Friday, February 25, 2011

On the Uses of History

Sometimes I think the main use of history is for the nurturing of old grudges, to keep the wounds open. When I hear some commentator say how in order to understand a region we must keep in mind its history, what he is really saying is that every slight, every outrage, every transgression must be dragged out over and over, so that each side might feel justified in its anger.

Surely this is how God sees the world. Every sin is present, every failing fresh. No wonder there's no forgiveness to be had, except by special dispensation. God is no historian, in this view; God is a politician. The historian understands that the past is past. The politician insists the past is present, which perspective only condemns it to be our future as well.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

On Divine Love

For God so loved the world that He said "aw screw it, everybody goes straight to Heaven when they die, and my kid can stay home."

 -- Skip 3:16

Friday, February 11, 2011

The Coming Irrelevance of the Nation-State

Since this is now my Last Blog Standing, I'll be writing about more than just atheism here, and this is the first of such posts.

Recent events, along with the history courses I teach, have caused me to think a good deal about the nature of power relations in our world. We've had something called the nation-state for three or four centuries now, depending on how fussy one is about definitions. In its pure form, there is perfect correlation between nation and state; that is, between a "people" (natio) and the geo-political entity that governs that people.

This notion is extremely powerful, though it's been the source of endless grief, as drawing clear lines around a people turns out to be rather difficult. Far more blood has been shed between nations than was ever shed between religions. Nevertheless, it appears to be the only political form we can imagine.

There are some awkward exceptions, the United States being one of them. While other nation-states struggle with ethnic groups, there is still something like Russians and Chinese, but the only people who can lay claim to being Americans are the subjugated native peoples. We aren't a nation-state, and we've struggled with that hard fact for most of our history.

There may, however, be alternatives. The chief one may be the corporate state. One need not examine multinational corporations very deeply to see that they are very nearly invulnerable to the authority of a given nation-state. The multinational represents a huge collection of resources -- capital, people, technology -- in any given nation-state that is utterly outside that state's ability to command. Could states be built around corporations? Possibly, though it's not likely to happen soon. Corporations are getting a free ride from their host states. They don't need to provide security, social services, infrastructure, defense. All that is left to the state. We won't see a corporate state until nation-states begin to fail on a large scale.

And we do have failing states. The phrase has even entered the vocabulary. It should become possible to begin to chart the spread of failed states across the planet. It's a phrase that could not have existed in the 19thc.

We're beginning to recognize on a profound level that economics are quite beyond the ability of any one nation to control. This occurs at the most fundamental levels of food and water and continues right through manufacturing, technology, and communications. If we are indeed moving to a global village, then the nation-state is plainly irrelevant if not downright obstructionist.

What other alternatives exist? The religious state is a possibility. It's been a contender all along, but it's profoundly flawed. This is because religion is fundamentally a social expression and has no abstract or practical validity. Every time religion has tried to manage at a state level, it has fractured into schism. Every faction is an expression of its local culture, of its natio. There can be horrible tyranny for a time, but no enduring success in a religious state.

Another alternative has occurred to me, spurred by an observation that nation-states cut right across ecological boundaries. What about an eco-state? The most obvious candidate would be a river system with all its drainage. As ecological concerns begin to outweigh other matters, it might make sense to organize human society around such basic planetary factors.

Impractical? Of course. Everything is impractical until it is done. I don't see solutions but I do see possibilities. The corporate state is one. The religious state is another. The ecological state is a third.

I prefer the third. It is my fate, however, to live and die in a nation-state.