GOP Primary Megathread!

[Maximus]

It's a core value.

[Sheilbh]

I'd say it really started around that time.  After all,  Louis XVI changed his title from King of France to King of the French.  France is a geographic construct, French is an ethnic one.  Napoleon followed in his footsteps when he declared himself Emperor of the French.  It reflects a shift in ideology about the importance of ethnicity and the state.

There's nothing ethnic about 'French'.  'Frenchness' is an all-encompassing category for citizens of France.  It's defined by Republican values, the French language and certain vision of French culture.  All of those have, to a greater or lesser extent, emerged through political change rather than in response to social conditions.  So, I'd suggest, that Occitan culture is ground up whereas there is an elite, prescribed version of French culture that attaches to 'Frenchness'.  France is theoretically the least racially or ethnically involved nation in Europe if not the world.  Theoretically there's no equivalent to Italian-American in France, you're French and that's that.  If you want to spend your time doing Breton folk dances or listening to storytellers then that's fine but it doesn't make you Breton-French or Arabic-French, you're simply French and no different from a cultural dilettante from the region who enjoys regionalism.

Other countries in Europe are less extreme than the French but I do think they're all hovering around there and increasingly heading in that direction.  As so often happens the French impose this as an elite ideology, eventually the rest of Europe copies more democratically on the ground.  I don't know that many European nations could be described as ethnically based any more.

[Admiral Yi]

Hogwash Shelf.  The concept of Frenchness predates the Republic.

[Sheilbh]

So? 

[Admiral Yi]

So commonly held beliefs and definitions don't change by government proclaimation.

If everyone is French, what was all the fuss about Dreyfus?

[garbon]

Theoretically there's no equivalent to Italian-American in France, you're French and that's that.  If you want to spend your time doing Breton folk dances or listening to storytellers then that's fine but it doesn't make you Breton-French or Arabic-French, you're simply French and no different from a cultural dilettante from the region who enjoys regionalism.

And that's the problem of using theory to describe realities. Besides be labeled African-American doesn't make one less "ethnically" American.

[Sheilbh]

So commonly held beliefs and definitions don't change by government proclaimation.

No but they change over time.  The ideas of Frenchness in the V Republic are overwhelmingly based on the ideas of the Republic.  The idea that modern French nationalism - when the country is led by a man who's ethnically Hungarian, Jewish and Greek - is somehow based on the ethnic merger of Gauls and Burgundians during a barely remembered Medieval war (in popular discourse) is laughable and absurd.

If everyone is French, what was all the fuss about Dreyfus?

I don't think Republican Frenchness was settled by then.  I think the entire 19th century and much of early 20th century French history can be read as a dispute about what sort of nation France was to be.  There was a lot of settling from the Revolution going on.  Now I think it's settled.  The legitimists and the reactionaries lost.  Frenchness came to be defined in the tradition of the Jacobins, Hugo, Gambetta, Zola, Mendes-France and de Gaulle, their opponents' rather negative and sterile idea of nationhood.

The effect of Dreyfus on ideas of Frenchness and France don't just cover his mistreatment.  They must also cover the campaign for him, the Dreyfusards ultimately successful attempt to try and redeem France.

Edit:  Also I've personally always agreed with line that 'a country that tears itself apart to defend the honor of a small Jewish captain is somewhere worth going.'  That all this happened over an individual case of injustice is admirable in the context of the turn of the century.  It's a shame it didn't extend to brutality against entire groups both in France and her colonial Empire.  But it's a start.

And that's the problem of using theory to describe realities. Besides be labeled African-American doesn't make one less "ethnically" American.

I think nationality is mostly theory.  That's because, as with French, American isn't an ethnic category.

[Razgovory]

How generous of the French.  They allowed other ethnic groups in their borders to keep their stories and dances!

How exactly do you reach the "you're French and that's that.", level?

[Admiral Yi]

Gotcha Shelf.  Not settled at time of Dreyfus, totally settled now.  Any resident of France who confuses "French" with an ethnic group is part of the racist fringe.

[Martinus]

If everyone is French, what was all the fuss about Dreyfus?

By the same token, you could argue that the assassination of Martin Luther King and the segregation are a proof that "American" nationality is about being ethnically/racially white. 

[Sheilbh]

Gotcha Shelf.  Not settled at time of Dreyfus, totally settled now.  Any resident of France who confuses "French" with an ethnic group is part of the racist fringe.

Indeed.  You get this in the UK too.  The BNP say they just want to defend 'ethnic whites' because even among fascists it's not cool to be too open in your racism.

How generous of the French.  They allowed other ethnic groups in their borders to keep their stories and dances!

How exactly do you reach the "you're French and that's that.", level?

What do you mean by this?

[Razgovory]

If everyone is French, what was all the fuss about Dreyfus?

By the same token, you could argue that the assassination of Martin Luther King and the segregation are a proof that "American" nationality is about being ethnically/racially white. 

Really, how?

[mongers]

So Sheilbh, what were you impressions of the occupy demonstrators you meet in London ?

[Razgovory]

Gotcha Shelf.  Not settled at time of Dreyfus, totally settled now.  Any resident of France who confuses "French" with an ethnic group is part of the racist fringe.

Shame about those Roma that were expelled a few years ago.  I guess it only really settled some time this year.

[Admiral Yi]

By the same token, you could argue that the assassination of Martin Luther King and the segregation are a proof that "American" nationality is about being ethnically/racially white. 

No, that would require an entirely different token.