Generally speaking, people are pretty social. We find ways to join together in all sorts of ways. Family groups often stick together, whether they’re the nuclear families of very recent invention or various forms of clans. Children of similar ages play together. People organize clubs, organizations, bands, orders, associations, crews, teams, and circles. But there are some differences in the kinds of connections we form with others — pretty interesting differences.
Think about the difference between joining a family and joining a club. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with being genetically related; some families aren’t. What it does have to do with is the scope of your membership. If you’re in a club, you can usually just decide to quit. Maybe it’s a golf club and your interest in the game has waned. Or you decide the dues are too expensive. Whatever the reason, it usually no big deal; you might have to tell the club you resign and please stop billing you for dues, or maybe you just stop attending meetings. Being connected with that kind of social organization is entirely voluntary, and something you control yourself.
But you might feel like no longer being part of a family just isn’t possible. Even if you stop attending gatherings, won’t talk to anyone in the group, or even do something more formal, you — and the other members of the family — might well feel that you’re still connected in some way. That kind of connection can be completely invisible. You could grow very familiar with someone; have intimate conversations and get to know them very well, and you might never find out anything about the family they never mention. But you might wonder about it. Because — think about it — we just assume that everybody is part of a family of some sort. Participation is a central part of some social groups, like clubs, but others, like families, seem to persist even without it. Every once in a while you read about “long lost siblings” who reconnect after decades apart. They always seem to feel like they still have a connection.
There are other kinds of social connections, too. Most people in the world live within some kind of political boundary. Probably several, nested inside each other. Where I live, that would be living in a town, which is located in a county, which is part of a state, which is part of the whole country. Also where I live, moving from one town to another or one state to another is simple. Your “membership” in the social or political organization is portable. It’s based on a whole raft of things like your address, paying taxes, registering a vehicle, voting — but they’re all easily moved around. This isn’t the case everywhere in the world, but the point is that there are social/political organizations that are pretty open to membership. It might be challenging to try to stay out of being a member — at least in a basic sense — of any of them, but as long as you assume you’re a member, what exactly you’re a member of is more or less a matter of choice.
But that’s not quite the same in the case of a particular sort of social organization: a country. For many people in many places it’s reasonably easy to visit another country, and even live there for a while. Even years. But there’s something unique about the social organization called a “country” or “nation.” The organization itself has a claim on a member, instead of the other way around. It’s possible to completely give up your membership in “a country” — that is, some people in some situations can change their citizenship by renouncing one and becoming naturalized somewhere else. But it’s nowhere near as simple to opt out entirely. It even feels a little weird to talk about; a “stateless person” seems like a very strange condition to find oneself in. It does happen, but the circumstances are pretty rare.
Also, the country you’re a “member” of can require some things from you. You might be expected to join a military. You’ll almost certainly be expected to pay taxes. And even if you’ve come to think that “your country” is a completely different one and your loyalties are different, your original country might not agree. It’s not based on what you believe, after all, or what you think. It’s just based on where you were born. Strange idea.
Something like that happened to Mildred Gillars at the end of World War II. It was March 10, 1949 when she was convicted of treason against the US (the first woman ever). Her crime was that during the war, she lived in Germany and became a radio personality, broadcasting pro-German propaganda. It’s not entirely clear how she got to that point. She was in Germany in 1941, working as a radio announcer, when the US recommended that US citizens leave Germany. But she was engaged to a German citizen, so she stayed. Her fiancé was drafted into the army and died in the war.
Gillars’ radio programs gradually became more political. It’s unclear why. Maybe she believed in the German cause. Maybe she was trying to honor the memory of her fiancé. Maybe she’d fallen under the spell of her producer, Max Koischwitz. That last was part of her defense at her trial, and it was also noted that after Koischwitz died in 1944, Gillars’ broadcasts became much less strident.
But let’s assume, for a moment, that Gillars really did, for whatever reason, feel loyalty to Germany and not the US. That would mean she was acting in support of the social organization that she felt part of. But when the social organization is a country, it’s not that simple; even if you don’t feel any belonging whatsoever from your side, you can still be considered a member or a citizen, from the other.
Except…being a leader of a social organization can be a different thing. And being a leader of a “country,” which is a different kind of social organization, can sometimes make that even more unique. It was March 10, 1629 that Charles I, King of England, unilaterally dissolved Parliament and began the “Personal Rule” period. It lasted eleven years, during which Charles was the sole head of the country. His explanation was that he had the perfect right to dissolve (or recreate) Parliament because of something called the “royal prerogative.” That’s the body of English custom that recognized the monarch as having absolute authority.
There might still be a few places in today’s world with something like a “royal prerogative” for the leader, but there aren’t many left. Nearly everywhere, even when a country has a monarch, there’s also some sort of legislative organization like a Parliament that passes laws and enacts policies. But the idea behind the royal prerogative goes back a long way. I think it’s probably the source of the idea that your country is a special kind of social organization that has control (usually a lot) over your membership in it, and what it can compel you to do. It’s the only kind of social group — maybe excepting families in some cases — that can compel you to do things without you having first agreed. That is, when you join some kinds of groups, like fraternities or some kinds of clubs, they can compel you to do things. But that’s only because you agreed to it beforehand. It’s the same thing if you enlist in a military — you’re voluntarily agreeing, which is not the same as being drafted by your country.
Personal rule by a monarch was unusual for England in the time of Charles I, but historically it’s not rare. Louis XIV of France — the Sun King — did the same thing in 1661. Oddly enough he did it on the same day of the year, too: March 10.
There’s another oddity about the social organization known as a country, and I think this comes from the old idea of royal prerogative too. Somebody can “take over” the country, and then everybody who’s a “member” of the country is expected to accede to the new leadership. This happened on March 10 too. It was March 10, 1952 in Cuba that Fulgencio Batista overthrew the government of President Carlos Socarrás in a coup. He named himself President and led the country, clearly expecting the citizens to accept his leadership even though he hadn’t been elected. Ironically, he had been elected President of Cuba in 1940. He was running for the office again in 1952, and seized power when he lost the vote.
That’s a strange way for a human social organization to function, at least compared to all the other kinds of human social organizations there are. And yet it’s not at all unusual. Maybe all we have to do is rid our minds of the ancient idea of the royal prerogative, and the nature of the social organizations known as countries will start to make a lot more sense. If you have any ideas about how to do that, though, please let the rest of us know!
