Жолбов. Английский билеты. 4-5 курс / 4 курс Is the nation an artificial construct or reality

34. Is the nation an artificial construct or reality?

In order to answer this question it is necessary to define what a nation is. Generally speaking, it is a group of people who shared history, traditions, and culture, sometimes religion, and usually language. The people of a nation generally share a common national identity. Some distinguish between an ethnic nation, based in race or ethnicity, and a civic nation, based in common identity and loyalty to a set of political ideas and institutions, and the linkage of citizenship to nationality.

But how does a nation appear? It is common knowledge that in the basis of any nation was a tribe, as to say a family, where all the human beings were relatives. Century after century, the tribe was growing and mixing with other tribes, sharing their traditions, culture, values, language with each other. Thereby, different nations were formed in this natural way. From this point of view we can say that the existence of nations is a reality.

But, referring to history, we can find an example of another way of creating a nation. Let’s talk about the process of building American nation. It is well-known fact that American nation was created by the emigrants from the Europe, who mainly were Anglo-Saxons and shared the same values, cultural traditions, religion and spoke the same language. After that a lot people of different nations, beliefs, adherents of various cultural traditions began to leave their native countries for America. And nowadays we have a strong, powerful, influential nation, people of which, all the same, call themselves “Americans”. From this point of view, it is possible to create a new nation by mixing a number of others in a short period of time.

But, I’d like to underline that the main body of American nation was people of one culture. In connection with this, my opinion is that the process of forming American nation obeyed the same historical laws; it just managed in a shorter time. So, the nation is not an artificial construct, it’s a reality.