Our world is made up of nations. Some of us don’t like the idea of nationality. Just as they don’t like the idea of war, struggle, survival: the terrible truths you endure whether you like it or not… Mankind have gathered around such abstract structures and produced common ideals in order to survive. Rather than being a cell, we have become a union of cells. We are the part of the macro structure, we’ve built structures and social institution. We have achieved this with families, social groups, nations and races.
The human game includes social groups such as family and nation. A person is not a person alone, but a person in a social structure. Man is an extremely social creature, and because of this sociability, the individual can even sacrifice his life for his social group or social institution. Social group mechanics are vital and their implications for both our ideal and practical pursuits are enormous.
When an individual goes anywhere in the world, he is first judged by his national background. Knowledge, talent, experience, personality are in the background. Nationality is important and it is a very sharp, distinctive feature. However, it can be said that the dominance of nationality has decreased in the globalizing world and we are moving towards a single world culture. Yes, we look less at nationality, origin and religion in individuals now. However, we should not forget that this may be temporary and that our national borders are politically determined by nationality.
In a war situation, we fight in national armies. When there is a pandemic, national health teams and vaccine (!) rights are involved in our treatment. When we travel somewhere, our national passport is stamped and we are judged by our nationality, regardless of our personality. In short, we have to play the nationality game. This obligation comes from a natural clustering activity such as being a family or carrying out a large project with a division of labor. Creating an “us and them” narrative such as nationhood is at the root of human culture.
Nationality can only disappear if we encounter a living civilization in outer space. Being a “world nation” is possible by finding “them”. Until then, we are our own rivals in this game, and our division into national groups is inevitable because of both practical and ideal necessity. All in all, why nationality important? You’ll be judged through it, you’ll have to live it because it was vital for our survival.
