As Berlin writes, in his reproach to the historians Edward Gibbon and Arnold...

As Berlin writes, in his reproach to the historians Edward Gibbon and Arnold Toynbee, "nations" and "civilizations," while they exist, are not as "concrete" as the individuals who embody them.6 Individuals not only count morally to a greater extent than groups, but the very existence of the former is not inherently problematic like that of the latter. Groups, civilizations, and other mass human assemblages are either artificially constructed to some degree or other {by nationalist ideologues, for example}, or in any case are not so clear-cut as they seem, owing to the subtle and not-so-subtle influences upon them of other groups and civilizations over considerable stretches of time. And yet

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