Like, the only reason countries exist is because some rich guys decided that they ruled this chunk of land, and everyone else just kinda said “Yeah, whatever, I don’t really give a shit, just let me farm and leave me the fuck alone”.
Then the rich guy on the next bit of land said “I want a bit of what he’s got going on”, and before we knew it, all the bits of land were ruled by people who’s only claim to them was that they were the first to have the idea.
Fast forward a few thousand years, and some of the bits of land are ruled by people who wear gold hats and spout a load of bollocks about divine right, while some of the bits of land are ruled by people who convinced the rest of the people to let them do it, and really, there’s no difference between, like, France and Spain, but some old dudes drew a line and said “Nah, that bit speaks this version of a language, and that bit speaks another version of it”.
You ever think about that?
you’ve explained why borders exist at all, but their current configuration is still arbitrary and mutable and that’s part of the point. we’re watching right now in Ukraine proof that, with sufficient blood and treasure, anyone is capable of looking at the current configuration of borders and saying “nope!”. We watched it happen in 2016 too, when Russia bit off Donetsk and most of the world acted like the new borders were actually the correct borders for all of history and that the theft by violence of huge chunks of land was us just helping transition to the natural state of things. When this war ends and the dust settles between Ukraine and Russia we will treat those borders as though they are ordained by god, too, even though we just watched them change.