. It is a difficult thing to accept for an individual person, but for an entire country it is an even bigger pill to swallow. How could a sovereign nation, with its own government, military, language, culture, and glorious history, not be master of its own destiny? Yet none is. This reality is both humbling and a little humiliating.
As long as nations resist this fact, they are likely to be incompetent in their dealings with each other. They will view other countries as the perpetual bearers of bad news, the reminders of their oppression, and the nagging complicators of their desires. They will resent each other, and like people that resent each other and yet are forced to live together, they will find ways to make life more difficult for each other for no good reason – out of spite.
But if nations can accept this new reality, then they, and we, have much to gain. This forced intimacy is a herald of a more peaceful and prosperous future for every country and the people in them. That is because this network between nations is actually a power grid, a source of strength. It is also a thousand times better than what it replaced, which was a violent indifference to the fate of other nations and their people.
Since nations are big, dumb social constructions, not beings capable of accepting anything, what I really mean is that we the people that make up nations must understand and accept this new reality. We must change the way we think about our own country, other countries, and the people in them.
By changing the way you view foreign countries and foreign peoples, you will be better prepared to live and succeed in a world where the definition of “foreign” is transforming under pressure. At the same time, the combined power of all of our opinions can redefine nations from within and push them along a better path towards greater, and happier, cooperation.
There are no more barbarians. Barbarians were the people out there, beyond the pale, beyond the borders of civilization. The people whose ways and lives were utterly alien to ours. To us they were more “primitive” and less civilized (and more free, perhaps). Yet despite their primitive ways, or because of them, they were a threat. They proved they were a threat by invading every so often and tearing up our soft, fragile societies.
Today, there are no more barbarians. The people of the world share one economic, social, cultural, and technological order. There are no societies that exist outside this order. Everyone has been brought in, willing or otherwise. Where did the barbarians go? They did not go extinct, or ride off into the sunset. They were tamed, and became us.
True, there are hundreds of different versions of this shared order, from Indonesia to Ireland to Uruguay, but, on balance, the similarities overwhelm the differences. Most humans live in or near cities. We participate in the global economy and its culture. We have similar dress, hairstyles, homes, transportation, tools, and so on. We have similar ways of organizing our governments, businesses, and families. We have the same technology, the same knowledge, the same information. We have the same diseases. With each passing year, we share more and more.
But it’s not just that we share the same fashion, phones, or fast food. There are many more small, intangible things we do that are increasingly similar around the world, in every nation.
What we do first when we wake up in the morning, or last when we go to bed at night. What we think about when we think about our parents or children or friends or lovers. What we expect from our government or family or employers or strangers. How we behave and expect others to behave in traffic, at the store, at work, at school. How we do the dishes, brush our teeth, go shopping, watch TV, fix ourselves a snack, surf the web, have sex, are born, and die. For a thousand habits and patterns of life, we are converging.
These similarities are not things often remarked upon in the news. They have no apparent effect on political decisions, international trade, or military engagements. No one (or very few people) are paying attention to them, because they are so mundane. But they are increasingly in alignment. We are increasingly in alignment. There are no more barbarians.
I do not want to ignore the big differences between lives in the 21st century, despite all we share. Life in, for example, the Central African Republic is very different from life in Switzerland. But those two countries, and any other, are still part of the same civilization. None of them present an alternative to what is, and is becoming, the default mode of existence.
The disappearance of the barbarians means that to the extent there is one world order, there is no outside threat to it. In other words, today our greatest and only enemy is internal, not external. Since, in the course of human history, so many civilizations fell to the external disorder that surrounded them, meaning barbarians, this suggests that the After Age has a decent chance of lasting a very, very long time. If we don’t blow it.
One way we could blow it is to continue to treat foreign countries and foreign peoples as if they were barbarians. They are not, and neither are we. They may be a threat, a competitor, or an adversary. But if they are, they are from within, not without. This is a subtle difference, but it is a profound one, especially if we allow it to take root in our minds and influence how we see the rest of the world around us.
Could someone who enjoys the same TV shows as you support bombing your house? Yes, of course – absolutely. But the increasing number of things we share make the imbalance on either side of a border less extreme, and thus less unstable and less likely to tip into violence. And they also make the reasons behind tensions and hostility between nations more understandable. Our fears, desires, and motivations become easier to understand as our lives become more similar.
This new understanding is least likely to come from the top down (although it is there, too). Governments and their leadership are programmed to see other nations as external threats. It is more likely to come from our individual realizations that the patterns of daily living that make up our lives are increasingly shared by billions of people around the planet.
As an individual, recognition of these similarities can make the world beyond the borders of your homeland seem less mysterious, and thus less threatening. Besides contributing to a healthier collective attitude towards foreign nations, and their people, being less fearful of what is foreign can empower you, too. Go ahead, make the world your oyster.
Include your morality in your patriotism. Adolf Hitler once said “what is right is what is good for the German people.” It is disturbing to realize that, when it comes to our own people, most of us tend to agree with Hitler.
Loyalty to our nation, or a certain people within it, is baked into our societies. As I have already said, despicable acts when committed by “one of us” against “one of them” are often accepted, even celebrated, yet the same acts committed by them against us are cause for righteous anger.
Of course, this double standard is not true for everyone all the time. And of course we can have compassion and sympathy for people of other nations. So perhaps comparing us to Hitler is a bit extreme. But if I am being extreme it is only because I want to shock you out of your complacency. The statement is only extreme because I added Hitler’s name to it, not because its message is really that different from how, when push comes to shove, we treat other nations and their people.
