[piloto_ciego]

I'd like to say that as an American to your north, I think you're right to not come? Things are weird here presently, so I suspect you probably made the right call for a wide variety of reasons.

But also, I tire of the nationalist rhetoric wherever I see it. I'm tired of this idea that countries are anything more than a shared historical hallucination, and that we're all somehow different from one another. Or as my father often put it, "we all bleed red and we all shit brown." I never chose to be born here, and because I am sick (through no fault of my own) so called tolerant countries wouldn't have me. So I am stuck here.

Regardless, I get why you didn't come, I can't say I blame you, but I also am sick of these damn countries ruining things. Perhaps we should abandon the idea entirely and replace it with the spirit of brotherhood and respect for one's fellow human.

[prewett]

Have you spent any serious time with other cultures? Yes, we all have the same colored blood and excrement, and we have a lot of similarities. Yet at the same time, we are very different. England's traditional dignity culture (the virtuous man can overlook slights) is very different than Africa's honor culture (honor is zero-sum, and you must fight to maintain it), for instance. Japanese values and American values are frequently opposite (Japan values group membership, America values individuality; Japan honors someone by setting them apart, America honors someone by engaging with them.)

In an ideal world we could celebrate each other's differences. But trying to get rid of conflict by getting rid of national borders is naive. Why are the borders where they are? Generally because those are ethno-cultural boundaries. Nations that encompass multiple ethno-cultural groups tend to be somewhat unstable: for instance, Yugoslavia broke up violently, and Iraq has conflict between the Kurds and the rest.

This is not a support of nationalism (although I encourage patriotism, which is different), but "countries are [nothing] more than a shared historical hallucination" is just incorrect.

[AnimalMuppet]

> Nations that encompass multiple ethno-cultural groups tend to be somewhat unstable

The US has been remarkably stable for a nation that encompasses multiple ethno-cultural groups. It may not continue to be so, but historically it has been a counterexample.

[aefaegaeg]

what do you think counterexample means? if i say most days it is sunny, is a rainy day a counterexample? please learn how words in sequence work.

[dijksterhuis]

> England's traditional dignity culture (the virtuous man can overlook slights)

i’m english and i have no idea what you’re on about there mate.

are you talking about having basic tolerance for other people? that’s a pretty universal skill not exclusive to england.

> but "countries are [nothing] more than a shared historical hallucination" is just incorrect.

countries are mostly lines drawn on a map.

cultures, which i think is what you’re trying to get at in your post generally, differ everywhere to varying degrees.

dundee (where i currently am) has a different culture to glasgow, which has a different culture to edinburgh, which has a different culture to york, which has a different culture to liverpool, which has a different culture to manchester, which has a different culture to leeds leeds leeds, which has a different culture to oxford, which has a different culture to reading, which has …

the lines are imaginary.

(although yes i live on a massive island so there is a non-imaginary physical boundary where you have to get on a boat or a plane or a train to travel to here).

[fakedang]

> are you talking about having basic tolerance for other people? that’s a pretty universal skill not exclusive to england.

You'd be surprised how it's not the case in most of the world. Heck, India has a caste system that Indians have now exported to areas where they're in numbers like California. Arabs have a tribal system that makes them suspicious of anyone not from the in-group. Russian Muscovites treat all of their fellow non-Muscovite countrymen like shit.

[bigbadfeline]

> You'd be surprised how it's not the case in most of the world.

What you listed isn't "most of the world". And the exceptions do not make a rule.

[fakedang]

India + Africa + South East Asia + China & Japan + Middle East (ex-Iran) + Russia = More than 60% of the global population.

[isr]

You're making rather sweeping generalizations. "Arabs" have, for most of the last 1400 years, been part of 3 MASSIVE states, which spanned from the farthest Atlantic coast of Africa to parts of what is now Pakistan. Not alliances. Actual single states.

Thats the very opposite of parochialism, xenophobia, suspicion or inward societal thinking (however one wants to describe it)

Amidst the destruction of all that SHARED history, and the arbitrary Sykes-Picot jigsaw imposed on "the Arab world", falling back to more local structures is an obvious, and in the grand scheme of things, temporary, defensive mechanism.

