tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post4919711021997009338..comments2024-03-28T17:53:43.541-04:00Comments on DarwinCatholic: Ramblings on the Nation-State IdeaDarwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-43171171268995876642014-05-22T14:03:07.114-04:002014-05-22T14:03:07.114-04:00Option 1 - Tendentious in what sense? Does not opt...<i>Option 1 - Tendentious in what sense? Does not option 1 reflect what in fact happened much of the time? </i><br /><br />You offered a dichotomy of options. That is manipulative. During the inter-war period, you had German minorities in Poland, German minorities in Bohemia and Moravia, German minorities in Roumania ('Saxons'), Hungarian minorities in Roumania ('Magyars' and 'Szeklers'), Russian and Ukrainian minorities in Roumania, Gagauz minorities in Roumania, Hungarian minorities in Vojvodina, Turkish minorities in Bulgaria, &c. A number of these populations are still there. These were not odd and eccentric populations. They numbered in the six and seven digits. <i>Someone</i> was not being driven out. <br /><br />The two major examples of ethnic cleansing were the Ionian Greeks and the German populations of Silesia, Pomerania, and the Sudetenland. The latter occurred after the 2d World War and after Germany had treated much of eastern Europe quite frightfully. <br /><br />The Sudeten example is not one you should adduce if you want to make an argument for conventional territorial boundaries over ethnic boundaries; Sudeten populations proved to be...a challenge for Czech politicians. As for Ionia, the Turkish political class did not require boundaries in flux to induce them to move 'round large populations. See the experience of the Armenians after 1914. <br /><br />Prussia was not an abstraction, but a real place with real boundaries. It was just on a scale larger than a village. I cannot figure how you got the notion in your head that members of national populations 'don't know what they mean' when they identify themselves. That's condescending tommyrot. <br /><br />Whatever George Orwell said, you have to stick the boundary somewhere. That's not some early 20th century prog-artifact. Political power is exercised in territorial units. Art Decohttp://wwrtc.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-55959966586387800902014-05-08T19:52:11.939-04:002014-05-08T19:52:11.939-04:00Art,
What I'm trying to address, based on my...Art, <br /><br />What I'm trying to address, based on my admittedly light information about the period, is that our modern assumptions about national identity are not some sort of natural law, but are rather a comparatively recent development. <br /><br />Re: hypothetical options. As I mention, I have no idea if or to what extent these reflect reality, it's a thought experiment. Option 1 - Tendentious in what sense? Does not option 1 reflect what in fact happened much of the time? I recall Orwell using "rationalization of national boundaries" as a sterling example of Newspeak, where what was really happening was peasants being run off their land and losing everything because they spoke the wrong language according to some politician a thousand miles away. And the second hypothetical is just intended to be its mirror image. <br /><br />Really, the question I'm asking (one aspect, at any rate) is: What does it mean to say that a Polish village is in Prussia? A village is a real thing; Prussia is an abstraction, except insofar as it could march its armies in and chase you off. If I say I'm a villager, that has some real meaning and consequences. Even Prussians often didn't really know what they meant when they said they were Prussians. Joseph Moorehttp://yardsaleofthemind.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-65232111079735342732014-05-08T16:39:40.950-04:002014-05-08T16:39:40.950-04:00You do realize, your presentation of option 1 is t...You do realize, your presentation of option 1 is tendentious and option 2 did not in 1919 exist? <br /><br />There can be instances of ethnic cleansing and voluntary patriation, but people can and do persist in places of habitual residency when sovereign boundaries change. <br /><br />The second option you are offering would be maintaining existing dynastic states in 1919. These were globular and unwieldy entities already partially undone by intramural fissures. The Hapsburg dominions fell apart rather rapidly in 1918 and 1919 and the Tsarist domains were taken over by Communists. So what you end up advocating is maintaining modally Polish villages in Prussia (in circumstances where you have to put the boundary somewhere).Art Decohttp://wwrtc.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-28382004068334018782014-05-08T14:25:48.149-04:002014-05-08T14:25:48.149-04:00Thanks for reading that nation state series - I...Thanks for reading that nation state series - I'm a little sheepish, because, more than even most of what I write, I am working out partially formed thoughts in public. It would be nice, I suppose, to know exactly what one thinks and exactly how to express it in words, but this is often rare. <br /><br />Now, I'm musing on what it means for a village to consist of 10% people living in it, 90% people (farmers) living around it. Everybody would get together for Mass and market days, I suppose. What kind of society does that create? What are the good parts we suffer from missing? <br /><br />Further, in what sense is the Church a homeland? How does belief overlap and sometimes evidently replace loyalty and love of place? Joseph Moorehttp://yardsaleofthemind.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-76147149591621632172014-05-06T13:57:25.061-04:002014-05-06T13:57:25.061-04:00I've read Erasmus, and he counsels the king to...I've read Erasmus, and he counsels the king to eschew claims on foreign land, and stop marrying off family members (or themselves) to foreigners. <br />I see the point of it- a several generations later and even the poorest child sees himself as related to the king, ambitious foreigners seek to marry into the middle class of the realm- no doubt in the hopes of seeing their children marrying upward- and the neighboring countries are peaceable due to their presence.<br /><br />The above would create a nation. A people. I can only imagine this working on a city level- well a city and the hinterlands necessary for food production. America would look a lot different than it does now. Augusthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08758314961163692341noreply@blogger.com