The modern nation state, March 3rd, 2025. Dear Gavin, as we discussed on the phone,

I think we have covered most of the waterfront. At the same time, as a matter of summarizing

and wrapping up, I think I have two more letters in me. There may be some repetition here, but I want to comment a few

things from a different angle. In one of the earlier letters, I shared a good definition of

ethnic identity that came from Stephen Bryan. Here it is again. Quote, the building blocks of

ethnic identity are one, a shared name, two, a shared sense of place, three, a shared sense of the past, four, a shared

sense of belonging or kinship, and five, a widely shared set of beliefs and values that give

rise to a shared set of practices and norms. This fifth building block comprises such things

as religious beliefs and practices, language, cultural conventions, and customs, as well as cultural

products such as literature, music, architecture, and art.

Stephen Bryan, cultural identity and the purposes of God.

Page 43.

This is a good definition, but Brian is not Euclid and ethnic groups are not triangles.

People are people and people do know how to smudge things up.

Let me give you two examples. One of the most defined ethnic groups in the world would have to be the Jews,

and their relationship with number two, in Brian's definition, is a challenging one.

While there has been a territorial place for Jews since the founding of Israel in 1948,

most of the world's Jews don't live there. And prior to

1948, for almost 2,000 years, almost none of them did. One could reply that they had lived there

for thousands of years prior, but at some point the ancestral memory would have to grow a bit dim,

would it not? A really interesting case would be the Swiss. They really are a distinct tribe,

a distinct national, a distinct

...