Quote: on national identity

[mahnmut]

The three witches, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick, are talking about the concept that states/kingdoms have their own, individual identity.


'Everywhere's been where it is ever since it was first put there. It's called geography.', Nanny said.

'That's just about land,' said Granny. 'It's not the same as a kingdom. A kingdom is made up of-all sorts of things. Ideas. Loyalties. Memories, It all sort of exists together. And then all these things create some kind of life. Not a body kind of life, more like a living idea. Made up of everything that's alive and what they're thinking. And what the people before them thought.'

(From Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett)

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Technically the state is built on a simple dictum: whoever has a monopoly on force. The ideas simply justify the particular holders of the monopoly. The ideas loyalties and memories also tend to be redacted so as to give the states that are existent at the time longer histories than they actually have. One thing about the Tlatloani of the Aztecs was they were man enough to admit it.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Curiously, in this tale the land and the forest, and all living life in it rises against its new ruler, who neglects his care for it and only cares about power. The three witches only facilitate this uprising. I find many similarities with Avatar's living planet Pandora, etc.

Funnily, the witches, the people and the land itself has no objections to every next monarch getting on the throne by killing the previous one. "It's all a part of the job", Granny Weatherwax says. The problem starts when the ruler gets obsessed with the power for its own sake, and starts looking at the land (i.e. the country/state/people) as a mere tool for achieving his ends.

Very teaching stuff, that.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Which of course is bitterly funny given that in Ancient Times if a sufficiently big natural disaster happened to someone he got booted out in a revolution. Hell, it even happened to GWB after Katrina.

The idea of rulers who *don't* do that is a nice idealism. It never has happened and never will happen in the real world.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Yes, the idea of benevolent rulers is too idealistic. I agree about that.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

(Unless you look at some Nordic countries of course, but I guess that's an exception which only confirms the rule, eh).

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Indeed. To take it further, since rulers only reflect the societies and cultural values that spawn them, benevolent societies are too idealistic to maintain in reality as well.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

And there was a time when you used to indulge into advocating benevolent monarchism...