[kragen]

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state#History_and_origi..., "Most theories see the nation state as a 19th-century European phenomenon, facilitated by developments such as state-mandated education, mass literacy and mass media. However, historians[who?] also note the early emergence of a relatively unified state and identity in Portugal and the Dutch Republic."

Humans have been burying their dead for 100,000 years, living in cities for 12000 years, organizing states for 5700 years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Age_state_societies), and organizing nation-states for 200 years. That is, for roughly the first 94000 years of humanity, there were no cities and no states; for the first 6000 years of cities, there were no states; and for the first 5500 years of states, there were no nation-states.

Even today, many people live in non-nation-state countries like the United States, Bolivia, and India.

It's not "natural", it's not "just the way it is", we probably don't benefit from it, and it's probably not even technologically determined.

[kelnos]

I do wonder, though, if scientific and technological progress (at least on the scale and speed we've seen in recent centuries) does require a higher level of civilization centralization. How do you get enough people to agree to work on a particular avenue of research, and fund that research to a degree that it is likely to bear fruit, when you just have random unaffiliated, unassociated people wandering around hunting for food.

Certainly there was technological progress thousands (and tens of thousands) of years ago: tools for hunting and later farming, making fire, the wheel, and so on. But could a society organized like that eventually progress to discovering how to generate electricity from nuclear fission? Could they ever have built rockets and traveled to the moon? I'm skeptical...

> Even today, many people live in non-nation-state countries like the United States, Bolivia, and India.

For the purposes of this particular discussion, I think "nation-state" and the slightly looser-organized nations you describe can be lumped together in the same category.

[kragen]

I don't think it's at all true that the current United States is more loosely organized than nation-states like Poland and Lebanon, and if you want to lump nation-states together with their diametrical opposites like Belgium I have no idea what distinction between categories of polities you are trying to discuss. "Random unaffiliated, unassociated people wandering around hunting for food" is not a fair description of any state of human existence that has ever been documented by anthropologists or, to my knowledge, suggested by archaeologists. Certainly it isn't a fair description of the Holy Roman Empire.

Moreover, the particular way in which the United States discovered how to generate electricity from nuclear fission and traveled to the moon with rockets crucially depended on it not being a nation-state: it was consequently able to assimilate foreign immigrants like Fermi, von Braun, von Neumann, and Einstein.

Certainly it's possible for a nation-state to make such advances in theory, but in practice they seem to depend on the kind of diversity of intellectual and cultural traditions that is anathema to nation-states. Neither the Soviet Union nor the United States nor the countries of the European Space Agency were or are nation-states.

[mytailorisrich]

I would make a counter point and argue that the history of the USA is one of building a nation state out of immigrants from various European countries (mostly).

[kragen]

It's an interesting point of view, even if it's not the mainstream political-science meaning of "nation state". Certainly the USA has a strong national identity, shared traditions, a couple of nearly unique dialects (though GA and AAVE are also spoken in Canada), and a state religion in which schoolchildren are forced to pray daily to the Flag, and to a significant extent the USA grew out of a tribal invasion and colonization of America by English colonists with shared descent.

Still, I think the US is better understood as a multiethnic, profoundly racist society, not a single tribe: 41 million people (12% of the population) speak Spanish, another 13% speak AAVE, and 2% belong to various Native American and Alaskan Native nations. In all cases most speakers also speak the language of the dominant GA-speaking tribe, and there are identifiable musical, culinary, religious, political differences associated with their varying descent, along with striking segregation in housing, schooling, and education. Subsequent to the initial English colonization there was also substantial immigration from Ireland (9% of the current population), Scotland (8%), Germany (15%, already 9% by the first census in 01790), the Netherlands (1%), Italy (5%), and Poland (3%), China (1.5%), India (1%), France (3%), as well as other countries. Some of these immigrants were also Romani (0.3%) or Jewish (3%). But, in the US system of racism, these differences are largely submerged in generalized "[non-Hispanic] white American" and "Asian American" (7%) ethnic identities.

Since only 62% of the US population belongs to its hegemonic "non-Hispanic white" nation, which is as you say built out of immigrants from various European countries, I don't think it's reasonable to describe the USA as a nation state. It's not even officially white supremacist, although its historical foundations are in genocide and slavery, and in practice its government treats its ethnic minorities very badly indeed even today. It's at least two more major genocides away from becoming a nation state, although Obama's horrifying mass deportations of "illegal immigrants" and their weaker continuation under Trump were a significant step in that direction, as is the ongoing GULAG-scale mass imprisonment of mostly African-Americans, many of whom are enslaved in prison.

