Duality Reality of Nationality

The discussion today and the whole book in general has made a bunch of references to dualism which seems like a neat topic for a post. The main one I want to delve into and probably do the upcoming essay about is nationalism. Borders seem like one of the most meaningless things that have arisen since the dawn of history. On Gethen, there is no war, no idea of war nor is there much of a sense of nationalism and I feel as if these two things practically come hand in hand. I feel as if borders are somewhat a good thing when it comes to separating different cultures so that the groups are each particular enough to make sense but when it comes to giant nation-states like the US and Russia and the list goes on it doesn’t really make sense to me. The pair hear seems to be either part of one’s country or not part of one’s country and there is no gray area in between, because of this people are pitted against each other and grouped together for really no good reason except that they were born far away from or close to each other respectively. Basically, nations in general are an abstract idea that is not useful for the most part and also harmful in many respects.