tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21956427.post6469548792560617174..comments2023-10-05T15:01:01.611+05:30Comments on Of Thought & Action: Tarana-e-Watan, slight repriseRitwikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00616694597577112758noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21956427.post-10433256083043240232007-10-31T21:24:00.000+05:302007-10-31T21:24:00.000+05:30Why does the nation have first claim to your alleg...Why does the nation have first claim to your allegiance? Your brilliant question led Bakunin through Chomsky to anarcho-syndicalism and Hobbes and Mill to come up with brilliant defenses of the idea of nation. <BR/>But why does it lay first claim to your allegiance? Is it simply because it is the least offensive form of self-categorization that you are confronted with? Or maybe because the guardian angels of nationhood were more articulate and sophisticated than the ones that propagated religion or caste. After all, they have the schools, books, TV, movies...<BR/>Nationhood as we understand it today was essentially a European construct to denote cultural homogeneity, and the most successful nations have been ones that had an overwhelmingly monolithic cultural ethos, down to the most recent examples of successful nations, Japan, South Korea and China. The definition of nation has evolved to accommodate changing sensibilities and realities, but no truly diverse nation has ever done well for itself, the US at first sight would appear to be an anomaly, but their 'democratic' polity ensures the same kind of person rules the nation over and over again...<BR/>We are like the idiot playing roulette in Dostoevsky's Gambler, playing to rules not framed by us, not knowing that the house always wins...erwenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07855841783953566361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21956427.post-56819102774840346472007-10-13T17:25:00.000+05:302007-10-13T17:25:00.000+05:30Well, then the betrayal of the nation factor is pe...Well, then the betrayal of the nation factor is perhaps reduced, still not gone. The crime is still an act not permited by the nation.<BR/><BR/>I do find it difficult to get as worked up about a foreign national getting cheated as about an Indian one. This random distinction that I create between people based on their nationalities stems from the same irrationality that makes me a <BR/>nationalist, I suppose. <BR/><BR/>I hope that you understand that this is purely about my take on nationalism and the country, and not about the formal set of laws that should be invoked to punish the crime.Ritwikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00616694597577112758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21956427.post-48047868519139387612007-10-13T13:44:00.000+05:302007-10-13T13:44:00.000+05:30"The thief, when he commits a crime against an ind..."The thief, when he commits a crime <B>against an individual in the nation</B>, an act that the nation does not permt him to commit, betrays the nation."<BR/><BR/>What if it is against somebody else?~Ahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04772492288550072166noreply@blogger.com