[dotancohen]

That is an extreme liberal viewpoint, which often flourishes on Wikipedia. Not everything authoritatively stated on Wikipedia is fact, even if there is a link in the footer to someone who says so.

Nation-states were by far the dominant political entities up until the age of exploration, around the 15th century. Name any ancient society, with the stark exception of the Romans they are all nations or nation-states. The Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Ethiopians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Greeks, all nations or nation-states.

Today, it is fashionable to pretend that race doesn't exist as an effort to remove racial barriers. The goal is noble, but the rewriting of history is profane.

[ilayn]

You are confusing tribes with nations. None of those examples you gave had any nation-states especially greeks, persians and you can add ottomans, ming, mogul so on, they all had empires with tribal ruling with a dynasty and tribes, with extremely diverse ethnicity impossible to form a coherent nation with a common denomination. There is hardly ever a turkish grand-vizier in Ottoman catalogue to give a trivial example contrary to what you would expect from a "national" point of view.

Race exists but not nearly relevant as you claim and has nothing to do with nation-states. I don't claim to side with the parent but you are not nearly correct either. IF there is a footnote to a source, you better read it next time. Wiki is not authoritative but not complete junk either.

[kragen]

Your point about the Ottoman grand viziers is well taken.

However, I don't agree with some of the distinctions you're making. Tribes are nations. Like, literally, "nation" is the Latin word for tribes that weren't one of the the three tribes of Rome. "Race" is another synonym; Webster defines "nation" as "A part, or division, of the people of the earth, distinguished from the rest by common descent, language, or institutions; a race; a stock." If a tribe or a race is roughly coextensive with a state, that state is a nation-state. So race has everything to do with nation-states; this is one of the main reasons I think it's important to point out that countries like the United States are not nation-states, despite the efforts of groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and that nation-states are something we can do away with.

Consider ancient Greece. Classical Athens was considered to consist of four tribes, and the state of Athens only governed a tiny minority of Greeks, so the political division into states just didn't coincide with a division by common descent, language, or institutions even very roughly; and Greece remained divided into such city-states until being conquered by the Romans. Mycenaean Greece was far more politically unified, but much more diverse in terms of ethnicity, language, and institutions; archaeological evidence confirms Homer's hearsay on this count. Biblical Israel was classically divided into twelve tribes, and the myths of Abraham and the Exodus was used to falsely claim a common descent for what archaeological evidence tells us were Canaanite people who spoke the same Semitic language as their neighbors but began to distinguish themselves by the cult of Yahweh; and we have both documentary and archaeological evidence of their subsequent divisions and reunions, continuing through the intertestamental period.

[CRConrad]

Was going to say exactly that (only perhaps a little shorter). My example would have been the North American indigenous nations, aka "Indian tribes".

[dotancohen]

  > You are confusing tribes with nations.

I'm not confusing them: they're the same thing.

  > Nation: ...directly from Latin nationem "... race of people, tribe,"
  > - https://www.etymonline.com/word/nation

[Koshkin]

The meaning in Latin is almost irrelevant here. I know it’s confusing, but in American usage, the meaning of the word “nation” has largely shifted to mean the (entire) state or the country - as opposed to the “state” which is part of a “union.” So, the US and by extension Britain, Germany, France, Albania, etc. are all “nations” whether they consist of “states” or not.

[kragen]

It is counterproductive to try to apply that local vernacular meaning of the word "nation" to understand the term "nation state", which describes a particular kind of state that is different from other kinds of states. It will only confuse you. It would be like trying to understand the term "laser cooling", which describes a refrigeration process, by using the vernacular meaning of the word "cool" that is "in fashion". Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state.

[Koshkin]

But that particular "vernacular" is important, and not only because American audience has a large presence here on HN, but also because it is influential and is imported into other world languages - one example being the term "national park" which has nothing to do with a nation-state (or a park, for that matter) but simply means what should be easily expressed in any language as "a state nature preserve."

[dotancohen]

  > in American usage, the meaning of the word “nation” has largely
  > shifted to mean the (entire) state or the country

So in American usage nation-state means what exactly?

