Nationalism, modesty and airplanes in the Infinite age

[aronnax]

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.

But an Englishmen can be black?
I would consider Lewis Hamilton a true and red-blooded Englishmen even though he is black. The only reason why it seems so impossible in Korea is because Korean society is very exclusive in who they consider 'Korean' whereas British or English Society is far more inclusive.

Ethnicity based on genetics by any extent is silly.

 

[Masada]

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?

Europe in general is a poor choice. And while Japan and Korea are at the extreme end of the ethnicity as race scale the rules aren't immutable. Zainichi Koreans and Taiwanese of Japanese descent are a reasonable counter-example. There's also a couple of million Koreans of Japanese descent as a result of the occupation.

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.

I don't think that's the case. That it's rare is more a comment on how few European immigrants there are in Japan and Korea. As a point of reference, Australia banned all non-European (including Japanese) immigration until 1966. Yet in less than two generations we have Asian Australians. Most of whom are more Australian than I am in a linguistic sense at least.

The only reason why it seems so impossible in Korea is because Korean society is very exclusive in who they consider 'Korean' whereas British or English Society is far more inclusive.

As half-Japanese?

You don't know what I'll give for a partly Huguenot France.

Profile pic.

 

[Traitorfish]

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.

What you're observing there is that contemporary conceptions of ethnicity frequently carry a racial dimension, not that ethnicity is racial as such. That's not untrue, by any means, but it's not a universal or transhistorical truth, it's specific to certain construction of ethnicity. It would have been equally true to say two centuries ago that an Irishman cannot be English, even if he is born and raised in England, and that's self-evidently not the case today.

 

[luiz]

But an Englishmen can be black?
I would consider Lewis Hamilton a true and red-blooded Englishmen even though he is black. The only reason why it seems so impossible in Korea is because Korean society is very exclusive in who they consider 'Korean' whereas British or English Society is far more inclusive.

Ethnicity based on genetics by any extent is silly.

Lewis Hamilton is a special case because he is a mulatto, with an English mother, and thus not really "black". He is "genetically" English as much as anyone else.

But would we call a black guy "ethnically English"? I don't know. As I said this is a rather poorly defined concept.

 

[Traitorfish]

It doesn't help that Englishness is racialised construct on a national as well as ethnic level. For example, it's far less common for black or Asian people to identify as "English" than they do as "Scottish" (even despite the fact that they represent a proportionally larger part of the English population than the Scottish), instead preferring the more general identifier of "British". It's only quite recently that that the concept of a black Englishman has become comprehensible to a lot of people, and that more because of the breakdown of the British national project than anything else. We might be better taking as our example a black Frenchmen, in which, yes, that's not at all inconceivable.

 

[luiz]

Traitorfish, fair enough.

I entirely agree with what you're saying, there's no "hard" definition of a certain ethnicity, it's a social construct that changes over time. But at least for most people, there's still a certain "racial" aspect to the thing. In Brazil for instance when asked about ethnicity nobody would reply "Brazilian", they will say Italian or German or Indian or mixed. (I am aware that lots of people answer "American", "Canadian" or "Australian").

 

[Lone Wolf]

There's certainly an ethnic aspect to being Russian. In fact, here we even a word "Rossiyanin", which means "Russian citizen who is not ethnically Russian". It's not that clear-cut, however - Yeltzin used the word to refer to all Russian citizens, and a lot of non-ethnic Russians identify themselves as Russians in the context of immigrant communities from Russia. When I visited London, or even when I visit that forum, I certainly feel much more Russian then usual.

But them, it's to be expected with the rather confused national policies of the SU.

 

[Artifis]

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.

You'll have to elaborate on that further I'm afraid. I'm not sure how one can feel pride simply because one is assured of being a member of a certain group. It would be tantamount to me saying "I'm proud because I belong to the harmonica ensemble. And I know that by being part of the harmonica ensemble I'm part of the ensemble."

As for satisfaction. Why so?

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.

Separation is not good, especially when it creates boundaries. I think that humans are capable of enough differentiation even within same-race/ethnic societies. I don't see how breaking the boundaries between nations would lead to collective suicide species, as you put it.

 

[Traitorfish]

You'll have to elaborate on that further I'm afraid. I'm not sure how one can feel pride simply because one is assured of being a member of a certain group. It would be tantamount to me saying "I'm proud because I belong to the harmonica ensemble. And I know that by being part of the harmonica ensemble I'm part of the ensemble."

As for satisfaction. Why so?

I'm not sure I follow. Are you asking me whether people use "pride" in this sense, or to justify this usage? I'm just observing that when people say "I'm proud to be X", they're not necessarily saying "Being X makes me better than people who aren't X", they might just be saying "I'm happy to be X".

