THE DEFINITION OF NATION

If we Americans have no knowledge of our distinct national identity, we are made weaker as a people, and if this racial unconsciousness persists long enough, we will cease to exist entirely. A nation cannot preserve itself if one half of its body has no self-awareness of its essential characteristics, while the other half actively hates the whole.

An important part of this process toward the loss of our identity, is the conflation, or dilution, of our vocabulary. If no words point to the reality of our exclusive national identity, but instead redirect the mind to the enemy’s desired ideological frame, it will be markedly more difficult to have knowledge of our true identity. One such word, which has lost all of its potency and meaning, is “nation”. Before we can define the American ethnos, or race, we must first define what a nation is.

WHAT IS A NATION?

The word “nation” is now used, in common parlance, to describe a population and geographic region administered by a single governing body. The defining characteristic of this “nation” is its government and the regional sovereignty thereof — making the ethnic composition of the “nation” effectively irrelevant. By this definition, anyone can become a member of any nation as long as its governing authority legally recognizes their citizenship.

Historically, however, nation was synonymous with race, being used to describe a category of kinship by blood.

There are several words in the English language that are synonymous with “race”, but have lost their likeness and specificity over time.

Nation is defined as a body of people united by common descent, history, culture, and language, inhabiting a particular country or territory. It is blood, soil, and spirit.

Race, as defined in the Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, is the lineage of a family, or continued series of descendants from a parent who is called the stock. A race is an indefinite series of descendants from a common progenitor.

Therefore, nation is a more precise category of race, with shared culture and land being the features which add specificity.

The etymology of the word “nation” is in the Latin noun “natio” which means “birth”, “origin”, or “tribe”. It is also derived from the Latin verb “nascere” which is translated as “to be born”. The very root of the word “nation” signifies a relationship based on blood and lineage.

The word “posterity” is likewise synonymous with “race” and was commonly used by the founding fathers of America in the 18th and early 19th century.

Posterity is an indefinite lineage of descendants, or the race that proceeds from a progenitor.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
— Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America

For all of humankind’s history, until the 18th century, nations were understood and organized based on the essential reality within these words — the reality of blood and lineage, as opposed to common ideology alone.

The Greek words “genos” and “ethnos” are also significant given their usage in some of our earliest historical texts.

Genos is a Greek word for “race”, “stock”, or “kin”. A number of people sharing a single origin by birth.

Ethnos in Greek, is similar to “genos”, but it’s defined as a race of people who share a distinctive culture. It’s emphasis on a shared culture implies a level of relation with greater specificity. Thus, “ethnos” is more akin to “nation”. “Genos” is more akin to your broader “race”.

“Race” has been decoupled from the word “ethnicity” and its meaning. Within the past couple of generations, it has become a common refrain that “race is not real” and “it is a social construct of the 17th century British Colonialists.” They assert that, because the British began referring to different peoples based upon their skin color, “race” must necessarily be defined as a socially constructed grouping based on superficial phenotype alone. A cursory glance throughout history will dispel this false notion.

“NATION” and “RACE” IN SCRIPTURE

This synonymity between “race” and “nation”, and the significance of genealogy, is present throughout Holy Scripture, starting with the book of Genesis.

Genesis 10 details the genealogy of Noah’s descendants. The chapter is often referred to as “The Table of Nations” because the races of the world have their origin in the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Now this is the genealogy of Noah’s sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and sons were born to them after the flood…
…These were the tribes of Noah’s sons, according to their genealogy, in their nations; and from these the nations were divided on earth after the flood.
(Genesis 10:1, 10:32)

Then the Lord said, “Indeed, the people are one race and one language, and they have begun to do what they said.”
(Genesis 11:6)

“Race” in Genesis 11:6 is translated from the Greek word “genos” which, as stated above, is a number of people sharing a single origin by birth.

Mankind was united as one race and one language, but this unity existed without the Holy Trinity. Mankind can only achieve true unity through communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Interestingly, at the Tower of Babel, God rebukes both racial purity for the sake of itself as well as humanity coming together under a false unity, as is often expressed in the refrain “one race, the human race” or in the desire to meld all races into one through miscegenation.

Thus, we can see that God desired the division of the human race through the dispersal of Noah’s descendants across the earth. Through this dispersal, God generated the wide variety of races that we see today. Noah’s descendants attempted to have racial unity without God. They failed to obey God’s commandment to spread throughout the earth and subdue it.