In any case, no matter how Americans call their political entities, the word "nation" in the term "nation-state" has a clear, unambiguous meaning, referring to a race/tribe/nation.

[ilayn]

Nope see my reply above. It has no relation. Nation has a very politically precise modern definition that is independent from race/tribe.

[s3tz]

Don't want to sound mean or anything, but you should read more in depth on these "nation" states before taking that position.

[dotancohen]

You don't sound mean, rather, I would appreciate enlightenment. I'm familiar with some of them, such as the Hebrews (I'm a Hebrew), Greeks (studied a bit, but not in an academic setting), Ahmans (which I call Persians for a modern audience), but I don't pretend to be an expert.

I called them nations because they were a people of a common race. For instance, the ancient Greeks have described the features of the Perisans whom they fought at Marathon - and from this description it is clear that a Greek could identify another person as Greek or Persian. Hence, they are different nations. And even today the Ethiopians retain very distinct features. My country (Israel) has many Ethiopians, I believe that we are the only Western nation to welcome African immigrants as equals. And would any Westerner argue that the Chinese have physical features distinct from those with European heritage? Does that not qualify - for you - as a different race?

If you are referring to the Proto-Indo-Iranian ancestors, then I counter that their descendants have diverged.

If you meant something else, I am always grateful for corrections or enlightenment.

[kragen]

I'm no expert on the time in question, so I may have some things wrong, but here's how I understand the situation.

I agree that the Greeks who fought at Marathon were a nation, but they were not a state; they came from Athens and Plataia, which were different states, allied with the Lakedaimonians, another state, also of the Greek nation but missing in action that day. The Persians, by contrast, were a state but, as you surely know, they included many nations: Datis was Median, Artaphernes ruled the Lydians (though he himself was also Median), and Hippias was actually Greek; the Persian forces also included Thracians, Mysians, Phrygians, Hebrews (!), Macedonians, and so on, though I don't know if they were present at Marathon. You can surely forgive Herodotus for not dwelling on the internal ethnic divisions among the Persian troops his interviewees were facing. (However, he did mention the Sakai alongside the "Persians" (Persai), Simonides called the Persian force the "army of the Medes" (Medon), and Aiskhylos also spoke in his epitaph of facing the Medes (Medos) at Marathon rather than the "Persians".)

So that's the sense in which neither Greece nor Persia was a nation-state at the time: Greece was a nation but not a state, while Persia was a state but not a nation. Or, rather, there was a Persian nation, but the plurinational Persian state was immensely larger than the Persian nation to which its rulers belonged.

If we consider Homeric Greece instead, the Greeks look more like the Persia that fought at Marathon: Homer's Akhaioi are, perhaps, all ruled from Mykenai by Agamemnon, but they worship different gods, speak different (but related) languages, and have different descent. And, although we know many things in Homer are historically wrong, modern archaeology does back up this plurinational picture of the Akhaioi. So Mycenaean Greece, like the Persian empire of Darius, was a state but not a nation.

As I understand the situation, we can make similar arguments about most of the ancient history of the Hebrews: beginning with ethnic and religious unity with neighboring Canaanite peoples subjugated by Egypt (despite the later invention of myths like Abraham and the Exodus, which are not supported by the archaeological evidence) and proceeding through many historical political divisions --- not just the division between Israel and Judea of which the Torah makes so much, but also, at various times, Samaria, various city-states in Palestine, the Maccabee state, and the Phoenician cities, as well as subjugation by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, and finally Romans. The Torah narrative of 117 years of a united monarchy preceding the Israel/Judah split is generally not accepted by modern scholars, though the debate is certainly open, but even in the Torah most of the historically plausible action happens at times when the Hebrew nation was either divided into separate kingdoms or suffering under the yoke of foreign powers.

So I don't think it's accurate to describe any of the ancient Israelite states as nation-states.

[dotancohen]

Thank you. I've got some material to read and digest now.

[kragen]

I'm interested to hear what you think!

[kragen]

Of your list, the ones I know about (the Hebrews, the Persians, the Chinese, and the Greeks) were plurinational (and frequently not states), though sometimes not in exactly the same way as the Romans.

It's true that I'm an extreme liberal! But I think the Wikipedia article gives a neutral point of view.

[CRConrad]

> It's true that I'm an extreme liberal! But I think the Wikipedia article gives a neutral point of view.

Shouldn't this opinion be a hint that maybe the article is liberal too? ;-)