00:00:00
(dramatic music)
(radio crackling)
00:00:01
- Our world is built on an idea.
00:00:04
It's an idea so powerful
that we fight and die for it.
00:00:07
We draw our maps around it.
00:00:09
It shapes our politics
00:00:10
and forms the basis of our very identity,
00:00:13
who we think we are.
00:00:15
It's an idea so pervasive
00:00:16
that you've probably never even stopped
00:00:18
to notice how weird it is.
00:00:20
Because here's the thing:
00:00:21
this idea is completely made up.
00:00:23
And even though it might feel
like it's been around forever,
00:00:27
it's actually newer than you think.
00:00:32
That idea is called the nation.
00:00:35
(light airy music)
00:00:39
It says that a country
00:00:41
is more than just the land
drawn into a set of borders.
00:00:46
It's actually a giant community
00:00:48
that is united by heritage and identity.
00:00:51
It says that the people,
the land, the state,
00:00:54
they're all one thing.
00:00:55
That thing is called a nation.
00:00:57
You're not just a person
00:00:58
who happens to live in
a place called America.
00:01:00
You're American.
00:01:02
Or Brazilian, or Japanese, or Mexican,
00:01:05
or Egyptian, Nigerian, Dutch, Micronesian.
00:01:08
But let's stop a moment to learn the story
00:01:10
of where this idea came from
00:01:12
and how it took over everything.
00:01:14
Because once you do,
00:01:16
so much about our world
suddenly makes sense.
00:01:22
Right, okay, cool.
- Yeah. Are we rolling?
00:01:24
- We sure are.
- Great to see you.
00:01:26
- Great to see you.
00:01:27
- It feels wrong to
call it made up, I know.
00:01:29
Like it sort of contradicts
00:01:31
everything you've ever
been told about the world.
00:01:33
- That's Max Fisher,
00:01:34
my old colleague who taught
me a lot about journalism.
00:01:36
Max was a New York Times columnist,
00:01:38
he wrote this book,
00:01:39
and now he hosts a couple of podcasts.
00:01:41
And he recently planted
this idea in my mind
00:01:43
of just how fake countries really are.
00:01:46
So I wanted to bring him on
00:01:47
to help me understand it
00:01:48
and then explain it to you.
00:01:50
It really does feel like
countries are like natural,
00:01:54
like they're a fundamental law
of humans and human society.
00:01:58
- Well, take France as an example.
00:02:00
If I tell you France is made up,
00:02:02
that feels wrong.
00:02:04
- I mean, it does feel wrong
00:02:06
because I look at a bunch of old maps,
00:02:09
and like even way back in time,
00:02:12
there is a shape on the map called France,
00:02:15
or the Kingdom of France,
00:02:16
whatever, and it's changed,
00:02:17
but like France was there
for a really long time.
00:02:20
- But, okay, think about it.
00:02:22
Is that true?
00:02:23
France, like most countries,
is built around a story,
00:02:27
and that story says that there's
always been a French people
00:02:30
who share a culture and ethnicity
00:02:32
and an eternal connection to the land.
00:02:35
The borders and the government
00:02:36
might have changed over the years,
00:02:38
but this land has always
been some version of France.
00:02:44
Wrong. It's not true.
00:02:46
- Okay, but show me why not?
00:02:47
- Okay. We think that
borders like France's formed
00:02:51
because they contained people
00:02:53
with the same ethnicity
00:02:54
who spoke the same language, right?
00:02:57
But when you overlay a map
00:02:58
of the actual genetic makeup in Europe,
00:03:00
it looks like this.
00:03:02
Now, look at France
00:03:03
and you'll see that any
given part of the country
00:03:05
has closer genetic links with
foreigners across the border
00:03:08
than they do with their own countrymen.
00:03:10
- Yeah, but like you talk to Europeans
00:03:12
who see their country
00:03:14
as like the home of their
unique ethnic group.
00:03:17
And I think there's even studies on this
00:03:18
that show that like Germany is for Germans
00:03:21
and Italy is for Italians.