Chapters 10 & 11 of Genesis clearly exhibit the interchangeability between the words race (translated from genos) and nation (translated from ethnos).

Remember the days of old, Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; Your elders, and they will tell you: When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, When He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.
(Deuteronomy 32:7-8)

In addition to expressing the importance of maintaining a connection with our ancestors, these verses show that God both separated the sons of Adam into different peoples and established their borders.

He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings…
(Acts 17:26)

This is a New Testament reiteration of what was just described in Deuteronomy 32. Though we all distantly share a common blood with our first father Adam, God created distinct nations, or races, and appointed them a time and space on earth.

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb…(Revelation 7:9)

Here in Christ’s revelation, we can see that nations are immortal. Their distinctions persist into eternity. When we pass on, our essential identities, such as our race, are not completely obliterated, but glorified in the Heavenly Kingdom.

This small sample of Holy Scripture shows that “race” and “nation” are both synonymous and real categories of kinship which God intentionally created.

In Christ’s time there were many peoples already existing on earth, occupying various territories, speaking various languages, and warring with one another. Was their appearance merely a historical accident? The words of the Bible about the “nations thou has made” answer this question in the negative; the existence of peoples was part of the plan of creation, forming part of God’s design for the world.
— Alexander Solzhenitzyn, From Under The Rubble

“NATION” AND “RACE” IN HISTORY

Though we can’t peer beyond what we have in the writings of history, we can easily intuit that ever since his creation, man has undoubtedly recognized the real biological diversity that God instituted within the human race — the race of Adam. Apart from what is written in scripture, some of the earliest recorded examples of humans differentiating peoples into ethnicities comes from Egyptian texts. The first is The Great Hymn to the Aten, a poetic composition from the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten (c. 1353–1336 BC).

Beautifully echoing what is said of God’s creation in Deuteronomy and Acts, the text reads…

You set every man in his place;

You supply their needs;

Every one has his food,

And his time of life is reckoned.

Their tongues are separate in speech,

And their natures as well;

Their skins are different,

For you make different the foreigners.

A second Egyptian text, the Book of Gates (c. 1550–1070 BC), describes Horus presiding over sixteen figures grouped into four sets of four men each, representing the four primary “races” or peoples of the known world according to Egyptians:

- Reth (Egyptians, depicted as light-skinned with straight black hair).

- Aamu (Asiatics or “Sand-dwellers” from the east and northeast, shown with yellowish skin and beards).

- Nehesu (Nubians or other African peoples from the south, portrayed as dark-skinned with short curly hair).

- Themehu (Libyans or fair-skinned northern desert dwellers from the west, illustrated as light-skinned with tattoos or feathers in their hair).

Herodotus in his Histories (426-415 BC) describes in great detail the history and peoples of the world known to the classical Greeks.

Colchians had remembrance of the Egyptians more than the Egyptians of the Colchians; but the Egyptians said they believed that the Colchians were a portion of the army of Sesostris. That this was so I conjectured myself not only because they are dark-skinned and have curly hair (this of itself amounts to nothing, for there are other races which are so), but also still more because the Colchians, Egyptians, and Ethiopians alone of all the races of men have practised circumcision from the first.

The sexual intercourse of all these Indians of whom I have spoken is open like that of cattle, and they have all one colour of skin, resembling that of the Ethiopians: moreover the seed which they emit is not white like that of other races, but black like their skin; and the Ethiopians also are similar in this respect.

This nation also is very averse to adopting strange customs, rejecting even those of other tribes among themselves, but especially those of the Hellenes, as the history of Anacharsis and also afterwards of Skyles proved.

The Budinoi are a very great and numerous race, and are all very blue-eyed and fair of skin: and in their land is built a city of wood, the name of which is Gelonos.

In Tacitus’ Germania (98 AD), he describes the Germanic race as being “pure” due to their exceptionally distinct appearance.

As to the Germans themselves, I think it probable that they are indigenous and that very little foreign blood has been introduced either by invasions or by friendly dealings with neighbouring peoples...

The name Germania, however, is said to have been only recently applied to the country. The first people to cross the Rhine and appropriate Gallic territory, though they are known nowadays as Tungri, were at that time called Germani; and what was at first the name of this one tribe, not of the entire race, gradually came into general use in the wider sense. It was first applied to the whole people by the conquerors of the Gauls, to frighten them...

