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Sure, there is such a thing as American culture. It is possible to decenter the importance of some identities - religion is very important in Lebanon but less so in the US. But do you not see the huge importance of race in America or the UK? There's a huge diversity apparatus trying to allocate people of the right race in the right place. I've filled in job applications in the current year, I know this to be true. Simply being a citizen of a state doesn't cut it any more.
Really? There had never been nationalist uprisings against foreign rule before the 19th century? Nationalism got more popular and powerful then but nationalism has been a factor for all of human history. What about the Judeans rising up against Rome, was there not even a little nationalism there?
States can encompass multiple nations but it introduces fragilities that often prove harmful. You can lump Occitan and Brittany together, put Wessex and Northumberland and Scotland together with sound management. But East Anglia and Mogadishu or Papua New Guinea is a much bigger ask.
Putting you specifically to one side, if everyone in America is on the same team, why all the rioting and strife, why the existence of this website which primarily exists to discuss political conflict in the USA, why the massive and persistent variation in voting by race?
I didn't say otherwise. OP made a claim that race is inherently the surest way of determining what "team" someone is on, and I was taking issue only with that specific claim.
No. Not nationalist uprisings based on the principle of nationalism. There have been uprisings based on maltreatment, or no taxation without representation, or neglect of local interests, real or imagined ("What have the Romans ever done for us?"), but not on the claim, "all 'nations' have the right to their own state; we are a 'nation'; therefore, we have the right to our own state." Because that was OP's claim: That governing a multi-group state is inherently impossible, because look at the Austrian empire! Even it eventually dissolved! I was merely pointing out that that happened only because of the advent of nationalism, and only because the constituent groups of the empire came to see themselves as "nations."
Maybe, but that is a much weaker claim than the original claim of impossibility.
I cannot tell exactly how you are using the term "nation." If you mean it in the nationalism sense, your claim is true by definition, but not every group sees itself as a nation. Most do not.
Because the inhabitants thereof are of different races? Or because they have different interests?
I didn't say that everyone on America is on the same team always. After all, all states, even monoracial ones, have political conflict among subgroups. And, as an aside. you are greatly overstating the scale of the variation in voting by race.
No, I said:
Furthermore, nations have always saw themselves as nations. It's not a complex idea. If you have a distinct culture, ethnicity, language, you want autonomy, you want to advance your own interests first and foremost as opposed to be part of foreign empires. Why did nations fight wars against foreign occupation, even before the 19th century? Why did a bunch of Greek states ally together to resist Persia (others collaborated yet the odds were wildly stacked against the Athenian-Spartan led alliance)? They wanted to preserve their independence, their freedom, their rights. The Persians ruled over many nations at the time and were fairly tolerant, yet the Greeks saw a fundamental, worth-dying-for need for independence.
By this logic you could obliterate nationalism entirely. Malaysia might complain about British exploitation of their resources, the Slovakians might complain about economic inequality and Czechs running things, the Norwegians might complain about Swedish protectionism hurting their interests. My point is that you can't separate maltreatment, unfair taxation, neglect of local interests from nationalism. How can the Norwegians know that it's unfair that Sweden gains from protectionism while Norway loses, how are they able to distinguish between them.
Two heads of the same coin. People from PNG have a completely different culture and way of life to East Anglians, why would there be any cohesion there? Witchhunts in the UK and witchhunts in PNG carry very different connotations.
In 2012, 97% of blacks who voted, voted for Obama. The significant differences between presidents Obama, Biden and Trump hardly seems to change these ratios.
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And my point is that you can. As I said, there is a very important difference between the claim, "we should be independent because we will be better off/taxed less/get better treatment if we are independent" and the claim, "we should be independent, regardless of whether we would be treated better, because we are a "nation" and every nation has a right to be independent."
You are choosing an outlier among an outlier and using it to represent the norm. The historical norm for black support of the Democratic candidate over the last 40 years is about 88-99 pct. Other groups range from the 40s to the 60s.
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Ireland fought for freedom for 800 years, but according to this claim, only the last 150 were for nationalist reasons. I don't understand that claim at all. The big nations, like Italy and Germany were only created in the 19th century, but prior to that there were smaller nations, like Ulster or Saxony. Ancient Greece saw itself as a nation in comparison to the barbarians and came together to fight the Persians. Presumably there is a reason that people want to claim nationalism is a new idea, but it does seem to go back as far as 1066 and all that, if not further.
I don't know that even the last 150 years was for nationalist reasons, because I am not familiar enough with the specifics. Nationalism is a very specific concept: It is that every "nation" has a right to its own state. (What constitutes a "nation" is a more amorphous question, but sometimes "a people" is used in lieu of "a nation", which perhaps captures the concept better). Hence, the claim that "we should be independent because the English are oppressing us" is not a nationalist claim. Nor is "we should be independent because we were independent in the past." Nor is "we should be independent because our interests will be better served thereby." A nationalist reason is: "The Irish are a 'nation" (or, alternatively, a "people") distinct from the English. Therefore, because all nations/peoples have a right to their own state, we should be independent."
Note that this conversation is rooted in OP's claim that the dissolution of the Austrian empire was inevitable because it was multi-ethnic. The point is that it was not inevitable unless and until its constituent groups came to see themselves as "nations" and to adhere to the tenets of nationalism.
This seems to be older than 150 years to me. "A Nation Once Again", the Irish song, is 170 years old. Parnell's "No man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation; no man has a right to say to his country—thus far shalt thou go and no further." refers to Ireland losing its parliament in 1800. Was O'Connell a nationalist when he said "“No person knows better than you do that the domination of England is the sole and blighting curse of this country. It is the incubus that sits on our energies, stops the pulsation of the nation's heart and leaves to Ireland, not gay vitality but horrid the convulsions of a troubled dream.”
After the war of independence in 1921, Ireland demanded "a self-governing Ireland with restitution of confiscated lands and churches, freedom of movement, and a strong Roman Catholic identity" exactly the same terms that O'Neill had asked for in November 1599. Few doubt that De Valera was a Nationalist. Why wasn't O'Neill one, given that he asked for identical terms?
Wikipedia writes:
This seems late to me, and 1169 is a more natural date, if not 1014, or earlier.
In the Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib (The War of the Irish with the Foreigners), which described the Battle of Clontarf the Irish were described as: brave, valiant champions; soldierly, active, nimble, bold, full of courage, quick, doing great deeds, pompous, beautiful, aggressive, hot, strong, swelling, bright, fresh, never weary, terrible, valiant, victorious heroes and chieftains, and champions, and brave soldiers, the men of high deeds, and honour, and renown of Erinn.
The foreigners as: the shouting, hateful, powerful, wrestling, valiant, active, fierce-moving, dangerous, nimble, violent, furious, unscrupulous, untamable, inexorable, unsteady, cruel, barbarous, frightful, sharp, ready, huge, prepared, cunning, warlike, poisonous, murderous, hostile Danars; bold, hard-hearted Danmarkians, surly, piratical foreigners, blue-green, pagan; without reverence, without veneration, without honour, without mercy, for God or for man.
Little has changed, and the foreigners still have blue-green hair.
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