During war the indivisibility of a nation is considered necessary for its survival. Even during brief intervals of peace the United States pledge of allegiance is to one nation indivisible under an indivisible personal god.
An indivisible nation is an invisible nation, for once we proceed to analyze it, it falls apart into its various attributes. Much to the chagrin of absolutists, those attributes might be nations unto themselves, having disagreement in the differences among them. What is required by higher authority is the unconditional love for the nation regardless of its predicates - united, we stand, divided, we fall. But when we deduct the national predicates to find the nature of the being we are to love, we find nothing, at least nothing visible.
The indivisible nation has its being in negation. It cannot stand anything in contrast to it, and would negate all differences in the absolute equality of its love. That is, the indivisible nation loves to hate differences to it both within and without. Its hate becomes most visible in the violent divisiveness of war. The unconditional love of the indivisible nation demands absolute, unconditional obedience; not only is it the negation of definite groups of people, but also of the definite, independent individual.
In the final analysis the nation is not a thing but is an abstraction that cannot be seen except in name or in the awful truth that it does not exist as such. Therefore, lest we be discouraged and lose our faith in our indivisible nation, we should refrain from looking around for some concrete evidence of its existence: "Don't bother", we are told by authority, "for what can be seen perishes and is subject to illusion, but the indivisible nation is unseen and eternal, therefore ye must have patriotic faith." If we do bother to scrutinize the vague and ambiguous concept of national indivisibility, the veil falls and we see particular human beings whose motives are no more divine than the instincts of apes. No, the reality of the indivisible nation must not be questioned, for then we would have no metaphysical ground to stand on, and even worse, no land of our own!
Nevertheless, as responsible citizens and lovers of universal truth, people have at least some small duty to courageously analyze the nation without fear that their analysis will leave them without a leg to stand on. We might assume that an indivisible nation exists in some other form than an empty word or incomprehensible nothingness, and then beat around the bushes to see what sort of game we come up with. We shall probably arrive at the conclusion embedded in our premises.
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