Showing posts with label nationalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nationalism. Show all posts

Thursday, March 24, 2022

Where Has Our Sense of Community Gone?

Short answer--damned if I know.

Longer answer--gone with dissolution of the Soviet Union. For my entire lifetime the US has had adversaries, first the Axis, then USSR. After 1991 we've had no such adversaries.  Brief flirtations with Japan as an economic rival, with Bush's Axis of Evil supporting terrorism, and later China as a rising rival don't match the threats those mid-century adversaries seemed to pose.  Today we're seeing with Russia's invasion of Ukraine we're seeing a resurgence of unity, of national feeling, etc. both in Congress and the country.

So--my answer: sense of community vanished with our enemies.

Saturday, July 31, 2021

Past Olympics

Someone on twitter asked about our focus in the Olympics on gymnastics.  That caused me to recall Olga Korbut. In 1972 she turned us on to gymnastics.  At 4'11'', one inch taller than my sister, she was both a daring gymnast and charismatic.  Watch her ups and downs here.

Bob Somerby recalls the "greatest track meet" , not an Olympic event but a US-USSR standoff in 1962, which reminds me of how fierce the athletic rivalry was between the two powers in the 16 years before then, peaking in the Olympics.  In the 50's it seemed American supremacy was under challenge; if we weren't the best in everything, what were we?

Monday, January 11, 2021

We Are Who We Thought We Are?

 Lots of discussion--"this isn't who we are" or "this is exactly who we are".

The idea of "imagined communities" is relevant.  People imagine what America is, they develop an image of who we are which is based on stereotypes and narratives from the media, schools, movies and TV, etc.  So when a big event happens, it can be inconsistent with the image. That's not necessarily the case however.  For example if we looked at the reactions shortly after 9/11 or the Boston marathon bombing  I'd guess most people thought the reaction to the events was very "American" or "Boston" ("Boston strong").  

Over the long run I suppose the image is sustained if the positive events outweigh the negative events.

Monday, October 01, 2018

"Hollow Dolls" and Essentialism and My Cousin's Book

Just finished "The Lies That Bind Us" by Appiah.  I recommend it. The lies are: creed, culture, color, class, and country.  One of the keys to the binding is the lie of "essentialism"--the idea that everyone who shares in the lie is essentially the same: all Americans are alike, all Muslims are alike, all blacks are alike, etc.

It's stretching a bit, I know, but I was reminded of essentialism when I read an article in the Times entitled "The robots aren't as human as they seem."  A biped robot is assumed to be humanlike, a quadraped is likely a dog, or maybe a cheetah.  That very human impulse seen with robots also leads us astray when considering flesh and blood humans and their beliefs about patriotism, religion, etc.

And since I've referred to "Dueling Dragons" in my post yesterday, I'll bring it up again today: I see its theme as the impact of tribalism based on all of Appiah's lies on Ulster.

[Updated--I don't think my post of yesterday does what I wanted--so some additions: if we humans can look at a biped and think it's human, it's easy for me to see that humans can look at other humans and project into the person what they believe.  And the projections will be consistent, because they're not based on facts, on reality, on data perceived in real time but based on ideas in the mind, wherever the ideas come from, past experience or the broader culture.

The reader can see that in in Dueling Dragons, as George Henderson, the newspaper editor, and John Martin exchange their mistaken (my take, definitely not the author's) views of the state and future of Ireland.]

Friday, March 17, 2017

Americans Share What?

Pew Research has a recent report on what people in different countries see as the keys to being of their nationality--is it shared language, birthplace, shared customs and values, faith, etc.  Interesting variations among the different countries surveyed, mostly Western countries plus Japan

I saw a reference to this earlier, then was struck by a talking head on Fox arguing that we should only admit immigrants who share our values.

Some random thoughts:
  • there's no universal rule applicable.  Canadians believe you need to speak either English or Franch, but Americans wouldn't agree to an English-Spanish rule.  Greeks are strong on religion, but that's no longer that important in most other countries.
  • adding some other countries, such as China, Russia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, etc. would have further expanded our horizons.
  • in the past, many didn't believe that Irish Catholic immigrants could be good Americans: they shared neither birthplace, religion, nor customs with the then-current Americans.  That was even more true when the time came to admit immigrants from eastern Europe and Italy. 
  • when we look in detail at current "Americans" we find groups which don't share our customs and values but share the language (i.e. Old Order Mennonites,Hasidic Jews) and some which don't share the language but are somewhat closer in values, if not customs (some Latinos)
My bottom line is--if the adults work and pay taxes, and abide by the laws, fine.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

U.S. Is Not a New Nation

Ron Charles includes this sentence in a review of a novel focused on Thomas Jefferson:
"We’re a young nation, and like any adolescent, nothing rouses us to fits of bitter delight more than detecting hypocrisy in others [i.e., Jefferson]."
I disagree.  You can define "nation" different ways.  One looks at the government and the land included in the nation, another at the "people", an approach which has lost favor.  (Hitler conflated the Reich and the German people.)

Nations like France, Italy, and Germany really were formed in the 19th century, as a government consolidated control over its territory.  "England" and "Britain" form something of an exception--England has been consolidated under the crown since the Norman Conquest, give or take the odd civil war.  Britain still isn't sure whether it includes the Scots or not.

There are nations which have been around in some form or other for centuries: China, Japan, Ethiopia. And if you allow for boundaries to change, Russia, Persia/Iran, Egypt, and others can qualify.  But when you look Latin America, Africa, Australia, and South and Southwest Asia you see the impact of colonialism and nationalism, recent phenomena.

So I repeat: we aren't a young nation, considering the histories of all the nations in the world.  The young nation meme is just a way to claim American exceptionalism.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Nationalism at Work

The National Archives has a post daily which shows a document from their archives keyed to that day's historical events.  Today they disgrace themselves by their nationalism:

Transcript of John Glenn's Official Communication with the Command
 Center (detail)
John Glenn conducted the first manned space orbit of the earth on February 20, 1962. This is the transcription of his in-flight communication with Mission Control in Florida.
Read more at Our Documents
Or maybe just their youth. Yuri Gagarin was, of course, the first man to orbit the earth; Glenn was the first American into space. [Corrected--my memory is poor, Alan Shepard was the first American into space, Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth. (Remember the fireflies in "The Right Stuff"?]