[kingkongrevenge]

In recent times it has been fashionable to talk of the levelling of nations, of the disappearance of different races in the melting-pot of contemporary civilization. I do not agree with this opinion, but its discussion remains another question. Here it is merely fitting to say that the disappearance of nations would have impoverished us no less than if all men had become alike, with one personality and one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities; the very least of them wears its own special colours and bears within itself a special facet of divine intention.

--alexander solzenitzen

[naveensundar]

I am not saying cultures should disappear. What I meant was national and other imaginary boundaries have engendered wars, genocides and other evils. Bringing boundaries down will not makes us clones in a 1984 like manner but may give rise to even more diversity due to the mixing. And these indigenous cultures are of no use when people are not free to roam the world!

[philwelch]

Mixing doesn't create diversity, it eliminates it as people gravitate towards a common basis of law and culture. Entire languages are either extinct or spoken only by small fringe minorities thanks to cultures mixing together in the same country (or even the same nation-state, or previous membership in the same nation-state as in the case of Eire).

And it turns out that having separate countries protects cultural diversity too. What's the law in a country shared between people who have polygamous traditions and people who have a tradition where only monogamy is allowed?

[kingkongrevenge]

War and genocide predate the nation state. It's perhaps as easy to argue that the nation state has been a force for restraint of violence and a bulwark against broader tyranny. Violence is worst in the modern world where nations are weakest and least independent. The endless wars in Europe only wound down when national boundaries were finally properly drawn along ethnic lines.

> more diversity due to the mixing

You are confusing diversity within a place with diversity between places. Whereas London was once an English city with a distinctive English character, it is now a "multi-cultural" stew that is much like any of five other large global multi-ethnic cities. The loss of an English London is a loss of diversity.

[anigbrowl]

Nation states are not without utility, but this doesn't mean they are the ultimate form of social organization. Redrawing of European national boundaries along ethnic lines was offered as a justificiation for much of the aggression resulting in World War 2. Strangely, Europe seems not to have fallen into inter-ethnic confusion following the implementation of the Schengen agreement, which did not abolish Europe's internal borders but basically made them fully porous, such that Europeans can now live and work wherever they see fit.

As for your distress over the multi-cultural stew that is modern London, don't you think that just might have something to do with UK's past history of traveling the world, meeting exotic people, and conquering them? Just as you can go to London's Brick Lane and wonder whether you unknowingly took a trip to South Asia, you can go to Mumbai and wonder why so many people express themselves in Victorian-themed English.

[naveensundar]

English London has been replaced by multi-cultural London. There is no net loss of diversity here. Old cultures die and new ones form (just like languages, species etc). There is nothing to cry over here. I am in favor of a global state which prevents broader evil and within this state there should be no borders. One nation state. People get scared by this notion believing it will lead to 1984 but that is only one of many possible outcomes. Are cultures and languages more important than the universal freedom to go anywhere in the world without fetters?

[defen]

Why is being able to go wherever you desire so important to you? And how exactly do you plan to reconcile fundamentally different belief systems (such as, say, modern liberalism and fundamentalist Islam)? By imposing some global beauracratic tyranny, I presume?

[naveensundar]

People with fundamentally different belief systems are not hostile to each other. I have seen people with very radical beliefs who are very accepting of people with opposite views. Almost always it is the politicians and people in charge of nation-states who divide so that they can rule easily (us vs. them mentality). We can achieve harmony and unity through means other than tyranny (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolence) .

[tow21]

I don't think you know very much about London's history. It's been a multi-cultural melting pot since about the 12th century, and people have been complaining about it losing its quintessentially English character for nearly as long.

(Read Peter Ackroyd's "London: The Biography" for a good overview)

[kingkongrevenge]

Oh nonsense. You can go hours in pars of london without actually seeing an englishman. That is definitely a development of the last thirty years.

[_debug_]

Bollocks

  - me