Countries are NOT REAL (and why it matters)
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- čas přidán 16. 06. 2024
- Countries are very important, but are they real? I don't think so. Here's why I think this, and why I think this is an important issue.
Chapters:
Are countries real? 00:00
Important but fictional things: 01:42
Should countries be useful? 02:55
Why Somaliland is useful 05:35
Why Russia is not useful 08:02
Music: V. V. Campos / A Burning Flame - courtesy of Epidemic Sound
#ukraine #somaliland
Interesting to see you make a video more in the style of an argument or video essay rather than just describing things, I think you did well.
I guess one thing I have to add is that if a country is indeed 'useful', then people may voluntarily sacrifice some amount of prosperity or even their lives for it, though I guess you can question whether this is about the abstract idea of the country itself or about the tangible effect that that idea has on real people and things.
You certainly see, for example, that in various countries people are very touchy about things like respecting national flags - is it about respecting the idea itself of the country? Or the people that the flag represents?
Hope you get some more views and Merry Christmas!
Yes, this was a different style for sure! I've been thinking about the ideas in this video for years, and I had long thought it would be impossible to cover without it being VERY long and technical, so I set myself the challenge of making it relatively short and putting everything in easier to understand language.
You hit on one point I didn't include, but almost did. Yes, lots of people voluntarily make sacrifices to preserve their country, way of life, etc. I think this can be a very noble and important thing to do. But, I think it should be voluntary, not something that is forced on people.
Thanks so much for your comment! Merry Christmas to you too!
I've been troubled by the same question for months. Thanks for the video a lot!
Really?! What made you think of this? I'd love to know. 🙂
@@FredoRockwell Honestly, its exactly what you point in the video as well. Countries are a concept we created and borders are man-made and not visible. If one day everyone in france believes they are belgian, france is pretty much over. Its fascinating to know that ideas which define our species for millenia are actually so vulnerable.
💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
🤍🤍🤍🖤🤍🤍🤍
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ #Somaliland
Thanks for watching!
I found this to be quite an interesting look into the idea of country-hood! Now that I think of it, there is an entire term for the nation as a human-made idea: "imagined community". I, indeed, can see how nations (or to use your term, countries) can be considered "imagined". Thanks for the video!
Mr Rockwell great video sir so happy you're back
Bit of a backlog but I'm hoping there will be several more videos coming soon!
Faxxxx... long live somaliland 🟢 ⚪️ 🔴
I completely agree with the points in the video
Do you? I wasn't sure anyone would to be honest!
Yep once you make our very interesting and I agree completely
Interesting video. But I am a bit conflicted.
For example Catalonia in Spain, Scotland in the UK and Flanders in Belgium. Many people in these regions want more sovereignty believing that new borders will bring them a better life.
But will it? In this globalised world, a large country like China or the US have a better chance of protecting their sovereignty than smaller countries. In your example, with Russia breaking up, won't the smaller countries become more susceptible to strong neighbours such as China, who can gobble them up into their sphere of influence?
The same can be said in the EU. If we decide to break up the union, wont we lose sovereignty to our powerful neighbours?
Countries might be more useful on a smaller scale, but if they can't protect themselves, than it may be even worse-off as before.
If you take the premise that a country's main purpose is to be useful (which is another way of describing "utilitarianism") then I don't think you need to be conflicted.
Are the people of the EU better off inside the EU? Almost certainly. If there were any doubters then I think Brexit has seen them off.
Are the people in Scotland or Catalonia suffering terribly, so much so that the substantial risk and expense of setting up a new state is called for? No. I don't think so. If a country can look after minority groups without any huge amounts of discrimination, and it is a well run country in general, then I think the most useful thing to do is stick with the status quo. Sure, this means that minority groups don't have self-determination, but I don't think that should be something we just assume makes things better.
However, when a country is extremely badly run, or its citizens are oppressed (or a minority group is oppressed), then I think there's a case to be made for looking at other options. Even then, I would suggest caution. I don't think new countries are automatically better than the ones they replace. In fact, I think there are reasons to fear they could be worse. But for a situation like Somaliland, saying that they must adhere to the old borders because that's the international consensus - to me this is absurd.
This is a really complicated topic, but I wanted to try and cover it in as best I could with a relatively short video. I was, of course, inspired by you!
I disagree a lot with this video but I think it's just because of one word. I think when you say that countries are "fiction" what you mean to say is that countries are a "social construct".
"Fiction" to me means something that was made up by humans and can never be real because there is no way it can ever affect the real world. Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings is fiction because he will never be able to make any change in the real world.
