What makes a nation? (1)

In its essence, I believe what starts and makes a nation is a group of people that all hold some sort of similar ideas or beliefs. Once these people find a way to organize, the formal aspects of a nation are set into motion. Another key aspect of a nation is the consolidation of power to some sort of higher authority. This power needs to be consolidated into a higher authority because if everyone had the same amount of power in a nation, there would be no way of making the members of that nation conform to every established decree. After the power is consolidated, the nation can move onto carrying out its purposes through the power that this authority wields. I believe the purposes of a nation are to exert decrees or rules of law on the people within it while also providing for the needs of those people. When power is given to a singularity, or a small group of people, they then have the power to influence masses of people larger than their own group. With this influence, they have the power to enact laws and restrictions such as property rights and human rights in order to bring the established nation out of anarchy. Once these rules of law are understood and followed, the nation becomes more civilized and the entirety of its populace can focus on the growth of the nation for the common good. I know I belong to a nation because I actively participate in the process that makes a nation and I benefit from the decrees the nation has outlined. In the United States, I participated in the democratic process of voting in order to surrender power to those in governmental executive and legislative bodies. I did this with the trust and hope that they will serve my best interests and maintain things like a police force, fire brigade and infrastructure which all benefit me in my daily life inside the nation.

Above all, a nation is a community. From birth, the first community that we know is our immediate family. In most cases, children grow up in the same home as their immediate family and act in a community fashion in order to achieve common goals. I believe that families operate in this fashion because it's the system that they are accustomed to and will better ready their children for when they leave the home. In Passing Through by Nathan Adolphson, the author chronicles his experiences visiting Korea as an American adopted from Korea. The film is interesting because it examines the author's feelings and interactions between two nations on a macro and micro level. On the macro level, he is visiting Korea, a nation across the world and unfamiliar to him and compares it to the United States, a nation he grew up in and is acquainted with. On the micro level, the author also reunites with his biological family in Korea and interacts with them and compares them to the family he had in the United States. The conclusion that Nathan came to was that his "true family" is in America. I believe he came to this conclusion because he realized that  by listening to his mother and father growing up in America or surrendering power to them, and benefiting from the same family by being housed, clothed, educated, and nurtured by them, he knew he belonged to that nation instead of the one in Korea for the same reasons I know a belong to the United States.

The duality of these two cultures and places was striking throughout the film. The author found himself asking what he was doing here a multitude of times and felt lonely and like didn't belong. This is because he did not feel the same sense of belonging that he did in America. I believe that this instance contributes to proving the point that culture and upbringing have a much stronger impact on a person than something like nationality or race.