Wrong.
It's already happening.
Just because most (?) Brazilians don't identify with a Brazilian ethnicity doesn't mean that there aren't those that do.
That makes it an extremely useful concept.
Nationalism, modesty and airplanes in the Infinite age
- Thread starter FredLC
- Start date
Wrong.
It's already happening.
Just because most (?) Brazilians don't identify with a Brazilian ethnicity doesn't mean that there aren't those that do.
That makes it an extremely useful concept.
Narz
keeping it real
Just paste the goobledegook at the end, not the whole URL.I think maturity should lead to an increased range of emotional and behavioral possibilities, not just a shift. In other words, I never want to grow up either
Link to video.
Link to video.
Firstly, I said "stars", not "states".
Secondly, I'm not sure there's essentially much of a difference at all between those two statements you put there. Americans would say "I am proud of our constitution" because they are American. They are proud of something they had no part of, except by accident of ancestry and geography through being born in the USA.
Put this another way. Why are Americans proud of the Constitution? Because it was a modern, forward-looking, liberty-loving document written by Americans. But did they play any part in it? No. It's pretty much the same as saying, "We wrote the constitution.", even though they played no part in writing it.
I think maturity should lead to an increased range of emotional and behavioral possibilities, not just a shift. In other words, I never want to grow up either
Nice to know I'm not alone.
Tahuti
Writing Deity
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2005
- Messages
- 9,492
How so?
True. That doesn't mean the process is complete, far from it in fact.
So your definition of ethnicity is (partially) based on self-identification? Let me get this straight: My mother is ethnically Dutch and my father ethnically Jewish, but in your definition, if I were to gain Italian citizenship, speak Italian like an Italian and identify myself as an Italian, I would become an ethnic Italian?
Not more so than identifying other social groups. Ethnicities are just social groups revolving around common ancestry, just like upper class citizens are just social groups revolving around more social influence. Yes, ethnic differences have written history and continue to shape politics, but only because people actually believe ethnicity matters, not because it has intrinsic value.
aronnax
Let your spirit be free
Whoops. I typed it wrongly.
Seeing that the American Constitution is still a legally binding document that applies to the American legal system to which all Americans are subjected to, it is something applicable to them. Hence "our", a term of possession.
No, it's not by every definition of it. English is as simple as that. Saying "we" indicates participatory action. The personal achievement of an individual or individuals is not applicable to you because you didn't write it. To use "we" in that context is as simple as not understanding English.
Is it "The German Football team won the World Cup" or "We won the world Cup"?
Is it "India declared independence from the British in 1947" or "We declared independence from you in 1947"?
Is it "Obama got elected as President in 2008" or "we got elected as President in 2008"?
Is it "We are proud of our son's SATS" or "We scored my son's SATS"?
It is applicable to them, but they are only participants, rather than creators.
So then what of those cultures who are proud of their history? They played no part in it, and neither are they subjected to it. If I belong to a culture with thousands of years of rich history and which created thousands upon thousands of priceless contributions to art and science, there should be no reason for me to be proud of it just because I happen to belong to that culture.
aronnax
Let your spirit be free
Well, there is no real reason to be proud of something just because you are born into it.
In anycase, you are subjected to your people's history for it is part of your heritage and identity. That said, just because you can identity with something doesn't make you able to say "We did it".
I don't get why I have to repeat this so many times. Be proud of whatever you want. Just don't claim that you actually did it unless you somehow participated in it.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
The only exception in my far from consistent book is the first one.
If the Dutch Football team wins the World Cup.
"We won the World Cup."
If they lose
"They've lost the World Cup"
Ah but there's the flaw in the logic. Why choose to be proud of any one thing just because you're a part of that community? Why not one more so than the other? It just doesn't make sense.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Perhaps the problem is how "pride" is being understood. If pride is a feeling of accomplishment, then, yes, simply being part of a group is no reason at all to feel pride. But pride might not be a feeling of accomplishment, it might be a feeling of satisfaction or assurance, and in that case membership of a group does not seem an unreasonable basis for pride.
Slaughter
Paladin
What's up with Nationalism bashers around here?
Nationalism separates us. Separation is good. When two groups of one specie separate from each other, they often develop diferently after enough time. Such thing is good for A united humanity means that humanity would dilute into a amorphous, indefinite, boring mass of mediocrity. It would also mean no competition. It would be a slide into the end for humanity. No drive, no competition. Might as well make a collective species suicide while we are it.
Nationalism separates us. Separation is good. When two groups of one specie separate from each other, they often develop diferently after enough time. Such thing is good for A united humanity means that humanity would dilute into a amorphous, indefinite, boring mass of mediocrity. It would also mean no competition. It would be a slide into the end for humanity. No drive, no competition. Might as well make a collective species suicide while we are it.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
What's your basis for believing this?
In the 2006 Census, 31.13 per cent of Australians nominated their 'ancestry' as, umm, Australian. That means that one third of the population in a country just over a 100 years old decided to call themselves Australians by virtue of birth and not citizenship.
Yes, I don't see an issue with that. There isn't such a thing as an "Italian" race or a common "Italian" lineage. The modern Italian state wasn't even "finished" until 1866 and is still something of a work in progress. Moreover, modern Italian wasn't an organic creation, it was chosen as the national language; even the Italian ethno-construct is a pastiche of behaviours that got filtered through a bunch of regional identities and came to be accepted as being of "Italian" provenance; which taken together suggests that the Italian construct is just that and not some primordial Blut und Boden nonsense. Hell a fair number of "Italians" are still loathe to associate themselves with the Italian project and are now seeking to (re-)stress their regional identities.
Kaiserguard said:
Yes, I don't see an issue with that. There isn't such a thing as an "Italian" race or a common "Italian" lineage. The modern Italian state wasn't even "finished" until 1866 and is still something of a work in progress. Moreover, modern Italian wasn't an organic creation, it was chosen as the national language; even the Italian ethno-construct is a pastiche of behaviours that got filtered through a bunch of regional identities and came to be accepted as being of "Italian" provenance; which taken together suggests that the Italian construct is just that and not some primordial Blut und Boden nonsense. Hell a fair number of "Italians" are still loathe to associate themselves with the Italian project and are now seeking to (re-)stress their regional identities.
aronnax
Let your spirit be free
Nationalism is the compete opposite of "diversity in unity" or multiculturalism. Nationalism is often the act of believing that one's nation is superior than other other nations and thus entitled to special privileges. (Manifest Destiny, Imperialism, the entire state of Israel) Ethnic nationalism is even worse because it narrows the scope. Nationalism serves to put down others in the betterment of one's 'nation' real or imagined.
By all means, wave the flag during the Olympics and be grouchy when your country's national team loses in football, but don't start think your the best and everyone else is beneath you. If your idea of good competition is do or die, I'll rather sit out.
aronnax said:
If anything Nationalism is the single greatest destroyer of diversity in history because it represents the raising of a single suite of identifiable - national - characteristics above all others. A Frenchman must speak French; never mind that his ancestors might have spoken regional languages like Angevin or Gascon. It's boring as hell. France was cooler when bugger all people spoke French.
Maybe Italian was a particularly poor choice, but if he was to move to Korea, gain Korean citizenship, learn Korean, fully adopt Korean culture and way of life etc., would you call him ethnically Korean?
I agree with the general point that ethnicity is in big part a social construct, but clearly there are limits to that. It's something that is not objectively defined, but we can tell when something simply sounds wrong. An european cannot be ethnically Korean, even if he was born and raised in Korea.