00:03:23
Like these borders were
drawn around groups of people
00:03:26
because of their common ethnicity.
00:03:28
- So people from certain areas
00:03:30
might share certain traits,
00:03:32
like red hair, for example,
00:03:34
but look at a map that shows
the distribution of red hair
00:03:37
and you see stuff like this
00:03:38
never lines up with national borders.
00:03:41
- Okay, so countries aren't
correlated with ethnicity,
00:03:44
but what about like language?
00:03:46
- So today, sure, people
within these borders
00:03:49
predominantly speak one language,
00:03:51
but this only happened
really, really recently.
00:03:55
Here's a map of languages in France
00:03:57
as of the early 1800s.
00:03:59
Only the people in this one area
00:04:02
spoke something close
to modern day French.
00:04:04
Most people in France spoke something else
00:04:06
and had for hundreds of years.
00:04:08
- Wow, that's surprising to me,
00:04:10
that there were a bunch
of different languages
00:04:12
within today's France.
00:04:14
So people living in this land
00:04:16
were culturally and genetically fractured,
00:04:20
that's what these maps show,
00:04:21
and they spoke a bunch
of different languages,
00:04:23
but they still belonged to
one big political entity.
00:04:28
Like there was a France here.
00:04:30
Again, I've got this tool
00:04:31
and like scroll all the
way back to like the 1200s,
00:04:35
and I see a thing called
the Kingdom of France
00:04:38
ruled by a king
00:04:41
who was apparently ruling people
00:04:42
who lived on all of this land.
00:04:44
So wouldn't these people
be considered French?
00:04:47
Like isn't this proof that
countries have existed
00:04:50
for hundreds, if not thousands, of years?
00:04:53
- Actually, no, not in the way
that we mean countries today.
00:04:57
For someone living down here,
00:04:59
hundreds of kilometers from
the king's palace in Paris,
00:05:02
there was no concept of being French.
00:05:05
They probably identify
00:05:07
with the people in their
village or their town,
00:05:09
but that is about it.
00:05:10
And like what do you care
00:05:12
if another town, hundreds of miles away,
00:05:14
happens to be ruled by the same king,
00:05:16
who, by the way, is just some guy
00:05:18
who levies taxes on you, occasionally?
00:05:20
- Okay, so French people at this time
00:05:23
were more like subjects
00:05:25
who happened to be
ruled by the same person
00:05:27
living in a faraway capital
00:05:29
as opposed to today
00:05:30
where countries are
more like one giant club
00:05:34
where we all feel unified
00:05:35
and we're willing to die
for a national story.
00:05:39
- Right. And borders used
to fluctuate all the time.
00:05:43
If you lived up here
and your town switched
00:05:45
from the French king to the English king,
00:05:48
did your identity suddenly flip
from French to English too?
00:05:52
No, you're still just
a farmer from a village
00:05:54
trying to scrape by.
00:05:55
- Okay, so that's France.
00:05:57
There was divided
languages and ethnicities,
00:06:00
arbitrary borders,
00:06:01
and not really a sense
of like unified France.
00:06:06
But what about elsewhere?
00:06:07
Is this happening everywhere?
00:06:09
- That's everywhere.
00:06:10
Okay, but what about like China?
00:06:13
China was a place
00:06:14
where you had a powerful
imperial government.
00:06:17
They were proud of their identity.
00:06:18
They saw themselves as the
world's central civilization.
00:06:22
Like when I look at Chinese history,
00:06:24
there seems to be this cultural identity
00:06:26
that lasted and lasted
00:06:28
and still seems to last into today.
00:06:30
- So that version of
ancient Chinese identity
00:06:34
that you're referring to,
00:06:35
that was felt strongly
00:06:36
among the political elite in the capital,
00:06:38
but basically nowhere else.
00:06:41
Most people under their
rule did not speak Chinese
00:06:44
and did not think of
themselves as Chinese.