For myself, I accept the view that the peoples of Germany have never contaminated themselves by intermarriage with foreigners but remain of pure blood, distinct and unlike any other nation. One result of this is that their physical characteristics, in so far as one can generalize about such a large population, are always the same: fierce-looking blue eyes, reddish hair, and big frames - which, however, can exert their strength only by means of violent effort. They are less able to endure toil or fatiguing tasks and cannot bear thirst or heat, though their climate has inured them to cold spells and the poverty of their soil to hunger.

The Gothic History of Jordanes (550 AD) is a trove of historical and ethnographic detail about the various nations of Europe and their common lineage.

Now we have recited the origin of the Goths, the noble line of the Amali and the deeds of brave men. This glorious race yielded to a more glorious prince and surrendered to a more valiant leader.

Now from this island of Scandza, as from a hive of races or a womb of nations, the Goths are said to have come forth long ago under their king, Berig by name.

The Dani, who trace their origin to the same stock, drove from their homes the Heruli, who lay claim to preëminence among all the nations of Scandza for their tallness.

These people [...] though off-shoots from one stock, have now three names, that is, Venethi, Antes and Sclaveni.

Saint Isidore of Seville (600-625 AD), in his Etymologie, examines the roots and meanings of various words, a few of which being “family”, “nation”, and “race”.

“Family“ comes from the word “loins” (femur), for a race of people and its lineage appear from their ancestral loins (femur).

A nation (gens) is a number of people sharing a single origin, or distinguished from another nation (natio) in accordance with its own grouping, as the “nations” of Greece or of Asia Minor. From this comes the term “shared heritage” (gentilitas). The word gens is also so called on account of the generations (generatio) of families, that is from “begetting” (gignere, ppl. genitus), as the term “nation” (natio) comes from “being born” (nasci, ppl. natus).

A “race“ (genus) is so called from begetting (gignere, ppl. genitus) and procreating (progenerare), or from the delimiting of particular descendants (prognatus), as are nations (natio) that, delimited by their own kinships, are called “stocks of people” (gens).

In St. Boniface’s Letter to King Ethelbald of the Angles (written in 737 AD), the English are referred to as a distinct race when the saint advises Ethelbald that there must be repentance of chronic, collective sin because it imperils the longevity of the nation and its homeland. He mentions other European races as examples to prove his point.

Consider also this: if the race of the English, as we have been told happens in Gaul and Italy and even among pagans, abandons lawful marriages and falls into adultery, a race born of such unions will become lazy and contemptuous of God. With corrupted morals, it will ruin its homeland — just as happened to the Burgundians, the Provençals, and the Spaniards, whom the Saracens oppressed for many years because of their [collective] past sins.

Saint Bede the Venerable, in his History of the English People, written in 731 AD, describes the various nations of the British Isles according to their ancestry. In recounting the recurring victories of the Picts and Scots over the Britons, Saint Bede first differentiates these peoples in Book 1 when he refers to the former as “savage nations” and “foreign races” to the Brits.

Whereupon they suffered many years from the sudden invasions of two very savage nations from beyond the sea, the Scots from the west, and the Picts from the north…Hereupon messengers were again sent to Rome miserably imploring aid, lest their wretched country should be utterly blotted out, and the name of a Roman province, so long renowned among them, overthrown by the cruelties of foreign races…

Himself a member of the Anglo-Saxon race, St Bede’s native language was Old English, but he wrote this history of the British Isles in Latin. In the English translation, the word “race” is derived from St Bede’s usage of the Latin word “gens” which appears repeatedly throughout the text. It is most notably used in the title, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum.

Thus, it is clear when Saint Bede speaks of the Britons, Picts, Scots, Romans, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, he is referring to separate races that are distinguished by their respective bloodlines.

Dispelling any false notions that “race” is a mistranslation, or that he is not referring to distinct bloodlines, he describes these peoples based on their descent.

Those who came over were of the three most powerful nations of Germany - Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. From the Jutes are descended the people of Kent, and of the Isle of Wight, including those in the province of the West-Saxons who are to this day called Jutes, seated opposite to the Isle of Wight. From the Saxons, that is, the country which is now called Old Saxony, came the East-Saxons, the South-Saxons, and the West-Saxons. From the Angles, that is, the country which is called Angulus, and which is said, from that time, to have remained desert to this day, between the provinces of the Jutes and the Saxons, are descended the East-Angles, the Midland-Angles, the Mercians, all the race of the Northumbrians, that is, of those nations that dwell on the north side of the river Humber, and the other nations of the Angles.

