Nations in the Global Eara

During the heady late ‘60s, I was convinced that the “system” was about to crumble. Within two years, I and other rebels thought. Time went by. The ‘70s coopted the ‘60s. Then Reagan came, swallowed the two decades, and chucked up morning in America, faux 1950s.

So we got the timing wrong. But 40 years later, (and 20 years after the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of Apartheid showed that unbelievable change could occur). there was a meltdown in the economic system of the corporate beast. And that meltdown shows that the system is unstable.

So what about nationalism? There IS nationalism, and I don’t pretend to know when or how completely it will go away. But there are some unprecedented portends of change:

1) An unimaginably large population (tripled in growth since 1950, and the result of the dominant economic system) that is projected to level off around 10 billion
2) It will require 4 Earth-type planets to sustain the above projected population living the lifestyle determined by civilization . Believing that some new technology will preclude this is fantasy.
3) Climate change, already well advanced, will worsen as scenario 2 unfolds.
4) The sense of otherness, that rich nations can exploit poor ones with impunity has come home to roost in the form of international terrorism.

Where does great-nationhood fit into this picture? We have evolved into a global species.

5) There is no great nation, which doesn’t address the global phenomenon of climate change.
6) There is no great nation, which doesn’t address the need for international equity.
7) There will no doubt be powerful forces advocating draconian, unjust means for dealing with environmental, economic and social global crises, but those are not the mark of great nations, only stupid ones.
8) For a nation in the global era to assert its self interest at the expense of “less great” ones is like an organ of the body aggregating health unto itself at the expense of other organs.
9) The only viable goal of “greatness” is global wholeness.
10) The notion of great nationhood as history has bequeathed it is inconsistent with the reality of a newly globalized species facing the crises that it does.
11) The only reasonable course for a great nation is to remove the particularity that separates (and alienates) it from common purpose with every other nation.
12) Removing the particularity, and recognizing common purpose with every other nation, can be summed up by the metaphor that a great nation would be invisible, if it could be said to “exist” at all.