Lucid and spot on, David. I'm reminded of Spanish history, patchy as my knowledge of it is. The subsequent power struggles there tore the country apart generation after generation, settling down only recently, and now suddenly, it's among the most "progressive" republics in the western world. Globalism is the purview of empires. The attempt to devise a cultural melting pot never seems to work, but always erupts in wars and appeals to historic borders to settle disputes.
I am especially intrigued by your insights here on the notion of dislocation and wandering.
The most recent example is the forced and brutal expulsion of 120,000 Armenians from Artsakh, where they'd lived for a thousand years. That happened in Europe in winter 2023, six months ago, but not mentioned. Mainstream media doesn't like to talk about it. Some uprootings are more equal than others.
The Artsakh thing was awful and it’s deeply shameful it wasn’t really covered here in the West. But I think it’s important to draw a distinction between what happened there (ethnic cleansing) and the deliberate uprooting of people so as to reduce them to the stuff of a new society, as was the aim of the Khmer Rouge. Those are different crimes with different aims.
Interesting distinction. In that case I'm not sure where your Nigerian family fit in? Perhaps I misread your article, in which case apologies. What's happening in England is deliberate cultural disruption, as approved by Machiavelli, but to my mind is closer to a deliberate pushing out of a community (and its replacement by fragmented micro-communities) and thus more reminiscent of Artsakh than to what happened in Cambodia. But I may have misunderstood.
The Artsakh thing was siege warfare, nothing less. And now the cretinous Azeris are claiming the long-held supremacy of Armenians rug weaving as theirs. Vile people.
This is an excellent article, profound ... needs some deep thought. The Communists have always moved peoples around, in the Caucusus, in China, in the US, we did it with Indian tribes. Thank you, David.
As I wrote in Chaos Ethics in 2014: "we are all nomads now". I was talking about culture, but your association between land and a people remains an aspect of this. The problem in my eyes goes beyond questions of governance, though.
Aye, and the perception of technology, its mythos if you will. For instance, we tend to see our capacity to go and take a job anywhere as a huge win, inculcated as we are to see all technological capabilities positively. But of course, this freedom to tear up our roots doesn't give us new roots elsewhere... it just encourages us to embrace our nomadic existence.
Lucid and spot on, David. I'm reminded of Spanish history, patchy as my knowledge of it is. The subsequent power struggles there tore the country apart generation after generation, settling down only recently, and now suddenly, it's among the most "progressive" republics in the western world. Globalism is the purview of empires. The attempt to devise a cultural melting pot never seems to work, but always erupts in wars and appeals to historic borders to settle disputes.
I am especially intrigued by your insights here on the notion of dislocation and wandering.
The most recent example is the forced and brutal expulsion of 120,000 Armenians from Artsakh, where they'd lived for a thousand years. That happened in Europe in winter 2023, six months ago, but not mentioned. Mainstream media doesn't like to talk about it. Some uprootings are more equal than others.
The Artsakh thing was awful and it’s deeply shameful it wasn’t really covered here in the West. But I think it’s important to draw a distinction between what happened there (ethnic cleansing) and the deliberate uprooting of people so as to reduce them to the stuff of a new society, as was the aim of the Khmer Rouge. Those are different crimes with different aims.
Interesting distinction. In that case I'm not sure where your Nigerian family fit in? Perhaps I misread your article, in which case apologies. What's happening in England is deliberate cultural disruption, as approved by Machiavelli, but to my mind is closer to a deliberate pushing out of a community (and its replacement by fragmented micro-communities) and thus more reminiscent of Artsakh than to what happened in Cambodia. But I may have misunderstood.
The Artsakh thing was siege warfare, nothing less. And now the cretinous Azeris are claiming the long-held supremacy of Armenians rug weaving as theirs. Vile people.
This is an excellent article, profound ... needs some deep thought. The Communists have always moved peoples around, in the Caucusus, in China, in the US, we did it with Indian tribes. Thank you, David.
As I wrote in Chaos Ethics in 2014: "we are all nomads now". I was talking about culture, but your association between land and a people remains an aspect of this. The problem in my eyes goes beyond questions of governance, though.
Technology plays a huge role in this too, no doubt.
Aye, and the perception of technology, its mythos if you will. For instance, we tend to see our capacity to go and take a job anywhere as a huge win, inculcated as we are to see all technological capabilities positively. But of course, this freedom to tear up our roots doesn't give us new roots elsewhere... it just encourages us to embrace our nomadic existence.
“It is not that ordinary people generally have any particular animus towards immigrants personally.”
Poppycock. We don’t want them around us because they impinge on us in numerous ways.