Zelenskyy himself provides a good illustration of the contrast between those two versions of nationhood. He's Jewish. According to Zionism, all Jews are supposed to consider Israel their true homeland. How fortunate for the world that Zelenskyy believes his homeland is Ukraine. And how fortunate that he is considered fully Ukrainian, which would never have happened in the Ukraine of a hundred years ago.
I'm surprised to read it from a philosophy student, but unfortunately we see this specious line of thinking often these days. That is, the idea that hard cases make all categorization illegitimate. Russia and Germany have ethnic minorities, therefore "Russian" and "German" have no meaning. Or that "Frenchness" is a composite that evolved over time and is therefore somehow not real. Of course we see this in other areas as well -- a very small number of people have intersex characteristics, therefore the sex binary is erroneous and you can be whatever 697th sex your febrile imagination comes up with.
Thank you for this article. I agree with most of what you wrote. I wonder, why is no one talking about what Xi is doing to the Chinese diaspora all over the world? Don't the people of Taiwan, of Hong Kong have the right to freedom as well as Ukraine? Isn't Xi up to the same nonsense as Putin? Why so hard on the Russian Communists and so soft on the Chinese Communists? Xi might not be leading an armed invasion to unite historic lands, but it is an invasion just the same, and with the same purpose.
Maybe, but Lincoln argued that were the South allowed to decide in this "plebiscite" to withdraw its consent to the Union, that would mean there was no future for democratic government.
No to get to far off the subject of Putin/Hitlerite delusions, but when one speaks of a southern “plebiscite” it would only count if the Black Slaves were voting, right? When you talk about the south deciding, gee, in some of those states close to 50% of population was black and a not insignificant portion of whites did not want to leave either. Choose either your examples or your words more carefully or you’ll sound, well, daft.
Thanks for the warning, but a) a majority of the South still wanted to secede and b) Lincoln didn't base his objection on the fact that the slaves hadn't been allowed to vote.
A majority of white southerners I suppose you mean. East and middle Tennessee, btw (whites) voted to stay in the US. I suppose if the slaves were voting it would have been a wider margin, and Yes, the Civil War was ALL about getting rid of slavery. No amount of sophism or modern day grumbling is very convincing.
I meant all southerners. My understanding is that slaves made up about 30% of the southern population, so I assume the plebiscite would have been for secession despite them.
As to reasons for the Civil War, I don't recall saying anything about that, but since you mention it I think Lincoln was against slavery but would have preferred to see it shrivel peacefully over time. He wouldn't tolerate slavery's extension and he wouldn't tolerate secession.
No! The South by denying that all men are created equal withdrew from union created by shared moral principles and could be legitimately fought as rebels. Lincoln never acknowledged the fight as a war between sovereign nations
I'm sorry, but you're missing the point. It's not a question of who the Good Guys are; it's a question of whether the author's definition of a nation holds up to scrutiny, and it doesn't seem to. If it's voluntary then the South should have been allow to take their ball and go home. Lincoln saw it differently. The States had United and now they 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 be allowed to not renew their membership in their "daily plebiscite".
But I fear that you, as a professional historian, are prohibited by the rules of your guild from designating Good Guys
I as a citizen am free to embrace and celebrate Renan, opposed to the antithetical and ultimately genocidal notion of Volk developed on the other bank of the Rhine aided by the racist French Royalist, Count Gobineau,
who held that the nobility were Aryan (sic) and
thus racially distinct from the Third Estate with regard to whom they were a master race
I imagine also that as a Professor of Jewish
History you know the rabbinical teaching that sincere converts may call themselves “children of
Abraham and Sarah.” A better definition than that provided by the Nuremberg Acts.
I would not quibble with so distinguished a scholar save on a point I judge of the greatest importance
I'm afraid you have me confused with someone -- I'm not a professor, of Jewish History or anything else. I'm having a conversation here with people whom I take as my peers and make no claim to special erudition.
I'm also not trying to argue the right-and-wrong of any opinion, just the logic. When I say the author here gave a definition of nationhood that doesn't serve the purpose he intends, it's not a statement about his intentions or whether one kind of nationhood is good and another bad. His definition would recognize the secession of the South, which I'm sure he would be against and which you obviously are against. That doesn't mean the secession was good, it means the definition is inadequate.
