Tribes and Empires

[jaybreak]

The transcript of a podcast episode, in which the host reviews the book The Virtues of Nationalism, by Yoram Hazony, yields a few interesting quotes. Not everything the podcast host or Hazony claims is anything we here at Radix Fidem can take with us. This is to be expected from those who don't share the same covenant with us (I am assuming, probably safely, that Roberts and Hazony aren't heart-led). That doesn't mean they are wrong, but whenever they are right they are most likely right for the wrong reasons.

Regardless, below are some useful insights. I have a very rudimentary theory that others may have formulated before me much more clearly: the existence of the modern nation-state is designed, inadvertently, to shield humans too much from human nature. The environment it creates is "too safe" the allow for humans to develop to formulate the proper insights into how people behave. The nation-state does this by externalizing fundamental social elements: matrimony, violence, war, natural disasters, different opinions and ideas, and concentrates the mitigation of those to dedicated and credentialed industries. We deal with crime by calling the police or misinformation by credentialed information sources. Nothing is addressed by those in close physical proximity to us; it slides up a chain to complete strangers. This is an extremely recent development in human history, and I don't believe we were equipped to perceive or process reality in this manner.

I've mentioned before: the ancients knew much more about the reality, and the reality of human behavior than any of us could. In a very real sense, modern society is anti-social, anti-human, anti-instinct, and anti-God.

From the actual book:

It is important to notice that the Israelites’ conception of the nation has nothing to do with biology or what we call race. For biblical nations, everything depends on a shared understanding of history, language, and religion that is passed from parents to religion, but which outsiders can join as well. Thus, the Book of Exodus teaches that there were many Egyptians who attached themselves to the Hebrew slaves in fleeing Egypt, and that they received the Ten Commandments at Sinai with the rest of Israel. Similarly, Moses invites the Midianite sheikh Jethro to join the Jewish people. And Ruth the Moabite becomes part of Israel when she is ready to tell Naomi, ‘Your people is my people, and your God is my God,’ her son being the forefather of King David himself. But the ability of Israel to bring these foreign-born individuals into its ranks depends on their willingness to accept Israel’s god, laws, and understanding of history. Without embracing these central aspects of Israel tradition, they will not become a part of the Israelite nation.

And:

By a nation, I mean a number of tribes with a shared heritage, usually including a common language or religious traditions, and a past history of joining together against common enemies—characteristics that permit tribes, so united, to understand themselves as a community distinct from other distinct communities that are their neighbors. By a national state, I mean a nation whose disparate tribes have come together under a single, standing government, independent of all other governments. These definitions mean, in the first place, that nation is a form of community, a human collective recognizing itself as distinct from other human collectives. Such a community can exist independently of the state and does not have to include every individual living within the state. Second, these definitions mean that the unity thus created is always a composite, because the tribes united in this way continue to exist after national independence. [So, this is not an abstraction.] The nation is not comprised of familiar individuals, but is an impersonal abstraction in the same way that humanity is an abstraction. Yet, at the same time, the nation is also distinguished from all humanity in that it possesses a quite distinctive character, having its own language, laws, and religious traditions, its own history of past failure and achievement. This means that each nation is different from all other nations, and that to the individual who is a member of a certain nation, it is known as a concrete and familiar being, much like a person, family, or clan.