I’ve been thinking about what makes separate cultural groups unite into a nation.

It seems as though nations unify most often in response to some kind of assault from the outside: this is what happened with the United States, for example; and India. With these hostile outside pressures, it suddenly becomes more important to have a single, unified identity to set against the outsiders.

At a more fundamental level, though, it’s not so much about the conflict as it is about the production of importance. Apparently the consolidation of France into a nation was a very deliberate process set in motion by the revolution itself. The idea of French nationalism was manufactured almost from scratch with the raw material of revolutionary values.

It’s true that competition for resources can fuel the divisions between cultural groups, but I think that alone wouldn’t be sufficient to keep people divided; look at all the galvanizing effects of international trade. I think it’s because conflict generates feelings of superiority and importance that it’s so hard to eliminate. When another, easier way of feeling important becomes available, conflict goes down the drain.

People take the path of least resistance. When a more powerful source of personal value shows up on the scene, everyone is drawn to it as though magnetically.

So it stands to reason that if we want to achieve worldwide harmony, we need a harmless arena for people to assert their importance. We need some type of global culture or art or value system.