Berkowitz who teaches American and Jewish history in London. You may well be right that any group of like-minded people who excluded nobody on ground of ancestry would fit Renan’s description and might yet be, well, deplorable.
Lincoln’s magnificent “Electric Cord” speech, given July 10, 1858, sets forth principles identical to Renan’s. He celebrates 4th of July by attacking Know-Nothing religious bigotry and xenophobia:
We pride ourselves on descent from the men who wrote the Declaration but there are among us now many who can claim no connection by blood. He explicitly notes “Germans, Irish, French, and Scandinavians.” Nota bene, Know Nothings, two are majority Catholic countries.)
It is not blood but “moral sentiment” that makes a nation, and if they believe what
was written in 1776 (1789 for Renan) they are “blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration.”
This is the priceless legacy and enduring trust of the sister Republics founded by the revolutions of the Enlightenment
For an interesting take on America's class system apart from purely racism, see "White Trash" by Nancy Isenberg. In this book she describes how many of the founding fathers and influential personalities of the early US consider poor whites as a separate, inferior race, even those of some of the original colonists who may have been indentured servants or lower class farm workers.
Isenberg proposes that the "blood of my blood" sentiment was taken by many in the elite classes to refer to those of the White Protestant Landed Gentry.
Is it your contention that Lincoln did 𝗻𝗼𝘁 say that allowing the South to decide to secede would mean that democracy could not succeed as a system of government?
Zelenskyy himself provides a good illustration of the contrast between those two versions of nationhood. He's Jewish. According to Zionism, all Jews are supposed to consider Israel their true homeland. How fortunate for the world that Zelenskyy believes his homeland is Ukraine. And how fortunate that he is considered fully Ukrainian, which would never have happened in the Ukraine of a hundred years ago.
I'm surprised to read it from a philosophy student, but unfortunately we see this specious line of thinking often these days. That is, the idea that hard cases make all categorization illegitimate. Russia and Germany have ethnic minorities, therefore "Russian" and "German" have no meaning. Or that "Frenchness" is a composite that evolved over time and is therefore somehow not real. Of course we see this in other areas as well -- a very small number of people have intersex characteristics, therefore the sex binary is erroneous and you can be whatever 697th sex your febrile imagination comes up with.
I’m sorry you believe that. It is very sad, for the world and for the Ukraine.
Not the slightest thing sad about it for anyone. The nation state is the greatest guarantor of human liberty there ever was.
😂
Thank you for this article. I agree with most of what you wrote. I wonder, why is no one talking about what Xi is doing to the Chinese diaspora all over the world? Don't the people of Taiwan, of Hong Kong have the right to freedom as well as Ukraine? Isn't Xi up to the same nonsense as Putin? Why so hard on the Russian Communists and so soft on the Chinese Communists? Xi might not be leading an armed invasion to unite historic lands, but it is an invasion just the same, and with the same purpose.
May Putin have only made the Ukrainian state stronger and strengthened democracy also!!
𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘸𝘢𝘭, “𝘢 𝘥𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘣𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘦” 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴.
Maybe, but Lincoln argued that were the South allowed to decide in this "plebiscite" to withdraw its consent to the Union, that would mean there was no future for democratic government.
I think you need to do better.
No to get to far off the subject of Putin/Hitlerite delusions, but when one speaks of a southern “plebiscite” it would only count if the Black Slaves were voting, right? When you talk about the south deciding, gee, in some of those states close to 50% of population was black and a not insignificant portion of whites did not want to leave either. Choose either your examples or your words more carefully or you’ll sound, well, daft.
Thanks for the warning, but a) a majority of the South still wanted to secede and b) Lincoln didn't base his objection on the fact that the slaves hadn't been allowed to vote.
A majority of white southerners I suppose you mean. East and middle Tennessee, btw (whites) voted to stay in the US. I suppose if the slaves were voting it would have been a wider margin, and Yes, the Civil War was ALL about getting rid of slavery. No amount of sophism or modern day grumbling is very convincing.
