Since the beginning of humanity some people have been seeking migrating in search of a better life. Thats over 200,000 years, and of that nation states or countries, a group of people organized by legally defined geographical -political boundaries have been around for about 300-400 (30 Years War? an arbitrary choice) years, about 0.001% of human history while during that same time period people have been migrating in search of a better life for 100% of the time.
Which is more “normal human behavior”, living in a country or migrating somewhere for a better life? Is one of them “abnormal?”
During that 200,000 years people changed from living in very small groups to increasingly larger and larger groups . Though we do not know most of that “history” we do know some of it. Perhaps at one early time people lived as families in caves {I do not know, but it makes sense as an metophor to start there) and though the years with the development of recording methods such as writing, visual Art, we have some historical infomation.
Even in families there is an organizational social structure. Perhaps we could say that families which were near the beginning of human organization were probably extended families, expanding to groups of different families as well as “successful families” —families which could provide enough essentials for an increasing number of children—and settlements, villages, towns, cities, city states, etc.
Confucius taught that the structure of power in the family was the basis for all organizations, from family to clan to village to city to larger and thought that if the father as decision-maker – structure was learned in the family then as grown ups people would be inclined to live peacefully accepting the power structure with which they grew up. Or this was the “true way” for individuals in a society to live to maximize the outcome of order.
Things were going along and then . . . Oil starting post WWI, made a few people very wealthy, generated significantly larger middle classes in western countries, making wealthy authoritarian despots of various degrees in others while millions of people worldwide were killed and murdered as the west attempted to defend the flow of oil around the world.
The economic creativity and wealth generated by an oil-world economy enabled increasingly larger scales of economic relationships and the development of electronic media increasingly spread the word all over the world, over flowing geo-political boundaries flooding the whole world with the gospel— life could be better somewhere else, with real pictures of real people doing real things for fun instead of survival.
Nation states, with their laws restricting immigration may be the major obstacle to people seeking a share of the wealth, laws which are reinforced by a standing armed police force and a standing a armed military supported by taxes . . .and
basically “managed” by politicians, some of who may have some leadership qualities and others who are in it for the power and control. Probably most are various ordinal combinations on a continuum. But as long as national sovereignty
In Japan temples and shrines ( buddhist and shinto respectively) are usually open to people to visit and they have festivals , People can visit temples and shrines, enjoy their beauty, some such as Sensoji are a complete experience with stores, restaurants,
People are pretty much free to behave as they want which is quite different than churches and mosques which have a bunch of rules for visitors to obey.
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