I believe the success of a country is downstream of culture. And when it comes to preserving an existing culture that has worked for a long time, size does matter.

I have great affection for Switzerland, not least because that’s where I met my wife, but because of how they managed to strike a good balance between direct and representative democracy and federal vs local power.

I admire how through the referendum system, the Swiss people have the final say and can veto legislation that they believe is unjust. It’s quite the safeguard from tyranny.

But critical to their success is not merely their form of government, but Swiss culture itself, and one element of preserving that culture is the size of the country.

Some movements like Tinyism or micro-nationalism are in favor of postage stamp sized countries but I think that is going too far. You can build up a country that has diversity in it, as long as what binds them together is preserved.

And culture is not simply as cliché as a nation’s cuisine but goes to very practical matters like having clean streets. The reason why in some countries urinating on the street is ok.

It comes down to culture, and culture comes down to families, and most importantly to mothers as they are the ones who “lay down the law in the hearts of a child” as it says in the Bible.

Such as how you respectfully address an adult. For example, one of the lessons I learned from my mother early on is that if I ever responded to any adult with a “huh” or a “what”, I would be promptly reminded that saying “Yes?” is how I’m right way to respond to an adult.

So clearly culture is important, but as Terrence McKenna often said “culture is not your friend” meaning a sick culture makes being healthy seem like a bad thing.