Today I just want to briefly touch upon the idea that the drive to build empires and have a single unified polity is often driven by xenophobia. Normally we tend to think of xenophobia as being a driver towards nationalism - which in part it is. However, it also works in the opposite direction. Something which is often missed or forgotten.
The drive to have everyone living under the same system often stems from the natural human fear that "other" countries or groups will wage war on your group. Something which is perfectly rational to fear, as countries and groups do go to war with each other at times. So the feeling is; if we can get everyone under one umbrella this can't happen anymore.
It's an argument we often hear in relation to the EU of course. With it being claimed that the union is responsible for the decades of peace in Europe.
However, this attitude betrays a lack of trust and faith in other groups. It's essentially stating "we can't trust these people to have independence, as if we do they may use it aggressively to our disadvantage - so we need them subdued under a single system".
It's a little bit like saying; if only everyone was white we wouldn't have racism. It attempts to achieve harmony, but only through the eradication of differences. Rather than through a genuine toleration of differences.
So in a sense both nationalism and one-world-ism stem from similar human desires.
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(Yesterday I posted an article touching upon similar themes on my other blog;
https://birkhallsmiscellany.blogspot.com/2019/10/why-empires-fall-capital-suction.html
I even did some nice jazzy images for it. I'll get back to commenting upon everyday endless Brexit politics tomorrow. It feels like we're actually heading towards some kind of deal at the moment, but maybe I'm just needlessly getting my hopes up.)
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