Brive1987 wrote: ↑My hypothesis is that Kirb’s a classic liberal civic nationalist, despising collective identity outside an adherence to generic “muh values”. This in opposition to the Goldy approach: that the value of a geographically defined state lies in it’s unique historical ethnic/cultural heritage. The Goldy approach resists the multicultural agenda of either applying a beige wash or, more realistically, silos until a new dominant culture emerges.
I don't "despise" collective identity, I simply don't see it as the one and only meter of judgement, as Goldy and you sometimes seem to do. In reality
ALL geographically defined states have had cultural/religious minorities within them. Even Japan has the Korean minority and the Ainu. Switzerland is actually a multi-cultural country, with four official languages (oh noes!) and the Protestant/Catholic divide.
Collective identity isn't the Platonic absolute you seem to think it is. It's important, and shouldn't messed with just for the sake of demanding "diversity", but national harmony and a degree of integration matter a lot, too. Of course this doesn't mean that one should post-modernly "deconstruct" identity and force diversity, or that competing collective identities within a geographically defined state never create friction (the Basque country, Catalunia, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Syria, Afganistan, and countless other examples show just how much trouble can come when two collective identities within a geographically defined state clash).
So what you need is a pragmatic compromise to ensure that a degree of integration, at least formal and legal integration,is achieved and there's less room for tension and friction. This might require revising immigration laws to ensure that this is possible, with the goal of avoiding ghettoization (the "silos") and not of demanding mixing at all costs (the "beige") but of creating some kind of compromise that ensures coexistence.
Rapid, uncontrolled, mass immigration might threaten that. I'm not in the naive camp that sees complete integration as the inevitable result of living together (it never happened in the Basque countries after all) and sees every group as equally capable of integration at any number (to carry this view to its logically extreme results some people, like Justin "Zoolander" Trudeau for example, seem to think that former ISIS fighters will roll back and become law-abiding, tolerant citizens of a liberal democracy, which is clearly insane).
But the problem of "what do you do to minorities that are already there in the "ethno-state", since all states have minorities" isn't a trivial one.
Also, again pragmatically speaking, a lot of people marry inter-culturally, or have inter-cultural friends. Under a rigid interpretation of your position (which I'm not sure you follow) this is anathema, the horrid "beige", compromising the ethnic and cultural identity. But like it or not, it does happen, and one cannot avoid it happening unless using Gestapo methods. Maybe you don't see purity as supremely important and are willing to come to a pragmatic compromise on this issue (after all you don't strike me as a Richard Spencer fan). Fine, but if you're already accepting a pragmatic compromise, why not others?
If proven, that hypothesis would be bad enough. But when push comes to shove Kirb throws smoke, before once more rolling out the vile ethnostate trope. I suspect his plan is to create two intolerable poles and then occupy the reasonable middle ground with his civic nonsense.
Pot, meet kettle. You haven't defined your position clearly, about what it entails legally, socially, etc. I'm open to pragmatic compromise to make the state function without going full Steersman or full Trudeau. What do YOU want, in detail? Maybe we can come to a compromise.
On a secondary level, I also suspect Kirb recognises the considersble dilutation of unique euro-culture and sees pragmatic rectification as coming at the cost of his liberal abstractions. He may not be wrong here - apart from devaluing the terminal illness because of the tartness of the remedy.
Ps I didn’t think my metaphor describing an Uber-collective deriving it’s value from its unique parts was elaborate. :snooty:
I'm not talking about liberal abstractions, I'm talking about concrete situations and concrete decisions informed, yes, by liberal-democratic values, like "forced population transfers aren't a good idea in terms of human rights" or "prohibiting inter-cultural contact and marriage is a big violation of individual rights" (don't like that? sue me).
Now you could say that you've never argued for Steerman-esque "population transfers" or Gestapo levels of Nazi purity. Fine. I can accept that. But again, the question becomes about what do you want, concretely?
Basically for me the questions are "minorities already exist, what exactly do you do about that?" or "immigration comes with a set of issues, including cultural issues, what exactly do you do about that?". Or others of that sort. I'm less interested in discussing the idea of the Uber-collective and more the practical details of how things work legally, socially, etc.