What exactly happened after the fall of Rome?

[Sharwood]

I actually went the route of International Relationships and had a few of heavy culture based courses, and I think actually read or heard pretty much the same explanation you gave for cultural groups before. I just can't shake it off that it's very hard to define what it is. Yes, I see it and even experience being part of certain groups myself, but how can we test this if we don't even know how to define what culture is?

Sorry, I'll stop knocking this thread off-topic but thought the notion of the complexity of 'culture' and the background mechanics of all this nation-state in practice deserved a mention.

I still think your explanation would be great. IR is basically given in English, as that's the language of choice for the study. Also, if you went to a Dutch university you should have an easy time as lots of classes are mostly in English. I wonder how my major will be, I think it will be just English

Culture is actually fairly easy to define - though I can't actually remember the definition - it's just insanely broad. After all, monkeys have culture. It's the fact that cultures are incredibly difficult to separate - with precious few exceptions, such as the Easter Islanders - because of the natural diffusion of culture among neighbouring groups.

Considering this thread is supposed to be about what happened after the fall of Rome, and somehow ended up in a discussion of what exactly the nation-state was, I doubt anyone is going to be bothered, or even notice, that you're off-topic.

As I said, feel free to use it. Have fun trying to figure out how to give it to your teachers without pissing them off though. Though, you can always call me 'Dr' Sharwood, from Sydney. That might work.

 

[fugazi]

Hmhm, I've heard a few definitions of culture. I had to undergo some historic anthropology classes, but I just find it the hardest definition to employ as you have to be very vague and broad with the definition or else you'll be a sitting duck for the critics. Enough about that though

I was going to say something else about Rome, but my head won't let me. Stupid flu. Hopefully it ain't 'the' flu.

 

[Sharwood]

Hmhm, I've heard a few definitions of culture. I had to undergo some historic anthropology classes, but I just find it the hardest definition to employ as you have to be very vague and broad with the definition or else you'll be a sitting duck for the critics. Enough about that though

I was going to say something else about Rome, but my head won't let me. Stupid flu. Hopefully it ain't 'the' flu.

Oh God, you just reminded me about almost catching swine flu in Korea. I'll have to start a thread in OT about that later.

 

[Verbose]

Culture is actually fairly easy to define - though I can't actually remember the definition - it's just insanely broad.

You perhaps mean this one?

"that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society"
- Edward Burnett Tylor, 1871

It's the classic anthropological definition of culture which still has currency in English, or French for that matter.

Unless they're anthropologists, Germans, Scandinavians, Central and Eastern Europeans tend to do things different with regards to the various meanings of culture.

The traditional German concept of "culture" has it operating in tanden with a second variable of "Bildung", which Franz Boas as the Father of American anthropology (well, he was German) rendered as "formation". But it makes for rather a different conceptual landscape from the English or French view of "culture".

 

[Sharwood]

That is the definition I couldn't think of, yes. Thanks.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Oh God, you just reminded me about almost catching swine flu in Korea. I'll have to start a thread in OT about that later.

How do you "almost" catch a disease? Was there a crazy Korean guy with a syringe chasing you through the streets of Pusan screaming "me give you swine flu now!" whom you just barely outran?

 

[Sharwood]

How do you "almost" catch a disease? Was there a crazy Korean guy with a syringe chasing you through the streets of Pusan screaming "me give you swine flu now!" whom you just barely outran?

No, but that would have been HILARIOUS!

What happened is that I went to a conference of 500 people. One of them - bloody Mexicans - brought swine flu to the conference. End result: 250 people with swine flu. I was amazed it wasn't on the news here. Probably was in Korea.

 

[Plotinus]

But swine flu is hardly news now. It's spread pretty thoroughly through London at least. Masses of people at my girlfriend's school were off work with it, and many more have certainly had it without realising it. Maybe I had it myself and didn't realise!

 

[Sharwood]

But swine flu is hardly news now. It's spread pretty thoroughly through London at least. Masses of people at my girlfriend's school were off work with it, and many more have certainly had it without realising it. Maybe I had it myself and didn't realise!

250 people from 50 countries I would have thought spectacular enough to make the news though. Especially at a conference sponsored by Harvard. Oh well, at least it kept my face off the news.

 

[Plotinus]

Naaah. Swine flu isn't nearly as important as Jordan and Peter Andre!

Reverting to topic, thanks for your contribution to the debate about nationalism - I've just been too busy over the past week myself to do much more than skim so far.

 

[Muntzer]

How did all of these countries that were around at the Renaissance(England, France, Spain, Ottomans, Italy) even come about?

The modern nations came to existance about the 15th century. There's many reasons to this; political, economical, religious and social. But the most important being the rise of the middle class. Changes in ways of living fostered the growth of this new class, and the coming of that class brought further changes in society's way of living. Old institutions that had served a purpose in the old order now decayed and died; new institutions arose to take their place.

The men with a lot of money worries the most about wether there's enough policemen in his district, the people who uses the highways to send goods or money to other places shout the loudest about keeping those ways free from robbers and toll-gates. Confusion and insecurity are bad for business, the middle class wanted order and security.

To whom could they turn? Who in the feudal set-up could guarantee order and security? Protection in the past had come from the nobility, the feudal overlords. But it was against the exactions of those very overlords that the towns had fought. It was the feudal armies that pillaged and stole, it was they who made trade and business so difficult.

What was needed was a central authority, a supreme power that could bring order out of feudal chaos. In the middle ages the authority of the king existed in theory, but in fact it was often weak. The greater feudal barons were practically indepedent. Their power had to be broken and it eventually was. The steps to which central authority became able to excercise political power was slow and irregular, it took centuries but finally it came.

The feudal lords had grown weaker because they had lost a lot of their possesions in land and in serfs, their power had been challanged and partly broken by the towns and cities. In some parts they were exterminating each other. The King had often been a strong ally of the towns in their fight against the overlords, what weakened their position strengthened his. In return for the kings help the middle class of the towns borrowed him money, and through the money the king could hire and pay for trained army always at his service; he became less and less dependant on his vassals.
Such professional army was also superior to the feudal troops, and was required to effectively make us of guns and cannons.

So the middle class borrowed the king money so that he eventually could rise to absolute power, and in return they gained freedom from the feudal overlords and they also gained national laws, measures, written language, coins, taxes etc. This provided the middle class well needed stability was needed for them to later transform in to the modern bourgeoisie and eventually also get rid of the absolutist state.