The first commanders are said to have been the two brothers Hengist and Horsa. Of these Horsa was afterwards slain in battle by the Britons, and a monument, bearing his name, is still in existence in the eastern parts of Kent. They were the sons of Victilsus, whose father was Vitta, son of Vecta, son of Woden; from whose stock the royal race of many provinces trace their descent. In a short time, swarms of the aforesaid nations came over into the island, and the foreigners began to increase so much, that they became a source of terror to the natives themselves who had invited them.

Of Pope Saint Gregory, Saint Bede says…

He was by nation a Roman, son of Gordianus, tracing his descent from ancestors that were not only noble, but religious…

Saint Gregory was also struck by the distinct appearance of the English race when he happened upon a boy who belonged to the Anglo nation. Saint Bede recounts the following story.

Nor must we pass by in silence the story of the blessed Gregory, handed down to us by the tradition of our ancestors, which explains his earnest care for the salvation of our nation. It is said that one day, when some merchants had lately arrived at Rome, many things were exposed for sale in the market place, and much people resorted thither to buy: Gregory himself went with the rest, and saw among other wares some boys put up for sale, of fair complexion, with pleasing countenances, and very beautiful hair. When he beheld them, he asked, it is said, from what region or country they were brought? and was told, from the island of Britain, and that the inhabitants were like that in appearance. He again inquired whether those islanders were Christians, or still involved in the errors of paganism, and was informed that they were pagans. Then fetching a deep sigh from the bottom of his heart, “Alas! what pity,” said he, “that the author of darkness should own men of such fair countenances; and that with such grace of outward form, their minds should be void of inward grace.” He therefore again asked, what was the name of that nation? and was answered, that they were called Angles. “Right!” said he, “for they have an angelic face, and it is meet that such should be co-heirs with the Angels in heaven. What is the name of the province from which they are brought?” It was replied, that the natives of that province were called Deiri. “Truly are they De ira,” said he, “saved from wrath, and called to the mercy of Christ. How is the king of that province called?” They told him his name was Aelli; and he, playing upon the name, said, “Allelujah, the praise of God the Creator must be sung in those parts.”

From this sample of texts alone, a small lot compared to the breadth of extant historical Origo gentis work, we can see that the reality of race, and its synonymity with “nation”, was articulated well before the 17th century.

It may be put forth that the modern definition of biological race is different from that of the historic usage of the word. It’s often said that “race” was used in place of our modern usage of “ethnicity”. This is based on the false notion that the historical understanding of ethnicity would match that of today’s. Today’s sociologists describe ethnicity as being defined by “place, not race”. As we can see from the texts just reviewed, our ancient historians were explicitly describing people groups who owe their distinctions to their unique lineages. Lineages are created via sexual reproduction and familial kinship. This is biological. So, “today’s definition of biological race” is not at odds with the historical understanding of race. Race is a word which can be used to describe different strata of kinship. Because of globalization, vastly different people groups encounter one another. When this occurs, race is forced to most commonly define peoples based on broader genetic kinship.
Compared to any intra-European diversity, and when placed in close proximity, the phenotypic and genotypic differences between the broader racial groups steal the show.

Merely establishing this historical synonymity is not enough to convince creedal nationalists out of their modern definition of “nation”.

They would likely concede the historical argument and move on to saying “So what? We are not beholden to the past. Words and their usage are fluid.”
This statement ultimately works against itself. If it’s all arbitrary, there is no sound argument against reasserting the historic definition of “nation”.

The creedal nation concept will be thoroughly addressed in a future article that discusses the American race, specifically.

Thinking, and acting, as though a nation is nothing more than a civic membership, effectively supplants, in our minds, the existence and significance of the European race within its homelands.

Having a deeper understanding of nationality and race helps us to rediscover and reassert ourselves as the ethnos which produced the United States. Our worldviews are shaped by our relationship with words and their meanings. You can more easily kill a race of people after you’ve convinced them they don’t exist. If we know ourselves as a nation, we can preserve ourselves. You cannot adequately protect that which you cannot identify.

DISENTANGLING NATIONS

If we are shaped, in some part, by words and how we understand them, then we are shaped by our understanding and usage of the word “nation”.

