The concept of Free Will: as applied to the arbitrary nature of the Nation State

Some introductory food for thought...

"Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will."

  - Jawaharlal Nehru

"History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads. People get the history they deserve."

  - Charles de Gaulle 

"A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it.

  - Aldous Huxley

The perpetual origins of the Nations State as a cumulative result? 

Since the dawn of even the earliest of human tribes, it is fair to say that the nature of man has been a perpetual state of partition between groups of often different cultures, methods and identities, and as the development, inter alia, of the human mind has progressed, therefor, so did tribalism into larger, more hierarchically structures of civilisation. Borders, for the most part, have arrived from a long and uncertain culmination of events that has created the present state of them, not from an arbitrary will, or an isolated event of a random drawing up of lines, but by a slow and endless process that will never be grounded eternally. And, though evidently the concept of borders and territory has plagued the minds of tyrants into wars, despotism and empires, I do not believe this is something innately characteristic of the concept of borders itself, but a manifestation from the extremity of ignorance and egotism. Rather, I believe in the idea that all things have numerous possible manifestations when applied by man, along a form of spectrum, say, of positive to negative or good to evil. As an example, take the knife or the blade; it can be a tool utilised by man for the chopping of food, the ploughing of fields or the carving of other tools, or even art. By that same token, it can be used in malevolent ways, for killing, to threaten or to wage wars. This idea applies to all things that come into contact with man, and concerning the concept of borders, their negative manifestation being frontiers, colonies, and empires. These are manifestations of ignorance, egotism and power, whereas, their positive manifestations would be that of the Nation State, citizenship, culture and pride. These are of an environment to free people from ignorance, away from war and monarchy, however, of course, the Nation State is still liable to corruption and other ills as all things are, but that is for a separate essay. Simply, my introductory point is that few things are innately good or evil, but many, like borders, lie along a spectrum of manifestations. 

The end of contingency at the beginning of hierarchical civilisation? 

My purpose in this essay is to explore the concept of free will as it applies to the argument surrounding borders and to whether their nature is truly arbitrary or not. In reality, in my opinion at least, I believe there can only be two extremes in this, that being the fundamental theoretical divide between a belief the human capability for free will, or a disbelief in it, characteristic of determinism. This divide will be fundamental in exploring the nature of borders as they are a product of human activity, of which can be viewed with the lenses of these two perspectives, and all depending upon which you choose to give credence to, will give what is and what can only be your subjective answer to whether the concept of borders are truly random and arbitrary (not necessarily unnecessary) or whether they are a product of the human free will and therefor not random (but not necessarily necessary). To make the argument that borders are truly a product of the human free will and are therefor not a completely random product of fatalistic events throughout history, I will use the development of hierarchical civilisations corresponding to the growth of the human mind for deeper intellect and understanding. It is true to state that in man's development there reached a stage where factions of humanity emerged from a state of tribalism and into more complex organisations of society, which, in turn, required more complex behaviour and a capacity for thought, especially if one was to rise amongst these hierarchical forms. In the application of this historical understanding towards borders it is also not untrue to state that those in the authority to direct the course of frontiers and empires in early civilisation where among the higher strata of society, and to a degree would require a greater capacity to act out their free will in this often more complex strata, either to attain such a position (if not inherited) or to maintain it. Therefor, those directing the creation and expansion of borders where acting out their free will, thus, whether their motives where immoral or not, still had cause and rationale, and where then inherently not arbitrary. 

Determinism in human activity meaning borders are truly arbitrary? 

As I previously stated, that in this argument I believe there can only be two extremes of thought, i.e. a capacity for human free will translating to a refute of randomness in borders, and here I will explore the opposite theoretical explanation concerning borders. If human activity is truly deterministic, meaning there is no free will involved, but only an illusion of it, where activity is merely a reactionary process to immediate or cumulative stimuli, then that therefor entails that those who have acted out a fatalistic will in empires and frontiers have simply done so on a basis of random events to which all men are passive in reception to, thus meaning the state of borders as they have ever existed are truly arbitrary. Though I do place credence in the idea that people can live their lives in a deterministic way, especially if kept in a state of 'meta-sleep' if you will, I do not believe that those who have had the ability to rise to the highest strata of society in which they are able to direct the course frontiers, were or are driven by fatalistic and deterministic impulses, but ones of a more calculated kind, which as I have explored, then infers that the nature of borders are not at all random, but then again, I could just be talking a bunch of theoretical gibberish...

 - an essay by FabiusSideman