 

[Artifis]

I'm not sure I follow. Are you asking me whether people use "pride" in this sense, or to justify this usage? I'm just observing that when people say "I'm proud to be X", they're not necessarily saying "Being X makes me better than people who aren't X", they might just be saying "I'm happy to be X".

I was asking you to justify the usage. And I'm not sure people would ever be "happy to be X" for its own sake. Have you ever encountered such a philosophical view among people who are proud to belong to a certain group just because?

Happiness is a different issue. They could be happy because there's a sense of community and they feel like they belong. But is it something to be proud about?

 

[Traitorfish]

I was asking you to justify the usage. And I'm not sure people would ever be "happy to be X" for its own sake. Have you ever encountered such a philosophical view among people who are proud to belong to a certain group just because?

I live in Scotland, so: yes, all the time.

(To double check, I turned to my GF, and asked "Are you proud to be Scottish?" She said "Yeah", so I asked "Why"? "Uuuh..." she replied, "... 'cos it's fine?" So there you go, straight from the horses mouth. )

Whether this is a justified usage of the term "proud", I don't know, because I think that the majority of people can parse the distinct usages without much trouble, and that's good enough for me.

 

[Artifis]

I live in Scotland, so: yes, all the time.

(To double check, I turned to my GF, and asked "Are you proud to be Scottish?" She said "Yeah", so I asked "Why"? "Uuuh..." she replied, "... 'cos it's fine?" So there you go, straight from the horses mouth. )

Whether this is a justified usage of the term "proud", I don't know, because I think that the majority of people can parse the distinct usages without much trouble, and that's good enough for me.

Er. Wow. Hm.

Honestly, if you were to ask me, that's not a justified usage of "proud". I've always thought that to be proud of something you need to have a good underlying reason for it, rather than just because it is (not that I'm saying anything against your girlfriend, bless her soul).

I mean, I would think the Scottish are proud to be Scottish because they have a strong independent history and culture. Defying the English would be one (and heck it might just come true), and music and food would be among the others.

But how about I focus on another culture? The Japanese. They're proud for many reasons. They have a very long history, they were the first Asian country to truly modernise, they managed to repulse invasion upon invasion (until WW2), they have a very influential culture worldwide, their food is globally praised etc. etc. But this is the sort of thing I find slightly puzzling.

Why should people be proud of something they haven't achieved? Japanese people born today had nothing to do with their history. They didn't achieve their pop culture and didn't make their food (unless they're people actually working in these industries). For the vast majority of people who just live as Japanese people, they played no part in their culture except as participants. Why should this be reason for them to be proud of it? They could have been born in Sudan, except that their parents happened to be ethnic Japanese living in Tokyo.

Basically, I think that this has something to do with the fact that we humans aren't historically (and possibly naturally) capable of feeling bonhomie with 7 billion others..

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, again, you're assuming a specific, narrow definition of "pride" that not everybody adheres to. Other people use it to describe a wider array of emotional attachments than you do. It's a case of miscommunication, rather than disagreement.

 

[Crezth]

Why should people be proud of something they haven't achieved? Japanese people born today had nothing to do with their history. They didn't achieve their pop culture and didn't make their food (unless they're people actually working in these industries). For the vast majority of people who just live as Japanese people, they played no part in their culture except as participants. Why should this be reason for them to be proud of it? They could have been born in Sudan, except that their parents happened to be ethnic Japanese living in Tokyo.

Because it's part of their heritage and the second sentence is patently false. Having that culture, having that history, is more than simply being party to the descendants of those original Greats, it's about carrying that legacy forward with you and doing something with it.

I feel proud of America for the moon landing, not because I am an American, but because that's part of my country's legacy that I feel like I am carrying forward into the future - a torch I can pass down to my children, and they their children; something special and unique that only the next generation can inherit. Pride in one's country has never been about scorn of another's, as that is an invention of the nationalists. It's a more fundamentally human thing than that, it is an inspiration to press forward and to achieve.

 

[Old Hippy]

Why should people be proud of something they haven't achieved? Japanese people born today had nothing to do with their history. They didn't achieve their pop culture and didn't make their food (unless they're people actually working in these industries). For the vast majority of people who just live as Japanese people, they played no part in their culture except as participants. Why should this be reason for them to be proud of it? They could have been born in Sudan, except that their parents happened to be ethnic Japanese living in Tokyo.

..

I'm a immigrant to Australia... from london... yet I'm proud to be an Aussie, I'm not sure when this happened but at some point it did... i not just talking happy/lucky/content, but proud... its quite weird when i think about this... we don't generally wave flags a lot, we hae one day a year for that... our whole Aussie thing rely revolves around... a fair go, and support for the underdog... yet events that happened 100, even 200 years before i even got here affect me with feelings of pride (and shame) and yet I actually identify with the myths surrounding our history

like i said its really weird

 

[Glassfan]

I'm not sure I follow. Are you asking me whether people use "pride" in this sense, or to justify this usage? I'm just observing that when people say "I'm proud to be X", they're not necessarily saying "Being X makes me better than people who aren't X", they might just be saying "I'm happy to be X".