Words are the very stuff of thought. It follows then that a common language does imply a common mental outlook in its speakers. It not only reflects but also conditions ways of thinking peculiar to the users of the tongue in question.
— V. Gordon Childe, The Aryans

As stated before, “nation” has become colloquially conflated with “nation-state”, “body politic”, and “citizenry”. Our inclusive definition of the word, and its divorce from blood kinship, is but a piece of this anti-civilizational worldview that suggests the member of any race can legally enjoin themselves to our “nation” without consequence. These newcomers are also seen as having equal societal import to the founding stock. The conflation with mere geographic, administrative bodies has stripped the word of its very root — “natio” (to be born). The semblance of the word remains while its substance has been erased in the minds of Europeans. This conflation runs in tandem with, and owes its colloquialism, to individualism, enlightenment philosophy, blank slatism, and the concept of creedal nationalism. The significance of the White, European races within their respective civilizations has been diluted and forgotten. What’s more, the European races which built these civilizations, that are now being flooded with foreigners, are increasingly castigated and martyred for their ethnos and its historic association with Christendom. This new worldview is especially pernicious within the younger European nations: American, Canadian, and Australian. If we are convinced that our nation never had an identity based on upon racial kinship, then we cannot possibly know ourselves, nor can we strongly advocate for our people remaining demographically predominant within our homeland. Our people, and the ties which bind us, are not imaginary.

The concept and institution of the nation-state is often confused with the more foundational reality of the nation. Those who oppose nationalism often cite it as being a novel sentiment originating alongside the Westphalian European nation-states — suggesting that, like a political system, the nation is a social construct or an “imagined community”. The nation-state, however, is derived from, and acts in service of, this foundational ethnos. Ideally, the state would be the natural expression of the nation’s will. Before the Treaty of Westphalia, intra-European relationships and jurisdictional boundaries were more complex, numerous, and overlapping. The peace of Westphalia ushered in the idea of states possessing more independent sovereignty within their own territories. This centralization of power within larger European territories allowed for the coalescing of this complex patchwork of separate, but similar, folk. The nation-state can, as a political technique, produce larger nations out of many smaller, genetically similar nations that are spiritually disunited.

Sadly, over the course of the last century, our nation-states have promoted ethnic and racial heterogeneity, against the wishes of their foundational peoples. Pervasive diversity and individualism within a state will pressure its citizenry into using a more inclusive definition for the word “nation”.

The historic definition of “nation” has better explanatory power than its modern definition, because it is more precise and true to its very root. It can sufficiently describe the contours of our broader familial relationship.

It’s not a grave sin to use “nation” in a civic sense when in casual conversation. This has become natural. It rolls off the tongue much better than “state” or “government”.

We do, however, need to have a better understanding of our country’s composition and the elements within it that result in discord. While homogenous civilizations are healthier forms of organization, states and governments can be composed of many disparate nations that are either cooperating or competing. These types of states are essentially empires — as in the case of the United States and the United Kingdom. This was also true of the Roman Empire.

We ought to conceptually and linguistically differentiate the unique nations from the states in which they reside, so that we may, in appreciation for our ancestors, better preserve the uniqueness of our people.

A state, or empire, is not a nation.

Intellectuals tend to forget that nations hibernate, but empires grow old. The American nation will outlast the Atlantic Empire as the Russian nation will outlast the Soviet Empire.
— Regis Debray

THE NATION AS A CATEGORY OF FAMILY

A nation is a group of people who share a common blood and spirit. From these two elements, and their interaction with a shared soil, emerge a shared language and culture — all of our unique expressions of life.

A nation in a real sense is an extended family. The merging process through which all nations pass is not merely cultural, but to a considerable extent biological through intermarriage.
— Peter Brimelow

Because we are social creatures, our identities are defined by relation.

The different concentric circles of relation may be described as follows.

INDIVIDUAL — You are in the center of a series of concentric circles of relation. Regardless of your personal feelings or knowledge of these relations, you are bound to them. You are not a mere individual. You are the culmination of all your ancestors — their blood, sweat, sacrifices, virtues, and vices. Without their collective existence, and their cooperation with God, you would not be.

FAMILY — You are born into a family. A mother and father sired you. You have grandparents and great-grandparents. Whether or not any of these figures are present, their blood shapes yours. You take on their appearance, mannerisms, and ways of thinking. The strongest level of relation is with your immediate family. The strongest relationship possible is with an identical twin.

