This is what is insufferable about Europeans.
In terms of population, this is like "How to be a real native of Connecticut, or Massachusetts." It is an all-white country that has been all-white for much longer than any American state. It is not very different from any of its neighbors, and in fact shares a very similar state church, economy, education system, and political history, not to mention a genetic similarity that is greater than any American state, and maybe any American county. To hold to my analogy above, it is more similar to its neighbors than the New England states are to each other, even though the latter actually share a country.
Everything that is said about what makes a Dane special could be said about Swedes or Norwegians and no one would blink. I think one could disguise this by making it about just about any white western Europeans, though I may be pushing my luck with that. I don't dislike Danes at all. The few I have known personally have been great favorites of mine, and the ones I read about are people I believe I could see eye-to-eye with about many things. But when Europeans - and the NW Europeans are particular offenders in this - speak about how they get things right while the benighted American cowboys with their guns and their fascination with cars and money and McDonalds are just impossible boors, this is what they mean. They like their own foods better than ours. They like their customs better than ours. Insofar as they are all white except for a few places that have changed recently, they have a comfortableness in their own skin, a calmness, a maturity, that Americans do not have. They see everything clearly except themselves.
Well of course they do. Wouldn't we all, in their shoes. I wish they would talk to more Eastern Europeans, frankly.
There is Milton Friedman's reply to the statement that the poverty rate in Sweden is lower than the poverty rate in the US: "Swedish-Americans' poverty rate is lower than the overall US poverty rate."
ReplyDeleteCDC:QuickStats: Age-Adjusted Rates for Homicides,* by Race/Ethnicity†— United States, 1999–2015.
During 1999–2014, a general decline in homicide trends for non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic populations occurred, followed by a significant increase in the rates for all three groups between 2014 and 2015. In 2015, homicide rates were 5.7 deaths per 100,000 for the total population, 20.9 for non-Hispanic blacks, 4.9 for Hispanics, and 2.6 for non-Hispanic whites.
List of countries by intentional homicide rate: Europe: 3.0. Which means that the white murder rate in the US is about the same as the murder rate for Europe.
If Europe were such a great place, my ancestors would have stayed.
One reason that the US is more religious than Europe is that there was selective emigration from Europe of those for whom religion was important enough that they wanted to live where they could practice their own religion and not the religion the government supported.
It is not allowed to break down international statistics by ancestry - not in America, not in Canada, Australia, or anywhere else - because you get the wrong answers. Not just homicide and education, but many other things as well.
ReplyDeleteIf history is a guide, then to be a Dane or any other Scandinavian you must cooperate with Nazis.
ReplyDeleteAssistant Village Idiot: {Denmark} is an all-white country that has been all-white for much longer than any American state.
ReplyDeleteDenmark is quite homogeneous, apparently the result of a small founder population, with a small admixture of Jews and western Slavs (Poles).
Assistant Village Idiot: Everything that is said about what makes a Dane special could be said about Swedes or Norwegians and no one would blink.
Swedish ethnicity is actually the melding of three distinct German tribes; Swedes, Geats, and Gutes. There has been substantial admixture from other German ethnic groups from the Middle Ages, and Swedes show quite a lot of genetic diversity. For centuries, Finns and Romani have also lived in Sweden, maintaining distinct ethnicities.
Norwegian ethnicity includes Neolithic and Germanic roots, while the Sami have lived in Norway for millennia, maintaining their distinct culture.
Assistant Village Idiot: I think one could disguise this by making it about just about any white western Europeans, though I may be pushing my luck with that.
France is a highly diverse country, with contributions from Neoliths (Basque), Greek (Marseilles), Celts (Gauls), Latin (Provence), German (Franks), and Viking (Rollo).
Spain is also highly diverse, with Castilian, Catalans, and Basques forming the majority, with residues from the Greeks, Romans, and Visigoths. The Romani have had a strong cultural influence, while Jews have left a strong genetic footprint. Spain has also experienced extensive contributions from their colonial empire and during the Moorish period. Spain even has an active separatist movement based on ethnicity (Catalonia).
The U.K. is actually a confederation of four separate countries, with Neolithic (Picts), Celtic (Britons), Germanic (Saxon), Viking (Cnut), and Norman (William the Conqueror) influences.
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Note: The list of tribes is not meant to be exhaustive.
@ sykes.1 - Well, maybe that's just part of "being in the moment," you know? Though to be fair, the response of Scandinavians to both Nazis and Soviets has been mixed, but not exemplary.
ReplyDeleteZach, thanks for this listing several ways that white people make themselves distinct from other white people.
ReplyDeleteChristopher B: thanks for this listing several ways that white people make themselves distinct from other white people.
ReplyDeleteSure. It can be difficult to distinguish between Latin and Celt, Viking and Frank, Basque and Visigoth, or Spanish and Moor.
