The Personification of Nations

There is much confusion today about the nature of the state, as well as the nation, especially as social consciousness continues to grow regarding the various geopolitical struggles unfolding globally, as well as those which have preceded. This confusion has been exploited by malicious actors in service of the trampling of morality and the violation of individual rights, peddling arguments which seem convincing to one who does not understand the meaning of a state or nation, but quickly fall apart as absurd under the slightest scrutiny.

Neither a nation nor a state has sentience; therefore it cannot have a will. When it is said “the will of the nation,” it is either a metaphorical or rhetorical device for the purpose of conceptual abstraction, or a recognition of a generally shared goal among the individuals who comprise a “nation.” It is the same when it is spoken of a state. A nation further does not “act”; individuals act. Individuals may act as agents of a state or nation, motivated by the betterment of its members of a whole, or a subset within that whole, but the nation itself is an inert abstraction, nothing more than a sterile idea. In the same sense, a soccer team itself does not kick the ball in order to score a goal, but the individual player himself does so, and the other players each individually act in order to support the others to this end. The “team” in and of itself is a set of abstractions, name, emblem, and kit, by which the individual players align themselves to a certain end, much like the “nation” and its flag, anthem, and mythos. In this sense, France may “win” a war, much like how the French national team may win a match, but it is the generals and soldiers as individuals, not France itself, who make the decisions, fire the guns, and drive the tanks, much like how it is the soccer players, not the French national team itself, who score the goals and provide defence on the field.

What really frustrates me personally is the nationalist “we.” It’s far too commonplace for the sake of my cortisol levels. “We won this war, we invented this, we discovered that, etc.” Of course, the individual which makes these statements had no part in any such action, in fact, they almost certainly have never been in the same room as the individuals who did. If the abstract nation does not get to take credit for the accomplishments of an individual, an chud posting online definitely has no claim to any such accomplishment. When someone goes on to claim “we built this” or “we defeated them,” they are suffering from a psychosis born of playing Paradox games all day, which has replaced the History channel and unsourced popular history slop “literature” of past generations. In fact, I blame a lot of this issue on Paradox games, which have given many an chuds a framework of understanding the state as a sentient agent, transcending the individual and imbued with its own will, desires, and intentions, by having the player place themselves in the “shoes” of the personified state. The only exception, of course, being the Crusader Kings series, which has the player playing as individuals within a dynasty.

Lacking both will and sentience, neither the nation nor the state can have rights. The state must be fundamentally thought of as a machine, operated by a cadre of officials and bureaucrats. Your car, also being a machine, does not have the right to regular maintenance and oil changes, it does not have the right to stop you from revving into every gear and driving into every pothole. For it to function correctly, it should receive regular maintenance and be driven reasonably, and you would hurt yourself not to do so, so as part of your burdens of ownership you obligate yourself to maintain your personal vehicle. Much the same way, as a citizen of a state, you are obligated to fulfil certain duties, those generally being the payment of taxes and abiding by a set of laws, and in return the state presumably provides you a service. But no confusion can be made, it is not the right of the state that you perform these duties. If anything, the obligations placed upon an individual by the state are a limitation of individual rights. The obligations of being a member of a national community are more voluntary, as a nation, opposed to a formal state, generally does not have a legislature or police force to enforce those obligations.

It must also be recognized that the power of the state to enforce obligations onto its citizens does not presuppose rights. A thief may be able to obligate you to part with your wallet under threat of force. This threat of force does not mean that he has a right to your wallet. Rights are inherent to an individual, they cannot be granted, only revoked. The relation of the state to individual rights is that we give up, as individuals, certain rights so that the state may protect our other rights (This is known as the “Social Contract”). Recently there has been much discussion about the state’s so-called “right to exist.” The individual has a right to exist in that a human being is innately existing, by merit of having been born and brought to this earth. A human being is a real, sentient, existing “thing,” such a thing cannot be denied. The state is an abstraction, an organization of people in a structure to a certain end, and only exists insofar as that abstraction is maintained in the thought of its members. To say that a state has a “right to exist” is akin to saying that a corporation or soccer team has a right to exist. It is fundamentally absurd. The members of a state as individuals have a right to exist, as their existence is innate and internal, but the state has no innate existence. It is solely born in the psyche of its members, the collection of inert symbols granted meaning by individuals. A symbol has meaning insomuch as it is granted that by individuals who hold it to have meaning, no symbol has an innate internal right to meaning.