The nation-state was the recognition that human identity groups were the basis of human organization. A stable country like Great Britain had a common language and history. Identity groups like Welsh and English were sublimated to the British identity. Even so, they had their own cultural spheres that were tolerated and respected by the whole.
Unstable countries like those in the Middle East or Africa were riddled with competing identity groups that had no shared sense of identity. Tribes were often split between two or more countries. Someone in Iraq does not primarily identify as Iraqi. Instead, he is an Arab or a Shiite or one of the many powerful Arab tribes. Lacking those basic necessities of human organization, these countries are inherently unstable.
This is something to keep in mind as the new ruling regime tries to figure out how to keep America from breaking apart. Even with the anointing of Mumbly Joe Biden as president, half the country still hates the other half, and that second half is working up a good hatred for the first half. A big reason for that is the rulers cannot answer any of those important questions that define any human organization.
In fact, they are actively making war on the first question. For close to a generation now they have been denying there is such a thing as American. It is merely a social construct with no fixed meaning. Anyone can be an American. This is the argument for inviting the peasants of the world to settle in your neighborhood. When Axmed Yusuf Qaasim, formerly of Darfur, is as American as Bob Smith from Georgia, “American” no longer has meaning.
On the second question as to who is in charge, we no longer really know who is running things anymore. Corporations with whom you have no business dealings now dictate what you can say in public. Banks can cut people off from the economy without fear of the government. Politicians do things, but nothing the public wants or expects. Someone is pulling their strings, but those people in the overclass are a complete mystery to us.
As far as those rules, customs, and taboos that grease the wheels of human relations, those have been systematically dismantled and replaced with weird new rules. The great and the good say being white is a crime, but the worst crime is noticing that nonwhites commit most of the crime. Not only has morality been turned on its head, but the underlying logic of human relations has been destroyed.
What the new regime inherits is a tinderbox of its own creation. Generations of making war on the basic rules that make human organization possible have led us to civil unrest and a divided, embittered people. They took away that which made it possible for disparate people to coexist. Now they demand that everyone come together and celebrate the people who made it impossible to live a peaceful life.
Econophysics2020 