Did you know that when France's revolutionary armies invaded Europe, most of its soldiers did not speak French? How is this possible you ask? Well, the primitive state of travel and communications technologies during the Middle Ages meant interactions between villages, manors, and towns, were rare—even among those located in the same kingdom. This physical separation, combined with the passage of time, meant that local dialects could seem like entirely different languages to outsiders.
By the end of the eighteenth century, European states had become centralized clubs for landed elites and were beginning to outlive their usefulness [1,2]. First, over-ambitious monarchs such as Henry VIII, Louis XIV and Phillip II, had either divorced and murdered their way into excommunication or exhausted their state treasuries in dubious wars for personal aggrandizement. This reckless behavior, combined with the fallout from the Protestant Reformation, signaled the end of a unified Latin Christendom.
Second, the means of production began to move away from agriculture to manufacturing. As a result, the burgeoning professional groups that grew out of this new production system could end up wealthier than their aristocratic counterparts. Adding to this was the fact that industrialized production rapidly increased urban populations, creating new lifestyles and political interests that did not easily fit within the existing social fabric.
Although one could easily get bogged down in academic minutiae, the French and American Revolutions basically represented the inability of medieval institutions to address these new realities. By the end of the 19th century, the professional classes, which had chaffed under the constraints of the ancient regime, had either seized control or gained considerable influence in most Western states. They brought with them ideas of using reason and equality to reform governance in favor of all citizens.
Thus was born the idea of the nation. The wealth and power of a state would now be used in the service of the public good. Of course, as individuals such as Robespierre found out far too late, reason is often subjective and the public good is inevitably defined by those in power. More often than not, public schools, central bureaucracies, and mass communications technologies have been utilized to create national sentiments, not reflect them.
If the internet and access to cheap global travel have demonstrated anything in the early years of the twenty-first century, it is that access to information and cross-cultural exchanges will not inevitably lead to a world-wide mono culture. Universal truths (be they religious or secular) and mass societies are manufactured realities, serving the interests of specific social groups. As a consequence, irreconcilable differences in the face of reasoned debate are not necessarily signs of ignorance or political subversion. They simply indicate that geography, history, and local realities will continue to be a source of diverging interests well into the foreseeable future.
By the end of the eighteenth century, European states had become centralized clubs for landed elites and were beginning to outlive their usefulness [1,2]. First, over-ambitious monarchs such as Henry VIII, Louis XIV and Phillip II, had either divorced and murdered their way into excommunication or exhausted their state treasuries in dubious wars for personal aggrandizement. This reckless behavior, combined with the fallout from the Protestant Reformation, signaled the end of a unified Latin Christendom.
Second, the means of production began to move away from agriculture to manufacturing. As a result, the burgeoning professional groups that grew out of this new production system could end up wealthier than their aristocratic counterparts. Adding to this was the fact that industrialized production rapidly increased urban populations, creating new lifestyles and political interests that did not easily fit within the existing social fabric.
Although one could easily get bogged down in academic minutiae, the French and American Revolutions basically represented the inability of medieval institutions to address these new realities. By the end of the 19th century, the professional classes, which had chaffed under the constraints of the ancient regime, had either seized control or gained considerable influence in most Western states. They brought with them ideas of using reason and equality to reform governance in favor of all citizens.
Thus was born the idea of the nation. The wealth and power of a state would now be used in the service of the public good. Of course, as individuals such as Robespierre found out far too late, reason is often subjective and the public good is inevitably defined by those in power. More often than not, public schools, central bureaucracies, and mass communications technologies have been utilized to create national sentiments, not reflect them.
If the internet and access to cheap global travel have demonstrated anything in the early years of the twenty-first century, it is that access to information and cross-cultural exchanges will not inevitably lead to a world-wide mono culture. Universal truths (be they religious or secular) and mass societies are manufactured realities, serving the interests of specific social groups. As a consequence, irreconcilable differences in the face of reasoned debate are not necessarily signs of ignorance or political subversion. They simply indicate that geography, history, and local realities will continue to be a source of diverging interests well into the foreseeable future.
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