00:06:46
The borders were always shifting
00:06:48
and even sometimes split
between rival empires,
00:06:51
which meant there was no fixed sense
00:06:53
of what constituted the Chinese people
00:06:55
or Chinese land.
00:06:57
- So actually, very similar
to the French story.
00:07:00
So let's get back to that.
00:07:01
If I look at my little time lapse of maps,
00:07:03
eventually, the shape of
France does turn into France.
00:07:09
The France that we know today.
00:07:11
How does that happen?
00:07:13
- A big step in that direction,
00:07:15
and this applies for China too,
00:07:16
is by becoming an empire.
00:07:18
- Ah, okay. Empires.
00:07:20
Yes, I know empires.
00:07:22
That's something that I've actually,
00:07:23
like, looked quite a bit into,
00:07:24
and I want to kind of approach
00:07:27
the imperial history of France
and Europe and the world,
00:07:31
but through this lens of
like it was very fractured,
00:07:34
and sort of see where it goes from there.
00:07:36
(gentle music)
00:07:42
Wait, before we go on,
00:07:43
I'm flying to Saudi Arabia tonight,
00:07:44
like literally in a few hours.
00:07:46
And one of the biggest issues
that I face when I travel
00:07:48
is staying connected on my phone.
00:07:50
It's pretty expensive to just
00:07:52
let my phone connect to the local network
00:07:53
and my, like, carrier back
here in the United States
00:07:56
charges me a ton of money every day.
00:07:57
So I started using eSIMs,
00:07:59
which is the reason I'm
telling you about this
00:08:00
is 'cause it's the sponsor
of today's video: Airalo.
00:08:03
I just, a moment ago, right,
00:08:05
before filming this, went on to Airalo,
00:08:08
and found Saudi Arabia,
00:08:10
and went through a literal 90-second
00:08:12
signup and checkout process
00:08:14
where I was able to
purchase a large data pack
00:08:17
and get this QR code.
00:08:18
At the moment I land in Saudi Arabia,
00:08:19
I scan this and set it up on my phone,
00:08:22
and, boom, I will have
access to high speed data.
00:08:25
A lot of it.
00:08:26
And I got it for a
really affordable price.
00:08:28
If you travel,
00:08:29
you should definitely download this app
00:08:30
to be ready next time
you land in a new place.
00:08:32
Having high speed internet on your phone
00:08:34
is so important when you're traveling,
00:08:36
at least for me,
00:08:37
and Airalo is making it so easy
00:08:39
to get really good, affordable,
00:08:42
high speed data packs.
00:08:43
There's no sim cards
that you're installing,
00:08:45
nothing physical, it's all digital
00:08:46
and all very smooth and easy.
00:08:48
And there are over 200 countries
and regions represented
00:08:51
where you can get an eSIM.
00:08:52
So next time you're going
down the road, check this out.
00:08:55
I did this on my computer,
00:08:56
but I'm currently downloading the app.
00:08:58
Okay, I've got the app, I've signed up.
00:09:00
No matter where I'm in the world,
00:09:01
I will easily be able to jump in
00:09:02
and sign up for an eSIM.
00:09:04
When you buy your first eSIM,
00:09:06
you use the code JOHNNY3
00:09:08
and you will get $3 off
your first eSIM purchase.
00:09:11
This is a cool product, and
I'm very excited about it.
00:09:13
If it's interesting to
you, you can do two things.
00:09:15
Go to try.airalo.com/johnnyharris
00:09:19
and sign up and download the app.
00:09:21
This will allow you to quickly buy an eSIM
00:09:23
next time you land in some other country,
00:09:25
or before you go.
00:09:26
eSIMs are game changers
when you're traveling.
00:09:28
I'm very happy Airalo exists,
00:09:30
and I'm very grateful that
they sponsor today's video.
00:09:32
With that, let's dive
back into this history.
00:09:34
Okay, so Max has sufficiently convinced me
00:09:37
that countries aren't real,
00:09:39
that they're made up in our minds,
00:09:41
and that France was not a
real country until recently.