I was asking you to justify the usage. And I'm not sure people would ever be "happy to be X" for its own sake. Have you ever encountered such a philosophical view among people who are proud to belong to a certain group just because?

Happiness is a different issue. They could be happy because there's a sense of community and they feel like they belong. But is it something to be proud about?

Although I'm not much of a sports fan anymore, in the past I and my friends had great pride over our home teams. And we did feel we were superior to fans of the other teams (then, of course, I grew up). When people identify with a group - a team, a gang, a nation, occupy DC, etc., they do feel pride and superiority. However, considering the writings of certain intellectuals, this is often portrayed as a kind of primitive, group psychology, that usually results in conflict.

 

[Artifis]

Well, again, you're assuming a specific, narrow definition of "pride" that not everybody adheres to. Other people use it to describe a wider array of emotional attachments than you do. It's a case of miscommunication, rather than disagreement.

Well... I don't think that my definition of "pride" is quite that narrow. This is the first definition from the Oxford Online Dictionary:

1) a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of one’s close associates, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired

So far how I've been pushing my case has been based on this definition of pride. But if how you view pride is different from me, then I suppose that yes, we're having a disagreement over semantics rather than content.

In addition, I won't deny that, yes, I tend to very exact in my usage of words. What can I say? I happen to be in love with the written word.

When people identify with a group - a team, a gang, a nation, occupy DC, etc., they do feel pride and superiority. However, considering the writings of certain intellectuals, this is often portrayed as a kind of primitive, group psychology, that usually results in conflict.

Because it's part of their heritage and the second sentence is patently false. Having that culture, having that history, is more than simply being party to the descendants of those original Greats, it's about carrying that legacy forward with you and doing something with it.

I feel proud of America for the moon landing, not because I am an American, but because that's part of my country's legacy that I feel like I am carrying forward into the future - a torch I can pass down to my children, and they their children; something special and unique that only the next generation can inherit. Pride in one's country has never been about scorn of another's, as that is an invention of the nationalists. It's a more fundamentally human thing than that, it is an inspiration to press forward and to achieve.

A noble way to look at it, and inspirational too. If that's how everyone viewed pride in their culture then I'd have much less of an issue with it. But it's simply far too easy to cross the line and start saying that your group is better than mine, or vice versa. Let's face it, when we compare differences in the way others do things, we will judge (just look at democratic government vs iron-handed technocracy for example). And when we judge, it's all too often turns into something ugly. That's what turns me off.

Why must it be "The Americans landed on the moon"? Why can't be it "Mankind made it to the moon"? Yes, Americans were the first to do so, and it's not just Americans who should be proud. All humanity should be proud. But what do we get? Russians fighting with them, and now the Chinese and Indians want in on the picture.

I'm not sure if it's clear from these few sentences, but sometimes I'm just very, very frustrated with how we humans are. And I should know. I'm trying very hard to move away from all this judging, but it's comes so... So... Naturally...

 

[Crezth]

A noble way to look at it, and inspirational too. If that's how everyone viewed pride in their culture then I'd have much less of an issue with it. But it's simply far too easy to cross the line and start saying that your group is better than mine, or vice versa. Let's face it, when we compare differences in the way others do things, we will judge (just look at democratic government vs iron-handed technocracy for example). And when we judge, it's all too often turns into something ugly. That's what turns me off.

Why must it be "The Americans landed on the moon"? Why can't be it "Mankind made it to the moon"? Yes, Americans were the first to do so, and it's not just Americans who should be proud. All humanity should be proud. But what do we get? Russians fighting with them, and now the Chinese and Indians want in on the picture.

Yeah, I understand there's a fine line between taking pride in our differences and becoming antagonistic over them, but what I'm trying to say is that I do not think, historically, the concept of national pride developed as a means of comparison. It's simply not part of that paradigm, and as the concept developed into something that involved knocking down other peoples' sand-castles, we see how nationalism and what it engenders are a wholly fictional imposition. People of lower classes from different nations experience this sort of eye-opening from time to time, in such a way as to suggest the notion of its artificiality; we've all heard the tale of the Christian and the Muslim having a beer or something, and talking about things that are mutual between them. I think it's self-evident that class divides people more than race, and nationalism is merely a tool of the very powerful to stay that way.

Conceptually there is no difference between "America landed on the Moon" and "Humanity landed on the Moon" except a thin veneer of some superficial categorization. But what group people identify themselves as, and how they come to conceptualize of themselves as existing as a member of that group, are integral to the development of this concept of pride, and if we were to choose "Humanity landed on the Moon" it'd be the same brand of exceptionalism, albeit much broader, in the (somewhat spurious) sense that it wasn't "Dolphins landed on the Moon." Suffice to say that few Americans think of themselves as human as opposed to American, and if you were to ask an American what they thought of themselves I think it's a rare person indeed who would start by clarifying "human." It's just not part of the gestalt awareness.