The very fact that despite 100 years of Western imposed Sykes-Picot madness, West Asia is still an intricate mosaic of multiple groups - that shows that traditionally the Arabs are WELL CAPABLE of working with those not in their, as you put it, "in group".

The Indian caste system, aka apartheid on steroids, is a horrid example which makes your point. You should have stopped there

[lava_pidgeon]

"Thats the very opposite of parochialism, xenophobia, suspicion or inward societal thinking (however one wants to describe it)"

Though I am not an expert in Arabic history, Arab culture spreat through colonialism, had an extensive slave system, denied basic rights to religious minorities and the Islam religion feels superior to non - Islamic religion and atheism.

Many Arabs dont want to admit these problems which IMHO is the reason for their long term decline.

[isr]

Oh come on. Now you're just parroting ignorant tropes. Actual students of history will inform you that, especially per the standards of the day (as any state should be judged), Arab Muslim states were probably THE MOST tolerant of their time.

As evidenced by how many different Christian denominations (more than in Europe) still existed throughout West Asia, under direct Arab Muslim rule, for over a MILLENIA.

Denied basic rights? Basic rights to minority Christian, Jewish & Zoroastrian groups was ENSHRINED in the very makeup of these states. Leaders of these communities had official roles & responsibilities reserved for them.

You simply don't know what you're talking about. You're taking a modern day story about "Arabs" & "Muslims", which is predominantly the result of 100 years of subjugation & being broken up by the West (& having Western vassals & elites imposed as ruling classes), added to the need to create unsavory impressions of them amongst Western populations in order to justify that.

And you're taking this mess & overlaying it over the previous 1300 years, without a single regard for the truth. Seriously, go get a genuine history book, or talk to a history professor who knows about the Arab & Muslim world, and then curl up in embarrassment...

[piloto_ciego]

thank you for putting it this succinctly

[piloto_ciego]

I have spent a lot of time in other cultures, I’ve lived overseas as ann exchange student and speak 3 languages.

Countries are bullshit and the belief that people are that intrinsically different is silly. Go back to 1940 with that noise.

[vuurmot]

he literally says people are intrinsically the same, but extrinsically different (due to culture)

why are you misrepresenting what he says?

[blub]

In a student or IT worker bubble, countries are very similar. When one steps out, they’re going to get a rude awakening.

Culture shock is a real phenomenon.

[piloto_ciego]

I'd bet money I have more experience in this than you. Culture shock is very real (I've lived it), but culture's ain't countries and hell, I get culture shock when I go to the south here in America. It's just some old timey 1940s "we gotta keep these different cultures separated" nonsense. It's nationalism and racism (though it purports to be otherwise).

Things don't have to be this way, we choose them to and I'm getting awful tired of people keeping making the same choices over and over again because they think an imaginary line is somehow sacrosanct.

It's all made up. Even culture.

[bigbadfeline]

> I get culture shock when I go to the south here in America.

Or even from urban to rural areas.

> It's just some old timey 1940s "we gotta keep these different cultures separated" nonsense.

That's a huge mistake right there. Those who want to keep their culture should be free to do so, as long as they don't try to force theirs on others - that's a common and traditional American value which is now being attacked by both extremist segregationists and extremist pot-melters.

> It's nationalism and racism (though it purports to be otherwise).

You should learn what these words mean and stop purporting they mean something else.

> It's all made up. Even culture.

Bro, not only culture, the entire human civilization is made up. The issue is to make it good, not bad, but you seem to be all confused about it.

[piloto_ciego]

No, it's racism, because 9/10 times when someone says, "well these cultural differences are so vast" they really mean "I don't like people from that culture" which becomes "I don't like people from that country or who look like that."

Almost always. It's always the same thing. Fear of the outsiders and disdain for change. I'm not going to debate you on it, I'm just tired of hearing it.

[blub]

And yet with all that experience you’ve still managed to come up with a conclusion which describes the exact opposite way humanity evolved and currently lives.

Good luck with your revolution. :)

[gbell12]

Naive. Countries are collections of different values. I don't, for example, want to enslave non-believers, nor do I want to own my wife, or have a government take everything I own. I don't want to live in a "theocracy" because those people are crazy. I select where I live based on those values. Thinking, because we all "bleed red" that we're all the same is a recipe for loss.

[piloto_ciego]

Nobody selected where they were born. We are all the same.