00:09:44
So I've been looking
into what happens next.
00:09:46
Trying to answer this question
00:09:47
of when does France start to
look like the France of today?
00:09:52
The first thing I thought of
here was the French Revolution,
00:09:54
the late 1700s.
00:09:56
What looks more like national spirit
00:09:58
than a bunch of people rising up together
00:10:00
to overthrow their king.
00:10:02
- Let them eat cake.
00:10:03
- But it turns out that
we're not even close.
00:10:06
People at this time still
basically didn't speak French.
00:10:10
They didn't share some French identity.
00:10:12
In fact, the French Revolution
00:10:13
can kind of be seen as the start
00:10:16
of the long road of
building a French identity.
00:10:19
The process of a bunch
of fractured communities
00:10:22
unifying under one story.
00:10:24
This revolution embodied a fairly new idea
00:10:28
that the government actually
derives its legitimacy,
00:10:31
not from God or some other natural right,
00:10:35
but from the people themselves.
00:10:37
That all of these people
were not royal subjects,
00:10:39
but rather citizens.
00:10:41
That this country was theirs.
00:10:43
Which turned all of this land,
00:10:45
at least in their minds,
00:10:46
into a new kind of thing.
00:10:50
The soil that they came
from and owned together.
00:10:54
But listen, this is all
still really abstract.
00:10:55
In people's minds, it's
like a very new idea,
00:10:58
and it would remain so
until this guy came around.
00:11:03
Napoleon Bonaparte advanced the process
00:11:06
of turning France into France
00:11:09
perhaps more than any other French person.
00:11:11
Remember how France looked like this?
00:11:13
When Napoleon started to make
it look a lot more like this,
00:11:16
he rallied the people around
this new idea of patriotism,
00:11:20
complete with symbols and songs and art
00:11:23
that emphasized French greatness,
00:11:25
the idea that we all
belong to one giant tribe.
00:11:28
This idea was further cemented
00:11:30
when Napoleon recruited men
from all around this country
00:11:34
to come join his army,
00:11:35
to fight for France,
00:11:37
giving them the sense
that they were all joined
00:11:40
in a glorious national fight.
00:11:42
And in the process,
00:11:43
spreading that nationalistic
idea all throughout Europe.
00:11:46
Napoleon did something else
that was very important,
00:11:48
and you can see it in this painting.
00:11:50
Instead of pledging loyalty to the pope,
00:11:52
as European kings had always done,
00:11:54
here he is crowning himself.
00:11:57
The Catholic church at this
time had been declining in power
00:11:59
and Napoleon was sidelining
it in favor of himself,
00:12:04
his imperial cult of personality.
00:12:06
This was a pretty smooth power play,
00:12:08
but it also helped shift
people's sense of loyalty
00:12:11
away from religion and
towards their nation.
00:12:15
By the end of his reign,
00:12:16
Napoleon's France was
pretty unrecognizable
00:12:19
from those scattered,
loosely connected kingdoms
00:12:22
that had dominated this land
00:12:23
for many, many years.
00:12:25
It was looking a lot more like one thing,
00:12:28
like a country.
00:12:29
Okay, but there was still a lot more to do
00:12:31
before France became as unified
as we think of it today.
00:12:34
The revolution eventually faltered,
00:12:36
these Napoleonic wars
didn't really work out,
00:12:38
but then something bigger happened:
00:12:42
industrialization.
00:12:45
What Napoleon and others
previously had done
00:12:48
had helped unify France
00:12:50
kind of mentally, psychologically.
00:12:52
But what industrialization does
00:12:54
is it unites it physically
with iron and concrete.
00:12:58
Here come all these factories,
00:13:00
and factories need trains
to bring in raw materials
00:13:03
and to send out finished products.
00:13:05
So you see all these new train networks
00:13:07
that put France's towns
00:13:08
within just a few hours of each other,
00:13:10
interlinking communities
00:13:11
that had always been
separated by distance.
