[extropy-chat] Economic consensus on immigration

[Joseph Bloch]

How about the Romans?


Joseph

Lee Corbin wrote:

>Rik writes
>
>  
>
>>On Sun, 21 May 2006, Lee Corbin wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>An Egyptologist friend of mine believes that the Egyptians did have
>>>a sense of national identity; but if so, they'd be an exception, so
>>>I agree basically with what you've written here.
>>>      
>>>
>>So did the Greek, who united against the Persians despite
>>their own infighting.  The Etruskans and several others
>>from that era also had a national identity.
>>    
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>
>I think that there may be two problems with what you are saying.
>First, "nationalism" is supposed to mean more than mere allegiance
>to a particular tribe (a "people") or a sect (a religion). It
>in fact is supposed to be a unifying principle that unites such
>disparate groups. Germany for all Germans (19th century), or
>Italy for all Italians, the Soviet Union for everyone they could
>overrun, etc.  China too is a nation.
>
>So I would agree that possibly with a few exceptions, nationalism
>really got going with the French revolution, when the French began
>strongly identifying with "La Patrie", which gave them their
>tremendous strength (being able to take on all of Europe and win).
>
>Secondly, the Greeks never united. Philip the Second
>conquered them all, and Alexander enforced it. When Philip
>died, Alexander felt that he had to subdue the Danube area
>before heading East. The Greek city states rebelled while
>he was away, and so Alexander came back and made an example
>of Thebes. He had no further trouble with rebellions in Greece.
>
>So one may say that Greece was united in the same way that Latvia,
>Lithuania, the Ukraine, Estonia, and dozens of other entities
>were "united" (in the Soviet Union).
>
>Later on, the Greeks became "united" in much the same way under
>Rome.
>
>  
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>>A common theme appears to be that identity is aligned with
>>religion, and/or other common activities.
>>
>>I would not be surprised if nowadays people are more
>>united by which sports team they belong to or which
>>online community they are in, than by their nationality.
>>    
>>
>
>Yes, quite right. In the West, nationalism has died. It was a
>victim of the world wars and also of leftist influence. So indeed
>most Americans feel much stronger loyalty to their own political
>party or baseball team than they do to "America". Besides, it isn't
>so easy having much loyalty or devotion to such an amorphous
>diverse entity.
>
>Lee
>
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