One thing that consistently made me uncomfortable when I lived in China was everyday nationalism. And one thing that consistently makes me uncomfortable now that I live in the USA again is everyday nationalism.

Community-level cultural solidarity I feel. Planet-scale compassion I feel. Drawing boundaries between Americans and Chinese and Italians and Tanzanians, however, doesn't make as much sense to me. I get that it's useful in lots of ways, but I don't like that it closes minds to exchange and evolution.

That said, I think Thomas Friedman made a compelling argument for nationalism over the weekend.

He thinks everyone in the world should be competing to create the energy technologies that'll lead us to a sustainable future.

He thinks Chinese nationalism has led to aggressive lawmaking, which has already become a positive force in creating that competition.

And he hopes American nationalism follows suit.

Makes me squirm a little. But you gotta love competition when the race is to the top.

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A More Perfect Market is Jake de Grazia's weblog.  He started it in January 2008 with the intention of chronicling the creation of The Carrot Project, his sustainable business focused dot com startup.  The chronicling continues, but interspersed with it are thoughts about energy, social media, and, not often enough, dinosaurs.