00:13:13
In turn, this brought more
people into the cities.
00:13:16
Melting pots of people
from all over the country
00:13:18
now swirling around together,
00:13:20
all of their little regional identities
00:13:22
were mixing into a new French identity,
00:13:25
something they all shared.
00:13:26
Factory work, more and more,
required people to read
00:13:29
so the government built
a national school system.
00:13:31
They taught the French language
00:13:32
along with French
national pride and values.
00:13:35
Soon, all the Bretons and the Occitans
00:13:38
would become Frenchmen.
00:13:40
The school teachers were
kind of like heroes.
00:13:42
They were nicknamed the foot soldiers
00:13:44
on the front lines of this effort
00:13:46
to indoctrinate the next generation
00:13:48
in this new national identity.
00:13:50
Rising literacy meant
mass media, newspapers.
00:13:54
Now people could read about
the events of the day,
00:13:57
making them feel a part of a community.
00:13:59
They could keep up to date
on the nation's politics,
00:14:02
making the capital feel
within reach to everyone.
00:14:04
Now, remember how Napoleon had built
00:14:06
all of those outposts
throughout the country?
00:14:08
Well, now, thanks to all of these advances
00:14:09
in travel and communication,
00:14:12
the central government could actually rule
00:14:14
over these places,
00:14:15
over every corner of the country,
00:14:17
through a uniform
universal government system
00:14:20
rather than through local
lords and magistrates.
00:14:23
And, like in the schools,
00:14:24
they mandated that all of this was done
00:14:26
in the French language
00:14:27
and conveying the French national story.
00:14:31
Pride in the nation.
00:14:32
So yeah, when Max says that
the nation is a new thing,
00:14:35
he's really right.
00:14:36
It wasn't 'till like 1870 or 1880
00:14:39
that you start to see a
modern French identity
00:14:42
that kind of looks like
the one we know today.
00:14:45
And some historians,
00:14:46
like the guy who wrote this book,
00:14:48
argued that it didn't really
fully happen until the 1910s,
00:14:51
like a hundred years ago.
00:14:53
Some beautiful maps in
this book, by the way.
00:14:56
So, countries are a new thing,
00:14:58
but here's the deal:
00:14:59
our leaders don't want us to know that.
00:15:01
In France, the ruling elite at the time
00:15:04
didn't want to admit that
France was kind of a new thing.
00:15:07
That would sound way
too weak and delicate.
00:15:10
So they kind of constructed
a national mythology
00:15:13
that implied that France has
kind of been around forever.
00:15:17
(Asterix speaking in foreign language)
00:15:18
They wanted people to believe
00:15:20
that the idea of France was eternal;
00:15:23
it was fixed,
00:15:24
and therefore so were these borders,
00:15:27
this shape.
00:15:28
That was a much more compelling story
00:15:31
that created a sense of
loyalty and patriotism
00:15:34
among the French people.
00:15:37
And it totally worked.
00:15:39
This idea spread not just in France,
00:15:42
but throughout this whole continent.
00:15:44
- [Reporter] In Italy,
00:15:45
it began when an ambitious rabble-rouser
00:15:47
set his followers marching on Rome.
00:15:50
- And eventually, our entire world
00:15:52
would be built off of this idea.
00:15:54
(gentle music)
00:15:58
This was happening all over Europe.
00:16:00
So France's nation-building
00:16:02
really seems like it was top down.
00:16:05
Was it like that everywhere?
00:16:06
- It's a lot of both
top down and bottom up.
00:16:09
So Napoleon had spread these ideas
00:16:12
as he'd conquered across Europe.
00:16:14
And as that way of thinking sunk in,
00:16:16
more and more people wanted a nation.
00:16:18
People all over Europe staged
this wave of revolutions
00:16:22
that mostly failed,
00:16:24
but got people animated to fight
00:16:26
for what they saw as
unrealized national homelands.
00:16:29
And some fought wars of
independence or unification
00:16:31
that did eventually create nations.
00:16:34
- Okay, like Italy
eventually did that, right?
