Larry Hillebrank Makotoljh@aol.com
I sense that I failed to make myself clear - usually a problem at all times but especially so when I just put the information into bullet form for discussion purposes.
The lack of clarification is that I wished to define the essence of a nation state as one which is based upon a common shared polity belief in either culture, or religion, or language, or ethnicity, or whatever. Not necessarily a case where the polity shares all of these value sets, they may or may not.
And another nuance, probably particularly difficult for European students to understand that here in the US the shared sense is that we are Americans - a common culture. And this is shared by the majority - which by definition is not everybody.
Things begin to get really messy when you get past the big picture.
And on the point raised by Tea - Good fences make good neighbors - Clearly defined boundries make for ease of administration. But, my nation state / country has added states, enlarged the nation. And France and Gernany traded Alsace Lorraine back and forth for years. And Poland has grown and shrunk. That is a reason why I didn't add boundries to the definition.
The boundries of the established nation states were set by the prior autocratic regimes, and to some extent the reason we are seeing the current changes is an attempt to undo the repression of those actions taken so long ago.
Tea is exactly correct - her comment is right on the mark - things do tend to get messy when trying to define this bowl of jello. When the bowl boundries include different cultures then which is the one which defines the national ethic.
Larry Hillebrand
Bob Corbett corbetre@webster.edu
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