Quote Originally Posted by Meneldil View Post
The concept of nation state is by definition an abstract concept. Have you ever seen a nation state? Have you ever met or touched one? Have you ever talked to one? No, simply because they don't actually exist. It's something people put into your head to make you feel better. That ain't necessarily bad, but the fact that for some reason you seem to vastly favor a nation state (Britain, God save the queen and what not) over another (an hypothetical European nation state) is funny. It's exactly the same thing as the Scots who resisted the annexation of their country by England. Same old stuff.

Which by no mean means I'm in favor of an European (con)federation. I just find it funny that you can't seem to grasp that your little nation doesn't actually exist.
The nation state does exist, but not as a tangible object.

An abstract concept does not need to have perfect boundaries, everything within being part of it, everything outside, not. 'Within' consisting here of historical, social, physical, territorial, demographic delineations.


I, for one, can with great accuracy tell what, and who, belongs to the British nation state and what to the Thai nation state.
A nationstate is better thought of as a few 'centres of gravity', that pull people, places and history together. Even if these centres are prone to shift, even if are no clear boundaries, even if other centres exist too which exert their influence over the same objects, one can still identify and construct (two verbs with near identical meanings in this instance) nation states.



There is an irony in that if a cross-channel Norman - England state construct would've survived, inhabitants of Kent and Caen would now desperately insist that they have absolutely nothing in common with Scots or Burgundians respectively, and that it is simply preposterous to think they should ever form a nation with 'them'.
Or, closer in time, if Ireland would still be part of the UK, national narratives would've evolved completely different than they have been constructed since 1922