00:16:36
It was super fractured, seemingly,
00:16:38
and then it all comes together.
00:16:40
- Yes, though, even when
Italy finally unified in 1861.
00:16:44
- Wait, 1861? That's so recent.
00:16:48
- Oh, it gets even wilder.
00:16:50
Only two and a half percent
of people in the new Italy
00:16:53
even spoke Italian,
00:16:54
and almost none of them
00:16:55
even thought of themselves as Italian.
00:16:57
One of the unification leaders
00:16:58
has this famous quote that I love.
00:17:00
He said, "We have made Italy,
00:17:02
and now we have to make Italians."
00:17:03
- Wow. So how would you do that?
00:17:05
How do you make Italians?
00:17:07
- It was mostly the same as in France.
00:17:09
Schools, national administration,
industrialization,
00:17:12
and a lot, a lot of national myth-making.
00:17:15
- So what I saw was that France
doesn't finish that process
00:17:19
until like a hundred years ago, like 1910.
00:17:22
Was it the same for Italy?
00:17:24
- Italy started even later,
00:17:26
and it was not as industrialized
as France had been,
00:17:28
so it went much slower.
00:17:30
Even by 1950, only 20% spoke Italian,
00:17:35
and people mostly identified
00:17:36
with their regional
language or with their city
00:17:39
and not with Italy.
00:17:40
That only really changed
00:17:42
with the first national TV channels
00:17:44
in the 1960s.
00:17:46
There was even this famous TV show,
00:17:47
"It's Never Too Late,"
00:17:48
that taught people Italian.
00:17:49
(teacher speaking in foreign language)
00:17:51
(student speaking in foreign language)
00:17:53
- All of which is to say
00:17:55
that this process of
internal nation-building,
00:17:58
of becoming a country,
00:17:59
can take like a century,
00:18:01
and it's all really recent.
00:18:02
- What's crazy about this
00:18:03
is once you start to really get your head
00:18:05
around the national myth,
00:18:06
you kind of see it everywhere.
00:18:08
And you start to see how
much it has influenced
00:18:10
our modern history.
00:18:11
Identities that have led to war
00:18:13
and conflict all over the world.
00:18:14
So let's go back to Europe really quick
00:18:16
and look at a few more, like Germany.
00:18:17
Germany unified in like
the 1860s and '70s.
00:18:21
Its process was a lot like Italy's.
00:18:23
And it actually inspired other countries
00:18:25
to rise up with this ethnic nationalism
00:18:28
all across Europe,
00:18:29
carving old empires into new countries.
00:18:32
Serbia, Romania, Norway,
Bulgaria, Albania,
00:18:36
a lot of them followed a similar template,
00:18:38
but the invention of all
of these new countries
00:18:41
was kind of like a powder keg
00:18:43
that eventually exploded
into the 1st World War.
00:18:46
The winners got together
00:18:47
and redrew the entire map
around the national idea:
00:18:51
one nation for one people.
00:18:53
The idea is that this
would kind of create peace,
00:18:55
because if one people were
just in these boundaries,
00:18:57
then there'd be no need
to fight wars, right?
00:19:01
Wrong, because borders were
never gonna be perfectly drawn
00:19:04
around a people.
00:19:05
Like this is Germany's border,
00:19:07
but this is where all
the German speakers are.
00:19:10
You can see they don't line up.
00:19:11
So instead, all of this
redrawing of borders
00:19:14
led to ultra nationalists
rising up across Europe
00:19:18
on promises to conquer the land
00:19:20
that they considered rightfully theirs,
00:19:22
which led to yet another world war.
00:19:25
And this gets to the dark
side of the idea of a nation.
00:19:28
It very naturally breeds the
persecution of minorities.
00:19:34
Because if a nation is supposedly defined
00:19:37
by its shared ethnic identity,
00:19:40
then anyone who is not
in that majority identity
00:19:44
is an outsider.
00:19:45
They're a threat to the
character of the nation.