The Basques are not Indo-European, or not much. Neither are they much of a force in European culture these days. Which is what we are talking about. The Moors were kicked out of Spain, leaving minor cultural and less genetic trace on current Europe. Some of the others you listed are quite close to each other. The Romani have a strong cultural influence in Spain...on music. Jews have left more cultural than genetic footprint, and it is dispersed enough that it is part of the general European scene. Yet when someone is confiding how to be a Dane to an American, they aren't thinking about Jews. As for the UK, the Picts are Celts, and the Saxons, Vikings, and Normans are all Germanic.
ReplyDeleteThe US, with a similar number of people, has far more genetic and cultural diversity than Europe. Europeans play up small differences for historical reasons, but they aren't much by US standards. For example, Scandinavian is really a single language, with mutually-intelligible dialects, but they will tell there are at least six distinct languages there. The make mountains out of molehills, which was my point.
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ReplyDeleteFirst the particular:
Assistant Village Idiot: The Basques are not Indo-European
That's right. Their roots are Neolithic.
Assistant Village Idiot: Neither are they much of a force in European culture these days.
There is a Basque separatist movement which has had significant political impact, as has the Catalan separatist movement. That they maintain some aspects of their distinct culture after so many centuries shows that Spain is not a monolithic culture, but an amalgam.
Assistant Village Idiot: The Moors were kicked out of Spain, leaving minor cultural and less genetic trace on current Europe.
The Moors left an enduring cultural influence, in the language, cuisine, in Mudéjar art, Mozarabic architecture, as well as transmitting scientific knowledge to Europe. As for genetics, the Spanish (other than the Basques) have about 5-10% North African ancestry, and it is as high as 20% in Andalusia.
Assistant Village Idiot: The Romani have a strong cultural influence in Spain...on music.
Gitanos, the Romani of Spain or "España Cañí", are not only considered part of Spanish and Andalusian folklore, but essential elements of Spanish tradition and identity.
Assistant Village Idiot: Jews have left more cultural than genetic footprint
About 20% of Spanish have Sephardic Jewish ancestry. See Adams et al., The Genetic Legacy of Religious Diversity and Intolerance: Paternal Lineages of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula, American Journal of Human Genetics 2008.
Assistant Village Idiot: As for the UK, the Picts are Celts, and the Saxons, Vikings, and Normans are all Germanic.
The Picts may have simply adopted Celtic culture. The genetic data is still incomplete, but the Picts, northern Irish, and Basques may share a common ancestry, suggesting they are indigenous at least in part.
The Saxons, Vikings, Normans, and Franks are all Germanic. Hard to even tell them apart, or as Christopher B said, "thanks for this listing several ways that white people make themselves distinct from other white people." However, they have highly diverse cultures. If you travel to Asia or Africa, you will find similar diversity. Just because Americans weren't aware of the difference between Shiite and Sunni, Kurd and Arab, before the Iraq War doesn't mean those differences don't exist.
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To the larger point:
Assistant Village Idiot: The US, with a similar number of people, has far more genetic and cultural diversity than Europe.
That is true, but that doesn't mean that European ethnicities are homogeneous or all alike. Traditional French ethnicity, for instance, is an amalgam of Greek, Celtic, Latin, Frank, and Viking, and the process of that amalgamation is what has helped define French culture.
I should not have bothered, as usual. The examples you give about how different they all are go a long way to proving my point that they magnify small differences that are not all that visible to outsiders. 20% of the Spanish have 2-10% Sephardic ancestry? Wow, the mind boggles at the extent of that. Gee whiz.
ReplyDeleteInstead of spending your life telling other people how they are wrong, why not get your own site?
The Z-bot is not an education program. It is not sent to disseminate correct information.
ReplyDeleteRather, its programmers seem to have designed it as a tool for reducing the credibility of reasonable-sounding conservative voices on the internet.
That's why so many of the responses are non-sequiturs. It doesn't matter how well your actual points are engaged by its "comment", so long as there's a chance that the casual observer comes away with the impression that maybe you aren't such a great source of information. The point isn't to convince people that what it "says' is true. Nor is it to convince people that you cannot be trusted. The play here is to incrementally increase the friction associated with some of the more reasonable conservative voices on the internet, so as to marginally impair their relative attractiveness.
If you're wondering why anyone would go to all that trouble, please keep in mind the following:
1. The internet is a game of large (LARGE) numbers. If the whole chatbot strategy only ends up reducing the attractiveness of ~2% of non-progressive voices by .001%, that doesn't seem like much. But when you factor that influence over the many trillions of pieces of information on the internet, the effect is not small.
2. Chatbots are cheap, so it's really not that much trouble (now that the technology is mature).