CLAN — A clan is your extended family — cousins (1st, 2nd, 3rd), aunts, and uncles. It is the group of people and their surnames which surround you and your surname.

FOLK — A folk is the regional people group you were born and raised within. A regional folk possesses their own local characteristics which are distinguishable from the other parts of the nation, while all of the parts unite to form a national whole. Some superficial characteristics would include accent, foods, local folklore, slang, hobbies, etc. Examples of different American folk: PNW, SE American, SW American, New Englander, Midwesterner. You can break the broadest folks down into smaller subcategories before you reach the level of clan.

NATION — A larger nation is formed when all of these folk (mini-nations in and of themselves) unite themselves as one. This union is founded upon, and reinforced by, blood, soil, history, and spirit.

RACE — Beyond this, you move into broader levels of familial relation, but which possess decreasing levels of devotion and allegiance. Because the word race describes a group of people who share a common ancestor, it is multivalent. You could use “race” to describe each subcategory of relation (family, clan, folk, nation). You could refer to the entirety of humanity as the “human race” because of our first ancestor Adam. Some of these broader levels beyond nation would include Anglo-Saxon, Germanic/Scandinavian, NW European, European (what we mean when we say “White”).

BLOOD, SOIL, AND SPIRIT

Each aspect of a nation’s tripartite structure influences the other aspects in an intimate way. Our character is, in large part, passed down by the blood: our temperament, proclivities, strengths, weaknesses, ways of thinking. The spirit is bound to, and emerges from, this blood. If our spirit has no love or reverence for the blood, it may corrupt it over generations through unrighteousness or irresponsible miscegenation. If the spirit honors the blood, and its embedded memory, it may be preserved well over time.

The likeness of your forefathers, and their genetic memory, is manifested in you — their monument living within this age. You honor your forefathers and foremothers by bestowing this inheritance, beautified and untarnished, upon your children. The blood is not an idol, but a treasure which possesses under-appreciated significance.

The health of the blood is shaped by the soil — the land and its climate. The character of the land will alter, and imprint itself upon, the blood of the people rooted therein. It will likewise provide rewards, challenges, musings, and inspiration for the spirit. Much of our culture, and ways of living, are affected by the character of the land in which our race is rooted. The soil, and its health, are likewise sculpted by our blood and spirit. Are we good stewards? Do we cooperate and understand our land, or do we rape and defile it? Do we compromise the very soil our roots depend upon? Many nations have snuffed themselves from the earth for failing to understand the honor and care owed to God’s good creation.

Just as we each, as individual humans, possess a spirit, so too does the nation. By the grace of God, all of our spirits coalesce together as one, forming an identifiable national spirit, from which emerges all of the unique expressions of national life. It is the mystical aspect which becomes more tangible through culture: language, religion, writing, crafts, music, painting, dance, temperament, virtues, vices, folklore, history, etc. If our national spirit is aimed toward God, via His revelation to the human heart, our culture becomes enlivened and enriched — made manifest through its particular beauties.

Additionally, according to the Orthodox Christian Church, each nation and race is assigned a guardian angel for their intercession. The angelic order of “Principalities” are named thus because they have command over the lower angels, directing them to the fulfillment of divine orders. It is entrusted to them the management of the universe and the keeping of all the kingdoms and princedoms, of lands, and of all peoples. Kingdoms, races, and peoples have for themselves a special, deeper manager from the heavenly order called the principalities, to intercede on behalf of all their country before God.

…death occurs when the soul departs the body, after which the body begins to decompose. So it is with nations… when a nation loses the love and loyalty of its people, the nation dies and begins to decompose.
— Patrick Buchanan, The Death of the West

If a people wish to preserve themselves as a nation, it is essential that they continue to see themselves as one. A group of people can share a common blood, soil, history, and spirit, but if these people begin to diverge from one another, into two or more disagreeable spirits, over a long enough time period, the commonalities in blood, history, culture, and language will likewise diverge until you could not reasonably classify these drifting people groups as a concordant whole. They would retain traits common to one another because of their shared blood, but the drift would likely expand the dissimilarities over time unless some event reunited their divorced spirits.