00:19:48
Now, of course, the national identity,
00:19:50
the national character,
the ethnic identity,
00:19:52
all of this was made up,
00:19:54
but boy did people start to
believe that it was real.
00:19:57
Fascists would go on to murder millions
00:20:00
in the name of nationalism.
00:20:04
An idea that was basically
invented 70 years earlier.
00:20:08
So we've been talking about Europe,
00:20:09
but things like railways and mass media
00:20:12
spread around the world,
00:20:13
and so did the idea of a nation.
00:20:15
Just like in Europe,
00:20:16
communities tied by language or history
00:20:19
started to think of
themselves as nationalities,
00:20:22
ready to fight for nations of their own.
00:20:24
Oftentimes, this happened in places
00:20:26
where people were forced together
00:20:27
by arbitrary imperial borders,
00:20:31
often drawn by Europeans.
00:20:33
But even that was a unifying idea
00:20:35
that led people to rise up,
00:20:37
to kick their colonizers out,
00:20:39
and to fight for their own national idea.
00:20:41
And soon, the entire
world would be defined
00:20:44
by this idea of the nation.
00:20:46
Firm borders, centralized governments,
00:20:49
flags and pride in your country.
00:20:52
But while this looks neat on a map,
00:20:55
it's not perfect,
00:20:56
because the idea of a nation
is inherently imperfect.
00:20:59
We have this idea that every person
00:21:02
is entitled to a nation of their own,
00:21:05
but the way those people identify
00:21:07
ebbs and flows and changes
00:21:09
and often doesn't fit
perfectly into one box.
00:21:12
We start wars over territory
00:21:14
that our national myth says belongs to us.
00:21:17
We fight over who belongs
in our national community
00:21:19
and who doesn't and who gets to decide.
00:21:22
So much of the conflict
00:21:23
and violence in our world today
00:21:25
comes from our belief in the nation.
00:21:28
And my question in all of this is,
00:21:30
is there a better way,
00:21:32
a more peaceful way to organize ourselves?
00:21:35
And yet it feels like
we're stuck in this way.
00:21:37
These identities that seem so firm,
00:21:40
and they seem like they're
getting like firmer
00:21:42
and more intense every year.
00:21:44
Like this is the only way
00:21:46
that we can organize our world:
00:21:48
by countries and nationalities.
00:21:51
- The good news is that
it's not necessarily
00:21:53
as fixed as you might think.
00:21:55
National identities can change.
00:21:57
Like, let's go back to France
00:21:59
where it's becoming more
accepted that you can be French
00:22:03
regardless of your race or religion
00:22:06
or your place of birth,
00:22:07
but, at the same time,
00:22:08
there's also a rising backlash to that,
00:22:10
that clings to the idea of
France as just for the French.
00:22:14
You know, like it or not,
00:22:15
people need some sort of
collective identity to hold onto,
00:22:19
and national identity is just
the one we have right now.
00:22:22
- It seems like one answer is that
00:22:24
we still have these identities
00:22:26
that are fixed around land and borders,
00:22:28
but that they can expand and become bigger
00:22:32
and take on different meaning.
00:22:33
Like the idea of European,
00:22:35
that feels like an
identity that is very real.
00:22:38
It's still collective
and it's still defined,
00:22:41
but it doesn't have the
danger of exclusion,
00:22:44
ethnicity, competition, and war,
00:22:46
at least not within those big borders.
00:22:49
How would you describe
a cosmopolitan identity?
00:22:52
- Think of people who
live in a big global city
00:22:54
like New York or Hong Kong
or London or Singapore,
00:22:57
and this identity that you
are a person of the world,
00:23:00
that you're a globe traveler,
00:23:01
that you're taking in
many different cultures,
00:23:03
that's kind of cosmopolitan
identity, which is ironic.
00:23:06
We don't think of that as an identity,
00:23:07
but it absolutely is,
00:23:09
and it's one that's taken the
place of national identity.
00:23:11
- What else do you think exists out there
00:23:14
that could replace this?
