A peculiar sense of identity

“So why don’t they change their ways? Now that they’ve got all this climate change science, and most of this science is all about the misuse of oil, gas, and coal. I mean: burning it. How stupid.”

Yeah.

“Why don’t they change their ways?”

Heh, well, that’s what we’re here to find out about, I suppose. But you see: first of all we’ve got to recognize the fact that the human species has never in history been in complete peace with themselves. And that’s a problem. All this shooting and killing, all this bombing, and all this placement of explosive mines in the terrain, hell you know, it’s a problem.

“The first problem.”

In a sense: yes. The first problem. But the real problem is the human beings’ strong ties to a multitude of flags, logos, symbols, and metaphors. The first and most important metaphor is that of the nation-state. Bigger and smaller, there are about 200 of those. Each of these 200 nation-states have their own laws and regulations, their own parliaments and governments, their own currencies, and of course their own armed forces. Police officers. Soldiers. People who get paid for hunting down and, sometimes, killing other people.

“Hm.”

Now, each and every nation-state has its own flag. That’s the national logo. Each and every nation-state has its own song, too. That’s the national anthem.

“Tell me about it.”

The national anthems are being used to create national identity on the part of the masses of the people who are born, live and do their business inside the nation-state’s borders. Each nation-state has its own national anthem. And the singing of the national anthem is, I believe, more of a ritual than anything else.

“I see.”

People don’t usually smile while singing the national anthem. They look rather mournful, really, as they’re doing it. –

“OK?!”

Ah, there are such a lot of things that are difficult to understand. They place a lot of value on the importance of the nation-state. — Patriotism, they call it. And it’s among the most important values any person can muster. Loving the country. Respecting the flag. Placing the right hand on the chest and rising to ones feet as the national anthem is being played. Things like that. I mean: strange things. But equally quite natural as they do the same things and act the same way all over the planet, no matter what might be the name of the nation-state. Every human is expected to show signs of reverence whenever a national anthem is being played. Yes, that would be the correct term. Reverence.

“How odd.”

Truly!

“Okay, continue.”

Each and every nation-state is divided into different sub-sections. A nation-state can consist of as many sub-sections as the founders of the states at some point found there was a need for. 50 or 400 sub-sections, it doesn’t matter. But these are all sectors belonging to the realms of beaurocracy. This is the point where the human species is starting to look retarded. They all need to control each other, you see. There’s no music in that. Not many songs about beaurocracy are written and composed, hm … to put it that way. But it’s the beaurocracies that bring a sense of stability into the lives of human beings. That, and family affairs. It’s important to humans. A sense of stability. Balance, so to speak. Only never any kind of balance as concerns the whole planet. The ecosystems of this world get lost under a carpet of metaphorical sizes: nation-states and counties. They’re all tied down to the different nation-states of theirs; each individual person being a member of a nation state. Tied up and held down by a massive force of symbolic power! It’s extraordinary!

“No ties to the planet?”

None. Well, not officially anyway. If you make the claim that you’ve got this certain tie to the ecosystems of the planet, or even to the planet itself, you will be understrood as some kind of a whacko. Or an artist at best. Which is often about being a serious whacko on a professional basis, so to say. But still a legal citizen of some country, of course. There’s no getting around this one.

“So how are these people going to go about saving the planet from all sorts of environmental devastation, if they are hardly even allowed to call the planet their home, but lead their entire lives tied down to some metaphorical nation-state entity?”

It’s going to be difficult.

“You’re damned right about that! They’ve got to connect with the fact that they’re disturbing the ecosystems of this planet on a global scale as well as a local one. They’ve got to connect with the fact that planet Earth is their planetary home.”

They all know that.

“And yet they do nothing about it, am I right?”

You’re right.

“I thought so. You know, this species is never going to stop amazing me. As a matter of fact it is going to amaze me ceaselessly.”

You’re right about that too, I suppose.

“That’s too bad. They’d better make a clean break with the nation-state system if they are going to succeed here. They should, as a matter of urgency, make way for a planetary sense of identity down here. And they’d better do that as fast as possible. — I hear they’ve given themselves a window of opportunity of about ten years, isn’t that so?”

That’s so.

“Now, they have the internet and they’ve got all these satelites, so communication should not be a problem. It makes you wonder what’s keeping them from coming together and dissolving a few symbols and metaphors, don’t you think?”

I sure do. But it’s not all that easy. We’re talking hundreds and thousands of years of keeping the national borders under strict military control. That’s a very long time. It’s long standing tradition. And bad habits are hard to change. –

“So, what if nature itself decided for them to take notice of global climate change challenges? Would that be possible?”

I don’t know.

“Hm.”

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