Nations mean diversity

The argument

People across the world have different cultures, beliefs, and values, and this argument takes that variety as the starting point for political organisation rather than a problem for it. On this basis these people can be grouped into distinct nations — understood not as administrative units drawn by agreement but as organic cultural units in which people share a common heritage. What follows is a claim about what such units are for. A nation, on this account, provides the basis within which a particular set of values can be autonomously expressed and preserved: autonomously, because the community that holds those values also holds the authority to decide how they are carried on, and preserved, because a culture without institutions of its own depends on the tolerance of whoever does hold that authority. A world of nations is therefore a world that acknowledges and preserves cultural distinctiveness, since each nation has both the standing and the means to maintain its own inheritance. The contrast drawn is with empires, and it is the contrast that supplies the argument's force. Other forms of political organisation subordinate a variety of different groups and cultures to a single value system: one centre sets the terms, and the traditions gathered under it are administered according to standards they did not choose. That arrangement erodes cultural distinctiveness, not necessarily by suppressing it deliberately, but because a culture which cannot govern its own transmission gradually loses the ability to reproduce itself. Liberty, in this argument, is therefore collective as well as individual — the freedom of a people to live by its own values rather than another's. Because nations are what make room for many different cultures to do that at once, nations mean diversity, and in that sense they mean liberty.

Context

This idea is often linked to the concept of democratic self-determination within nations. While once associated with liberalism, prominent proponents of this argument nowadays tend to be conservatives like Yoram Hazony.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Claims that nations are natural cultural units are also dubious. Many examples exist of nations with sharp internal cultural divisions including Malaysia, Lebanon, and Ethiopia. Claims that nations preserve cultural distinctiveness are also dubious. Many nation-states make great efforts to erase internal cultural differences. Meanwhile, empires far from imposing a single set of universal standards often rely on or positively encourage cultural differentiation as a strategy of divide and rule, and to keep harmony between the various groups within the empire by ensuring none feel threatened by others imposing its values on the other. Cultural distinctiveness need not be respected if we find its values morally objectionable. Equally, other things are more valuable than cultural distinctiveness such as peace and prosperity and these are better provided by large non-national units.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Nations are not natural cultural units. [Rejecting P2] It is not clear cultural distinctiveness and diversity is valuable. We might even see it as damaging in some cases. [Rejecting P3] Nations are homogenising and don't preserve cultural distinctiveness. Other forms of state preserve cultural distinctiveness better.