00:23:15
And does the nation ever go away
00:23:18
or does it just get watered down
00:23:20
and become less salient over time?
00:23:23
- There are lots of places
00:23:24
that you can get your sense of identity
00:23:26
and your sense of community from.
00:23:28
I mean, I think there are people
who find that in religion.
00:23:32
You can find that in your profession,
00:23:33
you can find that in,
00:23:35
just your local community,
00:23:37
which is the way that a lot
of people used to do it.
00:23:39
And I think the fact that we
are all becoming more aware
00:23:42
and more conscious of the fact
00:23:43
that we need to get
community from someplace
00:23:45
is making us a little
more thoughtful about it
00:23:48
and, at times, more constructive about it.
00:23:51
Although you still see this push-pull,
00:23:52
which is probably gonna go on forever,
00:23:54
of do we want a hardened national identity
00:23:57
that's about us versus them
00:23:59
and who's in and who's out,
00:24:00
or do we want to create some sort of a way
00:24:03
of thinking about our
role in our community
00:24:06
and our identity that is more inclusive.
00:24:08
- I also wonder often
00:24:10
if humans need a them, an enemy.
00:24:15
Like, I...
00:24:17
Or at least in a nationalistic context,
00:24:20
there seems to have to be a them
00:24:22
in order for there to be an us.
00:24:24
But I do wonder, within our psychology,
00:24:26
if these identities
that don't have an enemy
00:24:29
are less potent or have less staying power
00:24:32
than the kind of embattled sense of like,
00:24:35
I'm an American and
terrorists are out to get me.
00:24:39
You know, like having an enemy
00:24:42
is such a potent way to
coalesce people around fear.
00:24:46
- I think that's totally true.
00:24:48
I think there's so much
evidence that, psychologically,
00:24:50
just our brains are so much
more drawn to identities
00:24:54
that are defined around
fighting and resisting
00:24:57
and fearing some out group, some them.
00:25:00
But I think that just goes to show that
00:25:03
it is something that we
have to be conscious about
00:25:05
and really thoughtful about
00:25:07
in order to rise above.
00:25:09
- So this has been a pretty
fascinating history for me.
00:25:12
And after charting through it,
00:25:14
I'm left with this feeling
that countries and nations
00:25:18
are ideas that we as a world
00:25:21
are still learning to
live with peacefully.
00:25:24
But ultimately, countries are just that.
00:25:26
They're an idea.
00:25:27
They're flexible.
00:25:28
They're malleable.
00:25:29
As malleable as our minds.
00:25:30
We can change how we draw these lines
00:25:33
and who gets left in
and who gets left out.
00:25:36
It's something that I believe
we are slowly figuring out
00:25:39
with a lot of bumps in the road.
00:25:41
And even though it feels
hardwired and fixed,
00:25:44
like this is the way it has to be,
00:25:45
it only feels that way
until someone comes around
00:25:48
with a better, more enlightened way
00:25:51
to organize the 8 billion
people on this planet.
00:25:54
(gentle music)
00:25:56
Wait, before you go,
you can buy this shirt.
00:25:59
If you're into this shirt,
00:26:00
which I think is pretty sick,
00:26:01
you can buy it.
00:26:02
It was designed by our very own Nick,
00:26:04
the studio manager
00:26:05
who wears a shirt like
this into the studio,
00:26:08
and it is perfect for today's video
00:26:10
because it's borders and countries.
00:26:12
You can scrutinize the borders
00:26:14
and pester me about them
later if you'd like.
00:26:16
Borders are made up and arbitrary,
00:26:17
but they're very important
to a lot of people
00:26:19
because they actually
affect people's lives.
00:26:22
Big theme on the channel.
00:26:23
But yeah, check it out.
00:26:24
The link is somewhere.
00:26:25
And thanks for watching today's video,
00:26:27
and I'll see you in the next one.
00:26:29
(gentle music)
00:26:32
Nick, we're done?
00:26:34
(gentle music)