http://fourcultures.com/2010/02/03/are-the-guardians-of-national-boundaries-beginning-to-lok-pathetic/ Cultural Theory and Society Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:58:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://fourcultures.com/2010/02/03/are-the-guardians-of-national-boundaries-beginning-to-lok-pathetic/#comment-783 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:42:40 +0000 http://fourcultures.com/?p=1018#comment-783 [...] excursus: are the guardians of national boundaries beginning to look pathetic? [...]

]]> http://fourcultures.com/2010/02/03/are-the-guardians-of-national-boundaries-beginning-to-lok-pathetic/#comment-756 Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:20:53 +0000 http://fourcultures.com/?p=1018#comment-756 I agree. I remember visiting Hong Kong and then the special economic zone of Shenzen in the late 1980s. People had interesting and very different ideas of what constituted China and being Chinese.

]]> http://fourcultures.com/2010/02/03/are-the-guardians-of-national-boundaries-beginning-to-lok-pathetic/#comment-755 Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:08:07 +0000 http://fourcultures.com/?p=1018#comment-755 Really the fact that “nations have proliferated” is more proof that the nation-state, such as it is, continues to break down. Many of the “new” nations, such as in the Baltic region, are actually pieces of former nations, and are based on ethnicity and some other far older categories, which does not so much suggest a regression to me as it does a fragmentation of the nation-state under pressure from economic forces. This is the emergence of “zones” which I’ve written about elsewhere. I am not convinced that the nation-state will break down entirely, so much as that these new definitions will become more important in people’s lives. If you live in one of the “economic development zones” that cross boundaries and dot Southeast Asia and Latin America, then does it really matter to you whether you live in one country or another, or does the fact that you live in an EDZ not define you more?
TOG

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