So when I say I feel proud of America, my meaning is that I conceive of myself as American first, human second (it would take a degree of consciousness on my part to respond to the earlier identification question with "human," which is why I'm not going to be disingenuous and say that I am post-national in any way, shape, or form) and feel, in a sense, good to be carrying that legacy forward with me. But in truth it does not matter if it was an American or a Soviet to the moon first, as human history has a tendency of working these things out.

I'm not sure if it's clear from these few sentences, but sometimes I'm just very, very frustrated with how we humans are. And I should know. I'm trying very hard to move away from all this judging, but it's comes so... So... Naturally...

Oh, really? Humans are great. Some of my best friends are human.

 

[Artifis]

Yeah, I understand there's a fine line between taking pride in our differences and becoming antagonistic over them, but what I'm trying to say is that I do not think, historically, the concept of national pride developed as a means of comparison. It's simply not part of that paradigm, and as the concept developed into something that involved knocking down other peoples' sand-castles, we see how nationalism and what it engenders are a wholly fictional imposition. People of lower classes from different nations experience this sort of eye-opening from time to time, in such a way as to suggest the notion of its artificiality; we've all heard the tale of the Christian and the Muslim having a beer or something, and talking about things that are mutual between them. I think it's self-evident that class divides people more than race, and nationalism is merely a tool of the very powerful to stay that way.

To be honest this is where you and I differ. I think the concept of national pride is simply a modern extension of localised, community pride. And that it evolved as a means of comparison, especially as competition when we were still fighting over resources for survival (i.e. Village A vs Village B for the local watering hole). As we grew more advanced we simply managed to enlarge the village mentality, but reached a limit. This limit seems to be defined by language, culture and/or race.

I'm not trying to say that language/culture/race are not important as means of self-identification, but what I'm saying is that these are nothing compared to a common shared identity as humans. But we are somehow instinctively unable to feel this. It is a good day when the Christian and Muslim sit down over a beer, but more often than not these two peoples end up exchanging blows rather than ideas (notwithstanding the fact that it would take a very liberal Muslim to drink beer in the first place).

I would also contest the notion that class divides people more than race. I would propose instead that there is a relation between how high one's class is and how much race/culture/language matters. The higher one goes in terms of class, the less race/culture/language matters, so long as you are members of that same class or higher. Whereas the lower one's class is (defined by poverty/lack of education), the more these racial/cultural/linguistic differences matter. Considering that so many people worldwide still live at or under the poverty line, race/culture/language is still as much of a dividing factor as class. Even then, it seems that one must venture significantly out of the poverty zone to find an area where class starts to take over as the major dividing barrier.

Conceptually there is no difference between "America landed on the Moon" and "Humanity landed on the Moon" except a thin veneer of some superficial categorization. But what group people identify themselves as, and how they come to conceptualize of themselves as existing as a member of that group, are integral to the development of this concept of pride, and if we were to choose "Humanity landed on the Moon" it'd be the same brand of exceptionalism, albeit much broader, in the (somewhat spurious) sense that it wasn't "Dolphins landed on the Moon." Suffice to say that few Americans think of themselves as human as opposed to American, and if you were to ask an American what they thought of themselves I think it's a rare person indeed who would start by clarifying "human." It's just not part of the gestalt awareness.

"Pride" as a concept demands comparison with something. And the choice doesn't have to be limited to "Humanity landed on the moon" vs "(Insert species here) landed on the moon". It can be instead a comparison with our historical selves, and we should be proud that we managed to finally achieve the historical dream of travelling into the heavens. To demand a comparison with other biological species which are less intelligent and capable than humans is, as you say, spurious. But to see it as a continued advancement of our ingenuity, and to feel pride in reaching milestones, is something we should aim for.

So when I say I feel proud of America, my meaning is that I conceive of myself as American first, human second (it would take a degree of consciousness on my part to respond to the earlier identification question with "human," which is why I'm not going to be disingenuous and say that I am post-national in any way, shape, or form) and feel, in a sense, good to be carrying that legacy forward with me. But in truth it does not matter if it was an American or a Soviet to the moon first, as human history has a tendency of working these things out.

The only thing I have to say to this is that human history tends not to be written by people who identify as human, but by people who identify as other things first. Victors and government education boards come to mind.

Oh, really? Humans are great. Some of my best friends are human.

You don't say? I know a few humans who aren't too bad either; they're real gems. On the whole I try to avoid those who rape, pillage and kill. Who knows what diseases they're carrying?

 

[Ayatollah So]

Just paste the goobledegook at the end, not the whole URL.

So, the part after "v=". Thank you sir