For example, the U.S. Civil War could have resulted, over a long enough time period, in a complete bifurcation of the American nation. The North and South, saw themselves as wholly different in spirit — and they truly did, and still do, have different dispositions — but the nation was retained through these brothers reconciling these differences. As bitter and cruel as reconstruction may have been for the Southern portion of our race, they eventually saw themselves as being united in a national spirit with their northern kin. The U.S. Civil War was a war between brothers, just as siblings quarrel within immediate families. Brothers typically reconcile with one another, but at their worst, feuds may cause brothers to forsake one another despite their connection via blood.

The differences in character between North and South, East and West, don’t run counter to our definition of “nation” because there exists different levels of relation within a single nation. As stated above, these regions would constitute your regional “folk”. The people of these more local folks unite themselves with the spirit of the whole — the higher category of the nation.

The aspect of the nation which is most separable is the soil, but it comes with great difficulty once the separation occurs. Just as a tree becomes stressed once it is pulled from its native soil and transplanted elsewhere, so too is the nation in a “stressed” state once it has become displaced or migratory.

Land is a nation’s basis for existence. The nation has its roots like those of a tree deep in the country’s soil whence it derives its nourishment and life. There is no people that can live without land, as there is no tree that can live hanging in the air. A nation which has no land of its own cannot live unless it settles on the land of another nation — on its very body, sapping its sustenance.
— Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

As is the case with the Jewish nation, it is possible for a people to retain their nation without a particular soil, but it is very difficult. The spirit of a soilless nation must be very strong in order to retain national life, and, as Codreanu stated above, the diasporic nation must sap the sustenance from lands which are not its own. It is not for nothing that despite their present, diasporic condition, the Jews emerged from a common soil thousands of years ago and fervently lay claim to this original land. They understand how vital land is to a nation.

In For My Legionaries, Corneliu Codreanu goes on to beautifully explicate how a nation possesses a tripartite structure and is not purely temporal, but immortal.

When we say the Romanian nation, we mean not only all Romanians living in the same territory, sharing the same past and the same future, the same dress, but all Romanians, alive and dead, who have lived on this land from the beginning of history and will live here also in the future.

The nation includes…

1. All the Romanians presently alive,

2. All the souls of our dead and the tombs of our ancestors,

3. All those who will be born Romanians. A people becomes conscious of itself when it attains the consciousness of the whole, not only of its own aims.

The nation possesses:
A physical, biological patrimony - her flesh and blood.
A material patrimony - the soil of her country and its riches.
A spiritual patrimony which contains: Her concept of God, the world, and life… Her honor… and Her culture…

It is worth reiterating that the national spirit isn’t a subjective, propositional element like a civic creed. The spirit is inseparably bound to the blood of a nation, just as the soul is inseparably bound to our individual body. Blood and the transcendent spirit together produce the expressions of culture. A civic creed is the product of these two elements working together. It is not their substitute.

IMMORTAL STREAMS

A common argument put forward to counter national or racial identity is as follows…

All populations, and their blood, are mixed and ever-changing. Therefore, it is impossible to define and preserve something which is, by nature, fluid and impermanent. If all peoples throughout history mixed their bloods with disparate groups and immigrated to foreign lands, then it is worthless and arbitrary to identify with an impure, impermanent nation and lay claim to a particular land.

As stated before, nations, like the individual people who constitute them, are immortal, not merely temporal. That their status may change here on earth, says nothing of whether or not they are valuable or worth the effort of preservation. It is not irrational to invest in that which is eternal.

Even if nations and races were merely temporal, what is the argument against identifying with something which is temporary, especially if how temporary it is depends upon your appreciation for it? This would be akin to saying that you “shouldn’t identify with and care for your immediate family because they’re going to change and die anyway” or “because someone else will eventually occupy your house, you shouldn’t protect it and you might as well just let it fall into disarray”. It is a fact that blood, language, and the location of people do change over periods of time, but this reality does not prohibit responsibility or attempts at preservation. This is a nihilistic idea which should not be taken seriously because it suggests that “because things change, nothing matters”.

The peoples, and their cultures, who embellish the earth, would not exist if they did not see themselves as a group worth preserving.

