In order for America to survive as a nation-state, the first prerequisite is that the nation-state model itself survives as the basis of world order, and as I’ve posted here, and on the old blog, and any number of other blogs many times, I’m not optimistic about its chances in the long, and perhaps even in the near term. The reasons are legion, but they boil down to one common theme: Discrete, coherent nation-states simply cannot survive prolonged contact with globalization. This is a recurring theme on John Robb’s blog (most recently here, where he argues that the ongoing series of financial breakdowns worldwide is a prelude to the nation-state collapse), though I would argue that cultural and media globalization is at least as corrosive to the “nation” half of the nation-state model as economic globalization is to the “state” half.

The key organizing principle in the globalized world will be culture; once co-extensive with ethnicity but now a distinguishable in itself. Because modern nations have been around for so many lives of men, it’s easy to forget that they once didn’t exist. Nations were built: by history, leadership and cultural influences. The United States of America, for example, did not strictly speaking, exist before 1776.

Now I would argue that if adaptability and the capacity to self-reinvention is the key to surviving in the globalized world, the USA more than any other major culture has a fair claim to advantage. However, that ability to adapt is critically dependent on a shared set of values. These values are the organizing principle which allow the emergence of unity in apparent diversity.

‘Multiculturalism’ is the most destructive ideology in possible in a globalized world because it implicitly assumes the existence of nations to lend it stability; it postulates a dominant culture to lend the framework keep the multi-culti from collapsing on itself. Multiculturalism without a dominant culture would lead to chaos. In a world of nation-states, multiculturalism would just be supportable; even entertaining. In a globalized world it is a fast track to disaster.

In context of this post any ‘nation’ or cultural entity which wishes to survive must experience a new birth of freedom. Ridding ourselves of the ideology of the left — by debate, discussion and persuasion — is the key to staying alive. Drink the hemlock and perish from the earth.