[Andropov]

Define "nation".

[Francis Drakeleigh]

A unit of destiny.

[Rei Murasame]

What's the motive behind this question?

[Suska]

An organization of people by territory as opposed to creed or heritage.

[J Oswald]

An organization of people within a certain territorial area that have multiple characteristics in common, such as language, culture, religion, and, in some places, ethnic identity.

[Suska]

that have multiple characteristics in common, such as language, culture, religion, and, in some places, ethnic identity.

You couldn't leave it alone could you, but obviously the above is retarded; AMERICA IS A NATION

[Ombrageux]

I like Francis Drakeleigh's answer. The nation certainly cannot be reduced the administrative subdivision that is the "nation-state". (Many States represent genuine nations but I would very many simply do not.)

[J Oswald]

@ Suska:

Americans share a common descent (from immigrants), a common language, a common history, and a common government. The answer you gave shows a profound lack of forethought, not to mention your odd comment that I "couldn't leave it alone."

[Cartertonian]

An arbitrary subdivision of the people of the Earth.

[starman2003]

What's the motive behind this question?

Yeah, why are you asking this, Andropov...

An arbitrary subdivision of the people of the Earth.

....to oppose the basis of nationalistic fascism, like the above?

[Suska]

not to mention your odd comment that I "couldn't leave it alone."

Not odd at all considering...

An organization of people by territory

An organization of people within a certain territorial area

So what did you add that I objected to?

multiple characteristics in common, such as language, culture, religion, and, in some places, ethnic identity.

And what was my position?

by territory as opposed to creed or heritage.

The problem of nationhood is precisely that it doesn't matter who it contains. Did you just arrive in the second millenia CE Oswald? If you're born in a national territory, or move there you are a citizen, otherwise consistencies of culture in nations are a holdover from a period of cultural chauvinism - it's incidental. A nation is a territorial administration that pretends apartness from culture to the extent that anyone who retains some interest in cultural consistency is most likely angry at their nation right now.

[Amanita]

....to oppose the basis of nationalistic fascism, like the above?

It doesn't in any way undermine fascism. In fact, fascism itself denied primordialism and The Doctrine of Fascism is very clear about it:

It is not the nation that generates the State, as according to the old naturalistic concept which served as the basis of the political theories of the national States of the nineteenth century. Rather the nation is created by the State, which gives to the people, conscious of its own moral unity, a will and therefore an effective existence.

The whole nexus of Fascism is that the State's existence requires no external justification; only the Will to exist and create, which is the exact political application one would expect from the Nietzschean concept of Übermensch. Every legitimating ideology (mandate of heaven, divine right, nationalism, humanitarianism, communism, etc.) is originally the product of one such creative will until ideology engulfs and suffocates the creative will that helped beget it, causing stagnation, and nihilism, when any of the legitimating values are no longer held to be true.

[WFRSGL]

The whole nexus of Fascism is that the State's existence requires no external justification; only the Will to exist and create, which is the exact political application one would expect from the Nietzschean concept of Übermensch. Every legitimating ideology (mandate of heaven, divine right, nationalism, humanitarianism, communism, etc.) is originally the product of one such creative will until ideology engulfs and suffocates the creative will that helped beget it, causing stagnation, and nihilism, when any of the legitimating values are no longer held to be true.

This is an attitude I would like to see more of. The desire not only to survive, but to grow and conquer.

[Francis Drakeleigh]

Amanita wrote:

Gentile wrote:
It is not the nation that generates the State, as according to the old naturalistic concept which served as the basis of the political theories of the national States of the nineteenth century. Rather the nation is created by the State, which gives to the people, conscious of its own moral unity, a will and therefore an effective existence

Now we're getting somewhere.

[Daktoria]

Define "nation".

Multiple people who live in an area with similar lifestyles.

Quantifying how many people, how large of an area, and how similar they are is in the eye of the beholder. Even internally speaking, different people in a "group", "area", or "culture" will have different views on quantification.

You can't extend this to relationships because people who live similarly don't necessarily have the same values or even know about each other nevermind like each other.

[Suska]

Multiple people who live in an area with similar lifestyles.

So the less similar people are - the more multicultural a "nation" is the more it ceases to be a nation?

I've already addressed this.

[Daktoria]

I don't know about that. Nationhood doesn't really mean much without culture.

Statehood does. You can have a diverse, multicultural, heterogeneous political entity, but a nation is a self-identifying entity. It's different from a state because nations aren't about borders per se. For example, a nation can be strongest where its people are most concentrated, and it can be weakest where its people are less concentrated.

This is really the biggest difference between cosmopolitanism and communitarianism. A cosmopolitan will associate borders with states. A communitarian will associate borders with nations.

[Suska]

That explanation of the term nation is retarded Dak, sure if you use the term nation in the way Amerinians use to (as a translation from other tongues for tribe). The question is what does the term nation mean and it's a synonym of state and like I said already; if it meant culture multiculturalism would never have been allowed to happen.

[Fasces]

Suska, you're supplanting the term state with nation. Doing say makes several phrases, of course, meaningless, such as the term multinational empire or nation-state.

While state and nation are identical in popular context, especially in the United States where state has come to mean province, this is not true in more formal settings or even outside the United States.

[Suska]

Don't be an idiot Fasces, this isn't your polisci class, were talking about the definition of the term nation, it's defined by how it's used.