This pessimistic idea is reinforced by a fallacy of incredulity, to say that “because I cannot comprehend the various races and ethnos, they must not exist.” The difficulty in defining something which is fluid and compound, does not prevent the definition or comprehension of such a thing — especially if its fluidity is overstated, as in the case of race. Nor is it irrational to identify with that which is complex. The genetic and cultural composition of a given nation may not be entirely simple, but it is understandable. For example, it would be erroneous to say that “because color gradients exist, we cannot identify discrete colors”. The existence of a color between red and blue does not disprove the existence of said colors. If you wish to retain the “redness” of a red paint, it would not be in your interest to mix it with other colors. If you think of races in this manner, then you’re able to better understand how their mixing would reduce or completely eliminate the respective races being mixed. If you have red paint and blue paint, and mix them, you have purple as a product. You cannot undo the mixture and recover red or blue. Their unique characteristics are lost and muddied within the new product. Some of the characteristics are still present within purple but you will never see pure blue or pure red again. “Pure” races may be defined as those that are true to their present state or composition by practicing strict endogamy.

Genetic information, like the blood which carries it, indeed has a fluidity at the scale beyond the individual. Mixture necessarily occurs between two genetic pools when a man and woman mate. These unique pools of genetic information mix and marry one another within a child, drawing from the distinct and limited genetic content of their blood. Our physical and behavioral traits are encoded within this pool of genetic information. Parents obviously cannot bestow a trait to their child outside the possible combinations of genes in their possession. Likewise, an ethnos or race has a preponderance of genetic information unique to itself which is expressed in the phenotype and behavior of its people — which helps give rise to their unique culture. They are defined by their genetic limits and the unique content within those limits. There is intra-ethnic genetic variance but this variance is minimal when compared to inter-ethnic or inter-racial genetic variance. Blood does mix with more distant and dissimilar blood, but as stated before with the colors of paint, instances of heterogeneity do not negate large masses of greater homogeneity.

The complexity and seeming evasiveness of liquid does not prevent a hydrologist from identifying the different characteristics between separate streams of water (their turbidity, flow, salinity, nutrient composition, oxygenation, etc). So too can we define and differentiate the characteristics within the blood of different peoples.

This stream metaphor played out in reality upon the British Isles. The minutely distinct blood of Bretons, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Picts, Danes, and Normans flowed out from their respective lands, conceded their disparate spirits over time, and became consanguine upon Albion — forming a characteristically new stream of genetic information. A new race which possesses, to lesser and greater degrees, the inheritance of the races which came before. In this marriage, however, the discreteness between these peoples decreased over time — to the extent they conceded their separate bloods and spirits. Their old, distinct characters were diminished in the formation of the new. Blue and green lost something in the creation of teal — to the extent that these colors conceded themselves. Yet, these nations were not lost completely. Perfect mixture did not occur across the British isles. Clusters of people carry a preponderance of a particular ancestry, and though the character of these ancestors may not be explicit upon the present landscape, they live on implicitly within us as a composite. Their blood flows onward, and makes its mark upon us, though it is shuffled alongside the blood of its European cousins. These nations — rivers of blood flowing out from the sons of Noah — will stand before God on the day of Judgement as a gradient of men. Distinct, but similar to their closest of kin, ethnos, and race.

CONCLUSION

We have established that, historically, “nation” was a synonym for “race” with greater specificity. Holy scripture refers to nations as being defined by distinct bloodlines given to particular histories and personalities. Ancient writings echo scripture, where we read about the peoples of different lineages and the distinct phenotypes those lineages produce. Because it is the bloodline which gives rise to the phenotype, physical appearance and behavior are good indicators for how genetically dissimilar two people are. The severe genotypic and phenotypic dissimilarities between broader categories of race take precedence over intra-racial variation in the age of globalization. The word “nation” became conflated with “state” with this increase in globalization and individualism — creating a social pressure to paradigmatically unify discordant parts within multi-racial, atomized societies. This conflation, however, gutted the very meaning of the word “nation” and, in parallel, gutted our understanding of the national & racial identity essential to our very being. The historic definition of the word appropriately captures the reality of God’s creation and our relationship with the more distant categories of the extended family. This familial relationship is much deeper than governing bodies and political regimes. These concentric circles of relation are storehouses for your genetic and ethno-spiritual inheritance. Nation, as a category of race, is blood, soil, and spirit. The reality of mixtures, and the complexity therein, does not disprove the existence of distinct peoples. Like metallic alloys, the composition of a nation’s blood determines its unique properties. If the English people of today are an alloy of the Brythonic, Celtic, and Germanic stocks of Northwestern Europe, the American people are, likewise, a racial alloy of Northwestern Europeans — displaying these characteristics to the degree of their proportion within the blood.

Your nation is unalterably imbued into your being at birth.