… makes me scared to ask you what you think of the Jews, to be fair, Max.
Hooo boy. While I think we can all agree that enslaved Black people didn’t identify as white people, the whole issue of what it means to be “part of a people” is far more complicated than you’re trying to make out.
What about, for example, free Black people, including some who could vote in states that recognized free Black suffrage pre-Civil War? What about enslaved Black people owned by free Black people? What “part” of what “people” would each party in that situation “count” as?
Pardon my raised voice, but:
“CONSIDERED” BY WHOM?!!?
As I keep saying, you are just naively acquiescing in the ingrained racist belief of most earlier white Americans that they are the only ones who really matter and their perceptions of other people are the only ones that have meaning.
You don’t have to do that. You don’t have to believe that Native Americans or enslaved Black people have no place in the American “national identity” just because that’s what a lot of contemporary white Americans believed. Any more than you have to believe that Native Americans or enslaved Black people were mere subhuman “animals” or “savages” just because that’s what a lot of contemporary white Americans believed.
You’re basically saying that unless someone is willing to subjugate their heritage to your vision of White, European, colonizers, their history is irrelevant. You’ve erased them from the American identity.
And we’re telling you that this only works if you happen to be White and European. It’s an ignorant, bigoted, and racist view of history. You have an extremely narrow view of what it means to be an American, one that excludes vast swaths of the community. In previous times this was accepted. It’s isn’t today, and it shouldn’t be.
You can keep dressing it up in nice sounding legalist language, but it’s a fundamentally racist position. You might want to reconsider what is motivating your defense of the indefensible.
? I may have misinterpreted, but AIUI Max was arguing that he does consider the people of a “nation” separate from the land that it occupies, and therefore Jews are just as much a “nation” in the diaspora as they were/are in ancient or modern Israel.
I, on the other hand, would argue that the history of a nation, even of a very cohesive ethnocultural group such as Jews, still depends a lot on their geographic environment. The Jewish diaspora didn’t stop Jews from being Jews, but it made their history very different from what it would otherwise have been (and it resulted in a lot of people being Jews who wouldn’t otherwise have been Jews).
It runs a whole lot deeper; because not only do I disagree with you about that, but those are not the only people I’m talking about.
For one, I don’t think they did teach you anything remotely resembling enough of an understanding as was necessary to provide background for the history of the United States.
For two, we’re not talking only about what gets taught as the history of the origins of the United States. We’re talking about how, right now, we are to define “American.”
Even to the extent that that’s true, it’s all the people. You appear to want it to only include a portion of the people, and to exclude all the others.
And I don’t think it’s anywhere near correct to ignore the effect that the geography of the continent of North America, and the flora and fauna of the continent, and the “natural resources” of the continent, had either upon the history of the country of the USA or upon its current character.
This isn’t an either - or. Humans are not, however much some of us try to be, isolated from and totally disconnected from our surroundings. We are influenced by them, and influence them.
A group of people moving together to a different area will often, especially if they try to do so, bring with them enough of their culture to hang together as a group. That doesn’t mean that their new surroundings don’t influence them. And the United States which spreads “from sea to shining sea” is not the same country as it would have been if it had stayed within the original 13 states.
It’s nice and simple and straightforward and wrong. Many simplified conceptions attempting to make nice clean separations are wrong.
The critical question in our national identity now is whether we’re going to try to define that identity by inclusion or by exclusion.
Attempting to define the identity of the USA by excluding large numbers of its people strikes me as not only factually wrong, but as a very dangerous place to go.
And it is impossible to properly consider the history of the USA while ignoring everyone who was not at a given moment considered a full citizen.
And, in addition, it required redefining Judaism into a framework that functioned without access to the Temple, to the Ark, to Jerusalem.
He said: “I have trouble reconciling the idea that a Native American tribe might retain its identity even as it is totally removed from the land.”
And I’m wondering what the difference is between this situation and the Jews, other than ‘Native American’.
Out of order with this response. I wrote, “otherwise I have trouble reconciling […]”.
Also I still identify as Jewish, myself. (Check out my profile some time 
) Was bar mitzva’d and everything.
~Max
You yourself, have been using the former construction when talking about US identity (my bolding):
If you’re that confused about what you, yourself, have been talking about, I don’t see a productive outcome from continuing this conversation.
By using this logic, I only became South African in 1994…
It makes perfect sense if one maintains the belief that the Dred Scott Decision was at the time it was handed down and would now still be “good law” if it weren’t for the 14th amendment. Take that as you will.
Emphasis added.
Considering they were counted as (lesser) represented individuals by the 3/5 Compromise, I think the legal status of chattel slaves as Americans is indisputable by your own definition. I mean I think it is indisputable anyway for a whole host of already stated reasons, but the above should satisfy your legal requirement.
@MaxS Since you seem open to new information, science, and serious history, can I suggest that you read this remarkable new book:
I’m 3/4 of the way through it, and it’s changed my understanding of human history fundamentally.
I have pretty left-wing views, and I’ve read a lot of history, and I thought I knew something about indigenous people in North America and around the world, and about pre-history.