I meant all southerners. My understanding is that slaves made up about 30% of the southern population, so I assume the plebiscite would have been for secession despite them.
As to reasons for the Civil War, I don't recall saying anything about that, but since you mention it I think Lincoln was against slavery but would have preferred to see it shrivel peacefully over time. He wouldn't tolerate slavery's extension and he wouldn't tolerate secession.
The South fought to preserve slavery. The North fought to preserve the Union.
You're contending that by using Renan's reasoning, the South should have been left alone to continue as it's own nation?
No! The South by denying that all men are created equal withdrew from union created by shared moral principles and could be legitimately fought as rebels. Lincoln never acknowledged the fight as a war between sovereign nations
I'm sorry, but you're missing the point. It's not a question of who the Good Guys are; it's a question of whether the author's definition of a nation holds up to scrutiny, and it doesn't seem to. If it's voluntary then the South should have been allow to take their ball and go home. Lincoln saw it differently. The States had United and now they 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 be allowed to not renew their membership in their "daily plebiscite".
Professor Berkowitz
I admire much of your scholarship
But I fear that you, as a professional historian, are prohibited by the rules of your guild from designating Good Guys
I as a citizen am free to embrace and celebrate Renan, opposed to the antithetical and ultimately genocidal notion of Volk developed on the other bank of the Rhine aided by the racist French Royalist, Count Gobineau,
who held that the nobility were Aryan (sic) and
thus racially distinct from the Third Estate with regard to whom they were a master race
I imagine also that as a Professor of Jewish
History you know the rabbinical teaching that sincere converts may call themselves “children of
Abraham and Sarah.” A better definition than that provided by the Nuremberg Acts.
I would not quibble with so distinguished a scholar save on a point I judge of the greatest importance
I'm afraid you have me confused with someone -- I'm not a professor, of Jewish History or anything else. I'm having a conversation here with people whom I take as my peers and make no claim to special erudition.
I'm also not trying to argue the right-and-wrong of any opinion, just the logic. When I say the author here gave a definition of nationhood that doesn't serve the purpose he intends, it's not a statement about his intentions or whether one kind of nationhood is good and another bad. His definition would recognize the secession of the South, which I'm sure he would be against and which you obviously are against. That doesn't mean the secession was good, it means the definition is inadequate.
Sorry. I thought you were the Michael
Berkowitz who teaches American and Jewish history in London. You may well be right that any group of like-minded people who excluded nobody on ground of ancestry would fit Renan’s description and might yet be, well, deplorable.
I don't see how to read the line that I quoted otherwise.
Just checking. You have a valid point. I would say though, that as a descendant of Southerners who fought for the Confederacy, I'm glad Lincoln
preserved the Union.
Lincoln’s magnificent “Electric Cord” speech, given July 10, 1858, sets forth principles identical to Renan’s. He celebrates 4th of July by attacking Know-Nothing religious bigotry and xenophobia:
We pride ourselves on descent from the men who wrote the Declaration but there are among us now many who can claim no connection by blood. He explicitly notes “Germans, Irish, French, and Scandinavians.” Nota bene, Know Nothings, two are majority Catholic countries.)
It is not blood but “moral sentiment” that makes a nation, and if they believe what
was written in 1776 (1789 for Renan) they are “blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration.”
This is the priceless legacy and enduring trust of the sister Republics founded by the revolutions of the Enlightenment
Kate Auspitz
For an interesting take on America's class system apart from purely racism, see "White Trash" by Nancy Isenberg. In this book she describes how many of the founding fathers and influential personalities of the early US consider poor whites as a separate, inferior race, even those of some of the original colonists who may have been indentured servants or lower class farm workers.
Isenberg proposes that the "blood of my blood" sentiment was taken by many in the elite classes to refer to those of the White Protestant Landed Gentry.
Captious and mean-spirited revisionism
So amazing that ideologues insist that everything is about their favorite hobby horse.
Is it your contention that Lincoln did 𝗻𝗼𝘁 say that allowing the South to decide to secede would mean that democracy could not succeed as a system of government?