A Place Is Not a Race
Posted on July 1st, 2009
by Daniel McCarthy |
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Reading the First Things blog can’t be good for my blood pressure. Jody Bottum’s colleague and sparring partner R.R. Reno turns out to be a localist who embraces Bottum’s misconstruction of localism — he, as much as Bottum, believes localism is ethnic:
A fully orbed life of virtue is necessarily ethnocentric. A modern conservative intellectual must see this necessity—and in a double way. First, we should recognize that the necessity of ethnocentrism for human flourishing puts faith and loyalty above critical self-consciousness (or better, it makes faith and loyalty the final fruit of critical self-consciousness). This same recognition of the necessity of ethnocentrism also underwrites a sympathy for—even an envious appreciation of—the loyalties of strangers and outsiders.
This is not localism. An ethne is a much larger thing than a place — Appenzell is a place; Germans are an ethne. But note that Appenzell is not part of the German political nation; it’s in Switzerland. To be attached to a place does not signify being attached politically to an ethne. Ethnocentrism in the case of Appenzellers would be German-centrism. But the Appenzellers are only German-centric in limited ways. The particularities of their place (as part of Switzerland, for example, but in other regards as well) are more important to their flourishing than is their relationship with the larger German ethnicity. Ethnocentrism is not necessary to flourishing. In fact, to the extent that it may override smaller, tighter loyalties, ethnocentrism is an obstacle to flourishing.
Reno says he sees a fight aborning between Kantians and Aristotelians, and he thinks of himself as among the latter. But Aristotle understood very well the difference between polis and ethne. His concern was for the political more than the ethnic. The local is political, and only incidentally ethnic.
Filed under: Philosophy
Ethnocentrism makes me think of Obsessive–Compulsive Personality Disorder. I think on that site they have come up with a false dichotomy concerning globalism vs localism, attributing their prejudices to the ideas. China is engaged in global commerce, is ethnically diverse, but it isn’t renown for human rights. I saw on PBS once that Jews and Christians lived in harmony until a Bishop became jealous of the Christians enjoying the companionship in Jewish synagogues and festivals. Spain is said to have been multicultural in the Middle Ages and this ended when Spain sought to overthrow the community that had developed because of desires of homogeneity. I think it is all about power and control.
Ethni is not local as much as conservative is not republican
China is only about 4% non-Han. Not very diverse by US standards.
Just to place this in perspective: haven’t the politics of those localities known as Big American Cities been almost entirely governed by ethnicity and/or race since the 1840’s?
CIA factbook gives a different figure. It says that 8.5% of the population of China is non-Han which would be like 1/3 of the population of the United States.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/CH.html
There are concentrations of ethnolinguistic groups in different parts of China.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/china_ethnolinguistic_83.jpg
[...] And, to cap it off, Daniel McCarthy has responses to Bottum and Reno, here and here. [...]
eep,
Is the diversity within China (to the extent it exists) concentrated in the cities?
Dain, I don’t know much about China, but a country could theoretically be rather diverse even as each of its provinces (and the cities within them) were 100% homogenous. From what I do know of China, many minorities live in the western provinces. The east coast (where the big cities are) is home to the Mandarin and Cantonese speakers.