Get rich, or die trying?

I had an interesting conversation in a Belfast classroom last night. A debate over which leads to a better society, individualism or something more communitarian, led to the question of national purpose.

A self-identified Brit (who I think comes from somewhere in Northern Ireland) claimed that what separated the Britain of the past from other nations, like America or the Republic of Ireland, was that it used to have a sense of national purpose. A sense which, according to this individual, immigration has unfortunately undermined (I think that purpose was the expansion of empire, of which inward migration from acquired territories is a natural consequence, but that’s another debate).

Do most nations have a sense of purpose? Is there a collective vision that the modern nation state subscribes to? Would that even be a good thing? In response to those questions, someone from Limerick claimed that Ireland did indeed have a collective purpose, he just couldn’t say exactly what that was.

Another Irishman jumped in at that point. The nation’s collective purpose over the last few years, claimed Cillian, was, “Get rich, or die trying.”

50-cent would have been proud.