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James D. Russell's avatar

Awesome article, Lucas. I really enjoyed this one. What stood out most was your idea that we don’t have to inherit the grudges of our ancestors, and that America and Israel can build their relationship around the shared values you talked about.

I also appreciated how honest you were about your own past and how you came to see things differently. That makes the argument much more powerful. Really thought-provoking piece. You are a good honest man, and that is why we love you!

Aaron's avatar

Aristotle defined the state as a collection of individuals united around the pursuit of the highest Good, or a noble ideal.

This sounds very much like your "ethostate" - not the "proposition nation", which is a gentleman's agreement to maintain certain rules so that everyone can get along with the business of making money, but deep shared values that genuinely unite people on the basis of a common vision of what is noble in life.

Ethnicity and race may play a part in this, but it cannot on its own unite a nation - Germany and England, last I checked, were not always united in loving harmony - only a shared noble vision, a shared transcendent vision, can unite a rabble into a nation, and it may well be composed of diverse ethnic strands, as we see in modern Israel.

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