Tim Bray makes some interesting points about the abstraction of Nations. I can generally agree with him on most of it.
But there’s one thing that I think is important: just because our families and friends are more important to us than our countries, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t contribute to our country as a whole. We should help to make it as good a place as we can, since it is within our reach.
From there, our country (government and national organisations) should help other countries. The notion of “doing good” could potentially be distributed well across this abstraction.
Of course, that’s never the way it works. Maybe it’s late and I’m tired, maybe I’m just dreaming, but maybe we could use these arbitary systems to help others in other arbitary systems.