The death of nationalism

and the obliteration of the tribe

I grew up in a village. Though what does that even mean? A rural place, low-density, where few people live? The differences between villages and towns, between urban and rural life are within the realm of numbers and statistics. It doesn’t describe a particular unit of organization anymore, or a way of life. Differences exist in how closely you know your neighbours or what community events there are, but overall, life is similar.

Step 1: Taming the tribe

Long ago, even us Europeans used to be tribal. That is, we organized our societies along clans. We put great importance upon kinship and had long convoluted family relations that to some degree determined our place in society. Some of the world still works this way, mostly places where the state has less of a grip. For the modern state above all has shattered those old tribal bonds. Was that a bad thing? I for one certainly feel quite relieved not having my life and responsibilities dictated by something that is outside of my control.

We tend to view the “tribe” through a modern lens and never really consider the hard social reality behind the term. It wasn’t just some assortment of independent people into small communities like today’s villages, it was a kinship structure and more often than not it wasn’t some elected mayor who acted in the best interests of everyone, but it was the elders or the patriarchs who just called the shots for their kin. If you are concerned about the modern state being a longhouse you might not wish to experience clan life, where at best somebody else sanctioned your dreams and at worst you would be a renegade.

Tribal elders in Afghanistan

Societies are never an absolute, and neither were tribal ones. The Gauls and Germans were more developed societies and as such had elements of meritocracy and democracy within them, elements that you would also find in state societies and elements that have to be present if you want to forge a Rome out of a bunch of local tribes. Generally, the grade of restricting the kin relationship for ones own individual sake is a good measure of civilization building. Similarly, the Romans still had important patrician families and cousin marriage was not fully out yet, but family structure was subjugated to the institutions and offices of a state. Through this, you can build empire.

Indo-European man seems to have been more individualistic than others. There is evidence of Männerbund associations even in its early societies and in general we seem to have been more egalitarian. Conquest and rapid expansion should’ve also made it easier to break with others of your kin. But it wasn’t Indo-European man who broke the tribe, that was a European achievement. It might be what all of European history was working towards. You owe much to the church, which restricted cousin marriage and therefore helped a great deal in breaking down the clans and atomizing society. For if you want to build civilization, you must ensure that it alone is the supreme authority.

European man, ca. 1400 AD

Certainly the church with its “divine peace” also had its part in ending the raging feuds, which are an integral part of kinship societies. There is a thin line between a society in constant feud, and anarchy. Those societies that can first put this sorry state of affairs to rest, will triumph over the others. And so that is what happened, slowly but steadily in Europe. The feuds and the tribes waned and in its place stood the forebears of modernity.

Central to this was the state, that by then still was a personified sovereign. And whoever could be more sovereign, that is whoever could centralize more power in his own person, would be able to better build a state. Those societies that kept on feuding and never got out of the old ways died. And those states that did away with thinking along family lines and started viewing their society as an assortment of interest groups, those prospered. And so civilizationbuilding started in proper, the Männerbund reestablished itself as prominent in society, be it as mercenaries or as guilds or later on the first (literal) venture capitalists. As the old bonds of kinship were weakened, people could more freely associate concerning their family, their life, their place of residence, even their way of living and with that a proper economy started to emerge.

Within all of this, wherever the state was successful, it raised up what we now like to cherish as “institutions”. Because if the state were to retain and expand on its societal monopoly, it would have to manage it. So, it is no surprise that the first and most important institutions were central armies and their funding. Later on increasingly production and a way to profit from it. And of course a managerial state that could shoulder the heavy task of keeping society running.

Step 2: Institutionalizing

Before long the kings who centralized their states and built up its institutions were swallowed up by them. In a way they made themselves redundant. And so the last vestiges of the old kinship structure, which then ironically still persisted in the royal houses who ended them, were swept away. One might call it a natural development. If the institutions did the heavy lifting, sooner or later somebody would call the office of the king into question.

