--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Well, in a tribe everybody knows everybody else -- at any rate its
> social cohesion depends on face-to-face interactions. A nation
could > perhaps be defined as an anonymous mass of people trying to
regain > lost tribal ties and the psychological comfort they used to
offer.
Check this URL out; United Nations claims membership of 189 nations
as of today:
http://www.un.org/Overview/unmember.html
The list includes Liechtenstein and a large number of 'nations' have
less than 10 million people as 'its' citizens.
What is IT? Yes, anonymity is one symptom of nation-hood; but all the
politicians have been striving to reduce anonymity by introducing
icons, symbols and modern equivalents of 'myths' with currencies
(with photographs of 'national' heroes and signatures of
bureaucrats), Parliaments, Congresses and what not.
What is the etymology for 'tribe'? Is there a PIE cognate?