Boundaries matter for social life but need not align with state or nation

Evidence

A basic dualism … pervades the fundamental form of all sociation. The dualism consists in the fact that a relation, which is a fluctuating, constantly developing life-process, nevertheless receives a relatively stable external form. The sociological forms of reciprocal behavior, of unification, of presentation toward the outside, cannot follow, with any precise adaptation, the changes of their inside, that is, of the processes that occur in the individual in regard to the other. These two layers, relation and form, have different tempi of development; or it often is the nature of the external form not to develop properly at all. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 778 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Culture need not align with language and state boundaries — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 1089; Nationalism demands boundary-drawing that serves insiders at neighbors’ expense, unlike patriotism — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 214; Modern social boundaries must be re-naturalized through demonstrated truth rather than habit — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 172 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Social relations crystallize into fixed external forms that cannot keep pace with inner life #complicates (0.71) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 778