With that, we have reached the second stage of European man’s divorce from kinship. And so what was our identity if it was no longer our blood relation? A new identity had to be created, one that would better reflect the nature of the modern state. And from this the nation was born, which in any other period of history was an absurd idea, but here it made sense, for one really had to find an identity that would primarily encompass the state with its institutions. Largely, this was successful. Europeans everywhere loved the nation, and they were fervent in their love. Even the old ideas of kinship, the tribal heroes of ancient times were reordered into this framework, now no longer being the predecessors of kings and lineages, but the anachronistic founders of the nation.

The conversion through nationalism was unprecedented. European man was, and most still see themselves now as: a German, a Frenchman, an Italian and so on. The idea of relating yourself to an ancestor is relegated to the niche field of family studies, which only saw a resurgence recently through modern genetics. For the past centuries it was practically dead and now it is a commodified novelty more than anything else.

Nationalism didn’t reign without competitors. Identity was now more fluid. If something as vague as a language group could be one, then so could the Proletariat also. And it did make sense, after all the nation might be more inspiring, but the reality of your earnings is in many cases a more convincing and realistic argument. Later on, capitalism would also provide identities in plenty, and these days the identities it packages and sells might be more influential than the nation already.

Whatever identity you pick, it is interesting that it is now something that you pick. The civilizational process has removed us so far from kinship that we are now perfectly atomized in society. The family is nuclear, and the nuclear family is what built civilization. For only through breaking up the clans, was ours built. The free and independent European man conquered the human condition, the world, and even the skies. Could it ever have been done another way? The whole world is a bit like us now, we remade it in this civilizational image. Whether it is the church or modern human rights that touch a distant society, the process is still the same: outlawing incest, destroying the tribe, enshrining institutions. And whoever does not do that, cannot run a state. Even the Taliban now have to fill out excel sheets. We are better off than the rest, probably because this whole thing was our idea and we had centuries of struggle to follow through with it. The places we conquered were still in feuding societies when we gave them modernist shock therapy within the course of some decades. It must’ve been brutal.

Step 3: The rational individual

So here we stand now at the, as of yet, highest state of this achievement. For 18 years our parents are somewhat of an authority and then we are free to do as we please. We are perfectly self-sufficient within the institutions of the state. We can pick and choose to the best of our ability and nobody is allowed to stop us. Our ideals are those of complete independence: To move away, perhaps travel, then make your own home somewhere, perhaps even at the other side of the world. It might be scary and to some it might feel like along the way we lost something, but one cannot deny that this is an unprecedented freedom.

What have governments now become but perfect *enablers*. They enable you to get educated, earn a living, pursue recreation, receive healthcare. The nation as an idea is withering. Gone are the days where you could mobilize an entire society for total war just by writing a patriotic song. Events like the Ukraine war show that it is still a motivating force, but it is a shadow of its former past. And why wouldn’t it be? What really distinguishes the nationstates from each other anymore? Every western state is now an *enabler*. They all seek to do the same thing. Some do some things better, and some do some things worse. And so it is no surprise that modern man is calculating, that he moves away to a place whichs institutions more suit him, that he becomes an “expat”

I wouldn’t lament this state of affairs. In fact, I would embrace it. Because what is it, but the next step of that evolution that started when we ended the feud. Everything has been culminating to this point. We have sought to become the perfect *Individual* and well, here is another step in this millenia long journey. I quite like cooking my own soup, and the state of course also benefits, because the best member of society is one that only has the allegiance he chooses. There is no reason we cannot cherish our identities, or our families or perhaps even that little ancestry research we did. But it will never have the impact on social bonds that it used to have. It is now just another flavour of your own personal choice. And perhaps that isn’t so bad.   

Some of this might sound overly dreamy and yeah, there are issues that we have, but I don’t see any as unfixable. In the future we might all be our own little worlds, each man a story worth a kingdom. Perhaps you say that this isn’t the condition of man and that this future will never come, but nonetheless it is what we have been aiming for and we should always strive for an ideal.