The greater the territory of the State, the worse the state of the territory: the two vary inversely with one another.
Territories are stretches of land, as the etymology of the word suggests: it derives from Latin terre, “dryland, soil, earth,” itself from the Proto-Indo-European root *ters-, “to dry.” Heard to those roots, territories are earthen, “made of earth,” as when we speak of “earthenware.” Territories are domains of our shared earthen surface, domains the borders of which are indefinite, not clearly demarcated, and certainly not separated by any officially set boundary-lines.
What is more, a given territory is often shared by a variety of nations, that is, of ethnically different peoples, different human tribes. Not enclosed within distinct borders, territories offer admittance to new arrivals, whoever they might be and from wherever they may originate. Thus, territories are inclusive rather than exclusive: they are open and inviting, however awe-inspiring and even dangerous their topography may be.
Diverse peoples — tribes, ethnic nations — often share a common territory. That is especially true for nomadic peoples, human tribes or ethnic nations that, like birds, migrate with the seasons, following those same birds and other migratory game that, along with the vegetation that also has seasonally changing patterns of growth, provide the food on which the various tribes at issue depend to sustain themselves. As was true for the various tribal nations across the territories of what eventually became the single “federal” State called the United States of America, nomadic tribes or nations around the world typically share territories with other such tribes or nations. With occasional exceptions in the case of wars and similarly overt national/tribal conflicts, each nation/tribe respects the autonomy and the seasonal movements of the other nations/tribes sharing the same territory, making room for one another as need and sharing dictate.
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In sharp contrast to such territory-wandering nations/tribes, States are governmental entities exercising sovereignty over clearly demarcated spaces on the globe. Each such State encloses itself tightly within clearly defined borders. Such States tend by their very nature to be suspicious of newcomers and often deny them entry. They are exclusive rather than inclusive, closed-in and defensive of their borders — which are made difficult to cross without prior approval — rather than opening the way to contact with others and welcoming border crossings.
A nation — for example, any of those on the territorial map above — is no nation-state. Common usage tends to blur that distinction. That is primarily because common usage, the language of everyday commerce with one another, is itself typically in service of the dominant coercive power that rules over the nation-states within which humanity in the modern age is typically confined.
During the Napoleonic period, Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz in On War famously defined war as “politics by other means.” If we dig a bit deeper beneath that remark, we will find that in truth it is war that defines the modern sense of “politics,” which is used to mean what pertains to the erection and perpetuation of the State, in whatever sub-form that State may take, from autocracy to constitutional monarchy to representative democracy, and so forth. Regardless of what sub-form it takes, the State is a device for waging war, first and above all against any “outsiders” who might try to cross its idolatrized borders — those borders that are now rigidly defined and set to serve exclusion, rather than to serve the meeting of different peoples or ethnic nations face to face across territorial borders, let alone to facilitate the free crossing of territorial borders as need and neighborliness determine.
Thus, the State as such wages ongoing warfare against territories: the State seeks the death of the territory.
NOTE: My earlier post, “Border Crossings,” explores the disclosive nature of true borders, in contrast to the exclusive pseudo-borders within which States hide themselves. You may read “Border Crossings” here: https://www.traumaandphilosophy.com/blog-1/2017/1/29/border-crossings
“Illegal” immigrants apprehended by Rio Grande Valley Agents, August 2016