Getting rid of borders would destroy culture

The argument

Borders define where one culture begins and where another ends, and on this argument removing them would remove the conditions under which distinct cultures exist at all. The reasoning starts from how cultures are held to form. After living in one place for a long time, people form the societies and lands they want to live in and begin to feel belonging. A community forms, and this community's experiences are forever embedded in that shared territory. The claim is that culture is not portable in the way an individual preference is: it is constituted by a particular group living in a particular place over a long period, so the territory is part of what the culture consists of rather than merely where it happens to be located. From that premise a claim about authority follows. People belonging to a culture in a specific territory should decide who to include and exclude in their territory, because a community that cannot determine its own composition cannot determine what it becomes. Politically determined borders achieve that goal — they are the mechanism through which a collective decision about membership can actually be made rather than merely wished for. Borders preserve cultural resources in the same way. Cultural representation is important to individuals and communities, which can be seen when thinking about Native American tribal lands in the U.S., where a bounded territory is what allows a distinct culture to maintain its own institutions and practices rather than be absorbed. Proponents therefore hold that borders are necessary to preserve cultural and historical resources and to protect such cultures from changing too rapidly from immigration. The objection is directed at the rate of change rather than at change as such: a culture can absorb newcomers over time, but only if there is a boundary that allows the pace to be governed.

Context

Culture and place are closely intertwined. People love their culture and country and are often proud to belong to their country. Without borders, how would we know where one country or culture begins and where one ends?

Premises

Counter-arguments

Open borders will not destroy culture because immigration brings more cultures into contact with other cultures. Freer movement creates more diversity and expands cultures by introducing new ideas and customs. Borders do not preserve culture; people and culture create and preserve borders between cultural differences. Abolishing national or politically determined borders would not destroy culture because societies already distinguish themselves from one another by natural geography, language, or even sports teams. Culture transcends borders. A person’s culture does not disappear when they migrate to a place with a different culture. People adapt their own cultures to new cultures. Borderlands, ambiguous spaces between politically determined borders, show how cultures can mix, form new things, and cause antagonism at the same time.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Open borders will not destroy culture because borders do not determine where one culture ends and begins.