Sooner or later loyalty to our nation comes into direct conflict with an obvious moral law, one even a child could point out. It is at that point that many, many people, people who would take offense at being lumped together with Hitler, end up coming to the same conclusion as the most evil person in history: That what is right is what is good for us and what is wrong is what is bad for us. Period.
National governments are and will be the last to recognize this hypocrisy. This is not just because it is taboo for any national politician to express sympathy towards another nation’s needs or wants. National governments are created to serve one nation state, not humanity as a whole. It is simply what they do. To expect governments to care about the fate of anything else would be like expecting a corporation to donate all of its profits to charity.
Instead, it is up to us as individual citizens to change our own thinking: Any sort of morality that ends at the border is no morality at all. Accepting this difficult truth does not mean ignoring the practical realities of life among 195 nations and almost 8 billion people. It does not mean abandoning national borders, or national self-interest, or national identity. It is about accepting this truth into your personal moral calculations. It is about allowing yourself to recognize when your national interests are in conflict with your own moral laws. I am not dictating what those moral laws are (OK, maybe a little, but that’s not my primary point here). The point is, whatever they are, too often we ignore them when it comes to how we treat foreign nations and peoples.
As I have said already, recognizing our bias, in this case, our national bias, allows us to more clearly see the motivations of others, which makes the world a more understandable, and less threatening place. This can only be a good thing, both individually, and for everyone.
National (or ethnic, or religious) bias is our default setting. It is as old as the hills. But that does not mean it cannot change. Cannibalism, human sacrifice, slavery, and genocide were all at one point accepted behavior. Today they are universally reviled. Someday this ugly gap between what is OK for “us” and what is OK for “them” will meet the same fate. The road there begins in your head.
Your side is capable of everything the other side did. Genocide, enslavement, wars of aggression, duplicity and double-dealing: these are flaws in humanity, not one particular tribe. Such knowledge does not acquit us of our crimes, or those who sinned against us. But remembering we are all capable of them might put a brake on whatever righteous anger we feel towards innocent descendants of past aggressors. Of course, maybe they are not so innocent. But neither are we.
Stop thinking of the horrible things done in history as a crime by this or that people or country. Instead, think of them as one more example of how we – meaning the human race – behaves horribly. Now it is our responsibility to ensure they do not happen again. Or at least, less often.
What you and I can do as individuals to help is recognize this potential in ourselves. Yes, you are capable of participating in genocide, of owning slaves, of cheering the deaths of innocent people – or at the very least, standing by while these things happen. Now that you’ve admitted you could do it, perhaps you will be more watchful in the future.
By the way, there is a positive flip side to this. If we must take ownership of the worst in human history, we can also take ownership of the best. Humanity’s greatest achievements are our greatest achievements. Those achievements could be one small step for a man, like the moon landing, or giant leaps for humankind, like the printed word, the discovery of electricity, or nonviolent social change. Sure, they happened first in one place and time. But that is mere chance. Whoever you are, and wherever you live, you can and should proudly claim these achievements as part of your heritage. You can draw strength and hope from them that the future can be better than the past.
The stability of all nations is in the interest of every nation. Undermining the government or society of other countries is both wrong and foolish. It is like starting a fire in your neighbor’s house in hopes of getting them to move, and then being surprised when your own house goes up in flames. Instability and chaos spread quickly and unpredictably in a crowded world. Pyromania in such circumstances is a suicidal habit.
Are there circumstances that justify meddling in other countries? I cannot think of any. History, which for national governments should be considered valuable, hard-won experience, strongly advises against foreign meddling. From the Austro-Hungarians allowing Lenin safe passage to Russia to the American-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein, placing your hand on the scale rarely seems to turn out well.
One of the lessons of the last 200 years, if not far longer, is that destroying the stability, integrity, or internal order of a nation – no matter how despicable we may believe its government to be – is always a mistake. National governments are complex systems, and when they die, the consequences are unpredictable. If you overthrow a national government to save its people or reduce some hypothetical threat to your own, don’t be surprised if you end up causing far more misery than if you had done nothing.
The best people to decide a nation’s fate are the people of that nation. Not only will they be the most effective, but the change they make will be the most enduring. Or to put it another way, you can tell an alcoholic they are ruining their life, you can send them to rehab or prison, threaten, beg, and plead with them, but in the end, they will only sober up for good when they decide they have had enough. It is my firm belief, and history backs me up, that given time, nations, like people, transform themselves.
As an individual, be wary of any plans to solve another nation’s problems for them, or any attempts to blame your own country’s problems on another nation. These two approaches work about as well for nations as they do for individual people.
Karma is real in international relations. It is unfortunately true that individuals can get away with bad behavior over and over again and never pay for it. The world is a big place and it is easy to disappear and start over somewhere else.
The same is not true for nation states. The community of nations is less than 200 strong. When one nation treats another in a way that it would not want to be treated itself, there are always consequences, eventually. When it comes to international relations, nations that behave like con men, liars, cheats, bullies, or backstabbers cannot just slip out of town and move on. There’s nowhere else to go. National deeds reverberate in history, and in the minds of those you harmed. Remember that the next time your country’s army marches triumphantly through your defeated enemy’s capital. What goes around, comes around.