Reading this book has shown me that I knew very little, and a lot of what I thought I knew was mistaken.
It’s not a sensationalist book, or some pop-theory. It’s hard science, and a model of clear, rational, logical argument, based particularly on discoveries and breakthroughs in the last few decades that few people are aware of yet.
It a large, solid book, backed by many hundreds of cites and large number of footnotes – yet it manages to be easy reading, with fascinating information on almost every page.
It presents insights that go against the current cultural myths and biases of both left and right.
IMO the narratives that have arisen in past few centuries about the rise of ‘civilization’ and the creation of ‘the state’ are no longer sustainable.
I’ll have more to say about this in its own thread when I’ve finished and digested it, but this book is a true landmark.
Sorry if I’m going a little over the top, but this is the most interesting book I’ve read in many years.
“Graeber and Wengrow have effectively overturned everything I ever thought about the history of the world. A thorough and elegant refutation of evolutionary theories of history, The Dawn of Everything introduces us to a world populated by smart, creative, complicated people who, for thousands of years, invented virtually every form of social organization imaginable and pursued freedom, knowledge, experimentation, and happiness way before the “Enlightenment.”
The authors don’t just debunk the myths, they give a thrilling intellectual history of how they came about, why they persist, and what it all means for the just future we hope to create. The most profound and exciting book I’ve read in thirty years.”
―Robin D.G. Kelley, Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History, UCLA
“Not content with different answers to the great questions of human history, Graeber and Wengrow insist on revolutionizing the very questions we ask. The result: a dazzling, original, and convincing account of the rich, playful, reflective, and experimental symposia that ‘pre-modern’ indigenous life represents; and a challenging re-writing of the intellectual history of anthropology and archaeology.
The Dawn of Everything deserves to become the port of embarkation for virtually all subsequent work on these massive themes. Those who do embark will have, in the two Davids, incomparable navigators.”
―James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology, Yale University
“This is not a book. This is an intellectual feast. There is not a single chapter that does not (playfully) disrupt well seated intellectual beliefs. It is deep, effortlessly iconoclastic, factually rigorous, and pleasurable to read.”
―Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author The Black Swan
I’ll guarantee that you’ll think differently about Indigenous People’s Day after reading it.
I have just gotten the book, so will look forward to that thread when it happens. The thesis jives with a lot of what I already knew - I’m reminded of a thread on Göbekli Tepe where there was such stunning ignorance on the levels of sophistication that pre-farming societies had attained, and such virulent pushback when I provided examples of multiple sophisticated HG cultures around the globe.
I suppose one could argue that the current nation called South Africa has only genuinely existed since then, by some definitions. Of course, one would then have to ask why that nation would have a day to celebrate its previous, racist iteration - which of course it doesn’t, having dumped Union/Republic Day in, whaddya know, 1994.
Change of individual governments or even government types don’t change nationhood. Did England stop being England when Cromwell was in charge?
Bah, not in my library system.
Maybe just not there yet?
It’s only just been published.
The Kindle and audiobook versions were out on Oct 19, and the hardcover will only be published on Nov 9.
Ah. Thanks. I’ll make myself a note to keep an eye out for it, and to search the library system later in the winter if it doesn’t show up in one of the branches I go into.
I just pre-ordered (books like this that I probably will want to keep I prefer in hardback), too, so I’ll definitely be interested in the new thread, as well.
It is difficult to say. The Dred Scott decision infamously declared Blacks a “slave race” unqualified for citizenship, and my impression (from the Liberia movement and post-war segregationist policies) is that most white people did not identify with Blacks as fellow countrymen. That being said I do not agree with that dicta from the Dred Scott decision - my personal interpretation based on the law at that time is that any free Blacks at the time of the revolution, and their descendants born free, were U.S. nationals.
Other free Blacks, those who emigrated or were emancipated after 1789 (and their descendants), would either be residents of the particular State, members of a tribe, or stateless persons.
Considered, by both a) the persons themselves and b) either contemporaries or the law. As I wrote last week, to my mind a nation is a social construct, and a historic national identity is one as defined by the people of the time.
I make a notable exception for legal questions because I believe this country has a strong legal tradition and I reserve for myself, whenever practicable, the right to second-guess any historical opinion on a question of law or fact.
Your question of whether Native Americans or enslaved Blacks were subhuman is a question of fact, or so I assume. When someone today speaks of speciation I assume it is in the scientific sense and by modern standards. Although categorizations of people into nations and organisms into species are both inventions of man, identifying a historical person with my nation is different than identifying them with my species. A nation is a set of people bound together by the opinion that they thought (de facto or de jure) of themselves as a nation; a species is more like a set of organisms bound together by the opinion that they share certain fixed biological traits (such as genetic material or reproductive potential).
You have a point in that it is my choice to use this concept of nationalism. I could say, the national identity is more like a species - fixed traits, probably ethnic, cultural, and geographic. This seems to be what you have in mind. But what do you do when there are big changes in ethnicity, culture, geography, or whatever else you use to define your “nation”? Or when there is widespread variation within?
~Max