A social construct is something that was made up by humans but is real because it can affect us (even people who are unfamiliar with it). Gender norms are a social construct. There is no law in nature that says that women can wear make-up and dresses and men can't, yet it seems that most people abide by this rule.
If I replace the word "fiction" in your video with the word "social construct", I very much agree with you. If countries are socially constructed, we might as well construct them in a way that benefits us.
Thanks for watching and leaving this very thoughtful comment even though you disagreed with me! :)
You are correct that countries are also a "social construct." I used the word fiction under the influence of "Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari. He actually tends to use the term "imaginary" more than "fiction" to describe social constructs, which I suspect you'd disagree with more.
I didn't use the term "social construct" partly because I tried to keep the message of the video pretty simple, but also I think "fiction" is a more powerful word here. I would argue that "social construct" and "fiction" are synonyms, and I went with one of them and not the other.
Also, when it comes to countries, there is so much storytelling and mythologizing involved. Some of these stories come from the distant past, but many are recent and are deliberately concocted by propagandists to get a desired outcome (current-day Russia being a prime example).
I hope this all makes sense - I'm not sure I expressed myself as well as I should.!
Also, if I'd thought of something as good as "If countries are socially constructed, we might as well construct them in a way that benefits us." then I might have used the term anyway!
@@FredoRockwell Thank you very much for your reply! I definitely agree that "fictional" is a strong term here and to me it sounds a bit degrading here (maybe to you it isn't). I think the reason it annoyed me so much, is that I've been following some far-left discourse on Ukraine recently where people said that Ukrainians should just surrender because their country is something fictional anyways (about as real as Gandalf or the Amazing Spiderman) and not worth risking their lives. I feel like the term "social construct" allows for a more differentiated view where we can look at the pros and cons of the thing we are talking about. Someone risking their life for a social construct (like freedom, democracy, equality, ... or a country that embodies these qualities) does not sound as ludicrous to me.
I haven't heard about Yuval Harari before, but I will look him up!
I can see why they idea seems unsettling in that context. The difference between what I'm arguing and what Russian chauvinists argue is they think Russia is this real thing that has meaningful existence and Ukraine doesn't, while I think they're both constructs. One is useful and is supported by its people, and one not useful and oppresses its people and the people of neighboring states. To me this is a much clearer conversation to have than arguing about whether one country is real or not.
Countries or states?
Now then, this is a very important question you ask, and one I actually addressed in the video script in an early draft. This video conflates the ideas of countries, states, nations, and even governments. The challenge is that these terms are not used consistently in the English speaking world. When you say "state" the first thing an American thinks of is one of the 50 US states, or maybe an Australian or German state. An American would more likely think of what I'm talking about as a country or a nation (as in "United Nations").
However.... in the UK it's not uncommon to hear the constituent parts referred to as "nations," and also the word nation can have refer to an ethnic group, and I didn't want anyone to get that meaning.
To be honest, explaining this was going to be a mess and slow the video right down so I left it out and decided to go with the deliberately vague "countries."
I leave it up to you to decide if I did the right thing.
@@FredoRockwell I suggest that the English might refer to the home countries as nations. In my (limited) experience, ppl of Cymru and Scotland call themselves countries.
Both are used here in the UK. If you ask an English person to name the countries they've visited, in my experienced they often start with, "Wales, Scotland..." 😂
@@FredoRockwell But it doesnt make them incapable of understanding the country in more general state of not having a higher power above them in the way the union of the UK works.
It makes confusion possible, which is what I wanted to avoid.
Asa brother fredo guul iyo gobanimo somaliland love ❤
Thank you! And thank you for watching and commenting!
Real or not real is a dumb word to use to put it frankly.
Why do you think that? There's a whole branch of philosophy devoted to whether or not things are real (ontology).
Hi, I removed your other comment which contained swearing. Feel free to repost it without swearing or national slurs. 🙂
@@FredoRockwell Obviously, but this is harldy an ontological discussion video. It operates on the premises of their are more countries and states than the UN recognizes it doesn't go into an otological discussion on the why.
@@FredoRockwell How is saying stupid americans a national slur.
This video is absolutely an ontological discussion. Discussing whether something is real or not is by definition an ontological discussion, whether that term is used or not. It's not a new topic either. This is from Wikipedia: "The ontological status of the state has been the subject of debate, especially, whether or not the state, being an object that no one can see, taste, touch, or otherwise detect, actually exists."